Joseph Murphy was born in Ireland, the son of a private boy's school headmaster and raised a Roman Catholic. He studied for the priesthood and joined the Jesuits. In his twenties, an experience with healing prayer led him to leave the Jesuits and move to the United States, where he became a pharmacist in New York (having a degree in chemistry by that time). Here he attended the Church of the Healing Christ (part of the Church of Divine Science), where Emmet Fox had become minister in 1931.
In the mid 1940s, he moved to Los Angeles, where he met Religious Science founder Ernest Holmes, and was ordained into Religious Science by Holmes in 1946, thereafter teaching at the Institute of Religious Science. A meeting with Divine Science Association president Erwin Gregg led to him being reordained into Divine Science, and he became the minister of the Los Angeles Divine Science Church in 1949, which he built into one of the largest New Thought congregations in the country. In the next decade, Murphy married, earned a PhD in psychology from the University of Southern California and started writing. After his first wife died in 1976, he remarried to a fellow Divine Science minister who was his longstanding secretary. He died in 1981.

Chapter 1 : Make Your Dreams Come True “Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours. “And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him. “And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren: and they hated him all the more. “And he said unto them, Hear; I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed: “For; behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf. “And his brethren said to him, Shall thou indeed reign over us? or shall thou indeed have dominion over us? And they hated him yet the more for his dream, and for his words. “And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me. “And he told it to his father; and his brethren: and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down to thee to the earth?” (Genesis 37:3-10.) Joseph in the Bible means disciplined or controlled imagination. It is one of the primal faculties of mind, and has the power to project and clothe your ideas, giving them visibility on the screen of space. Israel loved Joseph. Israel is the spiritually awakened man who knows the power of controlled imaginat... See more

Chapter 1 : Make Your Dreams Come True

“Now Israel loved Joseph more than all his children, because he was the son of his old age: and he made him a coat of many colours.
“And when his brethren saw that their father loved him more than all his brethren, they hated him, and could not speak peaceably unto him.
“And Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren: and they hated him all the more.
“And he said unto them, Hear; I pray you, this dream which I have dreamed:
“For; behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf.
“And his brethren said to him, Shall thou indeed reign over us? or shall thou indeed have dominion over us? And they hated him yet the more for his dream, and for his words.
“And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me.
“And he told it to his father; and his brethren: and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, What is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down to thee to the earth?” (Genesis 37:3-10.)

Joseph in the Bible means disciplined or controlled imagination. It is one of the primal faculties of mind, and has the power to project and clothe your ideas, giving them visibility on the screen of space.

Israel loved Joseph. Israel is the spiritually awakened man who knows the power of controlled imagination. It is called the son of his old age. Son means expression. Old age infers wisdom and knowledge of the laws of mind. When you become familiar with the power of imagination, you will call it “the son of your old age.”

Age is not the flight of years; it is really the dawn of wisdom and Divine knowledge in you. Imagination is the mighty instrument used by great scientists, artists, physicists, inventors, architects, and mystics. When the world said, “It is impossible. It can’t be done,” the man with imagination said, “It is done!” Through your imagination you can also penetrate the depths of reality, and reveal the secrets of nature.

A great industrialist told me one time how he started in a small store. He said that I used to dream (Joseph was a dreamer) of a large corporation with branches all over the country. He added that regularly and systematically he pictured in his mind the giant building, offices, factories, and stores, knowing that through the alchemy of the mind, he could weave the fabric out of which his dreams would be clothed. He prospered, and began to attract to himself by a universal law of attraction the ideas, personnel, friends, money, and everything needed for the unfoldment of his ideal. He truly exercised and cultivated his imagination, and lived with these mental patterns in his mind until imagination clothed them in form.

I liked particularly one comment which he made as follows, “It is just as easy to imagine yourself successful, as it is to imagine failure, and far more interesting.”

Joseph is a dreamer, and a dreamer of dreams; this means he has visions, images, and ideals in his mind, and knows that there is a Creative Power which responds to his mental pictures. The mental images we hold are developed in feeling. It is wisely said that all our senses are modifications of the one-sense-feeling. Troward says, “Feeling is the law, and the law is the feeling,” Feeling is the fountain-head of power. We must charge our mental pictures with feeling in order to get results.

We are told, “Joseph dreamed a dream, and told it to his brethren, and they hated him,” Perhaps as you read this, you have a dream, an ideal, a plan, or purpose that you would like to accomplish. To hate is to reject in Bible language. The thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and opinions in your mind are your brethren which challenge you, belittle your dreams, and say to you, “You can’t; it is impossible,” “Forget it!” Perhaps other thoughts come into your mind which scoff at your plan or ambition. You discover there is a quarrel in your mind with your own brethren; opposition sets in. The way to handle the opposition in your mind is to detach your attention from sense evidence and appearance of things, and begin to think clearly and with interest about your goal or objective. When your mind is engaged on your goal or objective, you are using the creative law of mind, and it will come to pass.

“Lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf,” Lift your ideal or desire up in consciousness. Exalt it. Commit yourself whole-heartedly to it. Praise it; give your attention, love, and devotion to your ideal, and as you continue to do this, all the fearful thoughts will make obeisance to your exalted state of mind; i.e., they will lose their power, and disappear from the mind. Through your faculty to imagine the end result, you have control over any circumstance or condition. If you wish to bring about the realization of any wish, desire, or idea, form a mental picture of fulfillment in your mind; constantly imagine the reality of your desire. In this way you will actually compel it into being. What you imagine as true already exists in the next dimension of mind, and if you remain faithful to your ideal, it will one day objectify itself. The master-architect within you will project on the screen of visibility what you impress on your mind.

Joseph (imagination) wears a coat of many colors. A coat in the Bible is a psychological covering. Your psychological garments are the mental attitudes, moods, and feelings you entertain. The coat of many colors represent the many facets of the diamond, or your capacity to clothe any idea in form. You can imagine your friend who is poor living in the lap of luxury. You can see his face light up with joy, see his expression change, and a broad smile cross his lips. You can hear him tell you what you want to hear. You can see him exactly as you wish to see him—i.e., he is radiant, happy, prosperous, and successful. Your imagination is the coat of many colors; it can clothe and objectify any idea or desire. You can imagine abundance where lack is; peace where discord is; health where sickness is.

“His brethren said to him, Shalt thou indeed reign over us?” Imagination is the first faculty, and takes precedence over all the other powers or elements of consciousness. You have twelve faculties or brethren, but your imagination when disciplined enables you to collapse time and space and rise above all limitations. When you keep your imagination busy with noble, God-like concepts and ideas, you will find it is the most effective of all faculties in your spiritual ongoing.

The phrase, “Joseph is sold into Egypt—” means that your concept or desire must be subjectified (Egypt) first before it becomes objectified. Every concept must go “down into Egypt”—meaning into the subjective where the birth of ideas takes place.

“Out of Egypt have I called my son—” Joseph is commander of Egypt which tells you that imagination controls the whole conceptive realm. Whatever prison you may be in, whether it is the prison of fear, sickness, lack, or limitation of any kind, remember that Joseph is the commander in prison, and can deliver you. You can imagine your freedom, and continue to do so until it is subjectified; then after gestation in the darkness the manifestation comes—your prayer is answered.

Consider for a moment a distinguished, talented architect; he can build a beautiful, modern, twentieth century city in his mind, complete with super highways, swimming pools, aquariums, parks, etc. He can construct in his mind the most beautiful palace that eye has ever seen. He can see the building in its entirety completely erected before he ever gives his plan to the builders. Where was the building? It was in his imagination.

With your imagination you can actually hear the invisible voice of your mother even though she lives 10,000 miles from here. You can also see her clearly, and as vividly as if she were present; this is the wonderful power you possess. You can develop and cultivate this power, and become successful and prosperous.

Haven’t you heard the sales manager say, “I have to let John go, because his attitude is wrong?” The business world knows the importance of “right attitude.”

I remember many years ago having printed a small article on Reincarnation. These pamphlets were on display on a book counter of a church where I lectured. In the beginning very few of them were sold, because the salesgirl was violently opposed to its contents.

I explained to her the Biblical meaning of Reincarnation, the origin of the story, and what it was all about. She understood the contents of the drama, and became enthusiastic about the booklets; they were all sold before my lecture series was completed. This was an instance of the importance of the right, mental attitude.

Your mental attitude means your mental reaction to people, circumstances, conditions, and objects in space. What is your relationship with your co-workers? Are you friendly with people, with animals, and with the universe in general? Do you think the universe is hostile, and that the world owes you a living? In short what is your attitude?

The emotional reaction of the above mentioned girl was one of deep-seated prejudice. That was the wrong attitude in selling books; she was biased toward the book and the writer.

You can develop the right, mental attitude when you realize that nothing externally can upset you or hurt you without your mental consent. You are the only thinker in your world; consequently nothing can move you to anger, grief, or sorrow without your mental consent. The suggestions that come to you from the outside have no power whatsoever, except you permit them to move you in thought negatively. Realize you are master of your thought-world. Emotions follow thought; hence you are supreme in your own orbit. Do you permit others to influence you? Do you allow the headlines in the newspapers, or the gossip, or criticism of others to upset you, or bring about mental depression? If you do, you must admit you are the cause of your own mood; you created your emotional reaction. Your attitude is wrong.

Do you imagine evil of others? If you do, notice the emotion generated in your deeper self; it is negative and destructive to your health and prosperity. Circumstances can affect you only as you permit them. You can voluntarily and definitely change your attitude toward life and all things. You can become master of your fate, and captain of your soul (subconscious mind). Through disciplined, directed, and controlled imagination you can dominate and master your emotions and mental attitude in general.

If you imagine, for example, that the other is mean, dishonest, and jealous, notice the emotion you evoked within yourself. Now reverse the situation. Begin to imagine the same girl or boy is honest, sincere, loving, and kind; notice the reaction it calls forth in you. Are you not, therefore, master of your attitudes? In reality the truth of the whole matter is that it is your real concept of God which determines your Whole attitude toward life in general. Your dominant idea about God is your idea of life; for God is Life. If you have the dominant idea or attitude that God is the Spiritual Power within you responsive to your thought, and that, therefore, since your habitual thinking is constructive and harmonious, this Power is guiding and prospering you in all ways; this dominant attitude will color everything. You will be looking at the world through the positive, affirmative attitude of mind. Your outlook will be positive, and you will have a joyous expectancy of the best.

Many people have a gloomy, despondent outlook on life. They are sour, cynical, and cantankerous; this is due to the dominant, mental attitude which directs their reaction to everything.

A person’s mood of joy is usually short-lived who is constantly singing the blues when something wonderful comes into his experience or that of his family.

A young boy of sixteen years going to high school said to me, “I am getting very poor grades. My memory is failing. I do not know what is the matter” The only thing wrong was his attitude. He adopted a new, mental attitude by realizing how important his studies were in gaining entrance grades to college in order to become a lawyer. He began to pray scientifically, which is one of the quickest ways to change the mentality.

In scientific prayer we deal with a principle which responds to thought. This young man realized there was a Spiritual Power within him, and that It was the only Cause and Power. Furthermore he began to claim that his memory was perfect, and that Infinite Intelligence constantly revealed to him everything he needed to know at all tunes everywhere. He began to radiate Love and goodwill to the teachers and fellow students. This young man is now enjoying a greater freedom than he had known for several years. He constantly imagines the teachers and his mother congratulating him on all “A’s.” It is imagining the desired results that have followed this change of attitude toward his studies.

We have said previously that all our mental attitudes are conditioned by imagination. If you imagine: It is going to be a black day today; business is going to be very poor; that it is raining; no customers will come into your store; they have no money, etc., you will experience the result of your negative imagery.

One time Troward was walking the streets of London, and he imagined he saw a snake on the street. Fear caused him to become semi-paralyzed. What he saw looked like a snake, but Troward had the same mental and emotional reaction as if it were a snake.

Imagine whatsoever things are lovely, noble, and of good report, and your entire emotional attitude toward life will change. What do you imagine about life? Is it going to be a happy life for you? Or is it one long series of frustrations? “Choose ye whom ye will serve.”

You mold, fashion, and shape your outer world of experience according to the mental images you habitually dwell on. Imagine conditions and circumstances in life which dignify, elevate, please, and satisfy. If you imagine life is cold, cruel, hard, bitter, and that struggle and pain are inevitable, you are making life miserable for yourself.

Imagine yourself on the golf course. You are free, relaxed, full of enthusiasm, and energy. Your joy is in overcoming all the difficulties presented by the golf course. The thrill is in surmounting all the obstacles.

Now let us take this scene: Imagine yourself going into a funeral parlor. Notice the different, emotional response brought forward as you picture yourself in each of the above mentioned situations. In the funeral chapel you can rejoice in the person’s new birthday. You can imagine the loved one surrounded by his or her friends in the midst of indescribable beauty and love. You can imagine God’s river of peace flooding the minds and hearts of all present. You can actually ascend the heavens of your own mind wherever you are; this is the Power of your imagination.

“And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me.”

In ancient symbology, the sun and the moon represent the conscious and subconscious mind. The eleven stars represent the eleven powers in addition to imagination. Here again the inspired writers are telling you that disciplined imagination takes precedence over all other faculties of the mind, and controls the direction of the conscious and subconscious mind. Imagination is first and foremost; it can be scientifically directed.

I was examining one of the Round Towers of Ireland with my father over fifty years ago. He said nothing for one hour, but remained passive and receptive, seeming to be in a pensive mood. I asked him what was he meditating on? This is the essence of his answer: He pointed out that it is only by dwelling on the great, wonderful ideas of the world that we grow and expand. He contemplated the age of the stones in the tower; then his imagination took him back to the quarries where stones were first formed. His imagination unclothed the stones. He saw with the interior eye the structure, the geological formation, the composition of the stone, and reduced it to the formless state; finally he imagined the oneness of the stones with all stones and with all life. He realized in his Divine imagery that it was possible to reconstruct the history of the Irish race from looking at the Round Tower!

Through the imaginative faculty this teacher was able to see the invisible men living in the Tower and to hear their voices. The whole place became alive to him in his imagination. Through this power he was able to go back in time when there was no Round Tower there. In his mind he began to weave a drama of the place from which stones originated, who brought them, the purpose of the structure, and the history connected with it. As he said to me, “I am able to almost feel the touch, and hear the sound of steps that vanished thousands of years ago.”

The subjective mind permeates all things; it is in all things, and is the substance from which they are made. The treasure-house of eternity is in the very stones comprising a building. There is nothing inanimate; all is life in its varied manifestations. (The sun and the moon make obeisance to Joseph—imagination.) Truly through your faculty of imagination you can imagine the invisible secrets of nature are revealed to you; you will find that you can plumb the very depths of consciousness calling things that be not as though they were, and the unseen becomes seen.

The other night I sat in a park, and looked at the setting sun. Suddenly I began to think that the sun is like a house in the City of Los Angeles; there is a greater sun behind our sun, and so on to Infinity. It staggers the imagination to ponder and meditate on the myriads of suns and solar galaxies extending into infinity beyond the Milky Way. This world is only a grain of sand in the infinite seashore. Instead of seeing the parts, let us look at the wholeness, the unity of all things. We are, as the poet said, “All parts of one stupendous whole, whose body nature is, and God the soul.”

It is really out of the imaginative mind of man all religions are born. Is it not out of the realm of imagination television, radio, radar, super jets, and all other modern inventions came? Your imagination is the treasure-house of Infinity, which releases to you all the precious jewels of music, art, poetry, and inventions. You can look at some ancient ruin, an old temple, or pyramid, and re-construct the records of the dead past. In the ruins of an old church yard you can also see a modern city resurrected in all its beauty and glory. You may be in a prison of want, lack, or behind stone bars, but in your imagination you can find an undreamed of measure of freedom.

How Chico, the Parisian sewer cleaner, imagined and lived in a paradisiacal state of mind called the seventh heaven even though he never saw the light of day.

Bunyan in prison wrote the great masterpiece, Pilgrim’s Progress. Milton though blind saw with the interior eye. His imagination made his brain a ball of fire, and he wrote Paradise Lost. In this way he brought some of God’s Paradise to all men everywhere.

Imagination was Milton’s spiritual eye which enabled him to go about God’s business whereby he annihilated time, space, and matter, and brought forth the truths of the Invisible Presence and Power.

A genius is a man who is en-rapport with his subconscious mind. He is able to tap this universal reservoir, and receive answers to his problems; thus he does not have to work by the sweat of his brow. In the genius type of mind the imaginative faculty is developed to a very high degree. All great poets and writers are gifted with a highly developed and cultivated imaginative faculty.

I can now see Shakespeare listening to the old stories, fables, and myths of his day. I can also imagine him sitting down listing all these characters in the play in his mind; then clothing them one by one with hair, skin, muscle, bone, animating them, and making them so much alive that we think we are reading about ourselves.

Use your imagination, and go about your Father’s business. Your Father’s business is to let your wisdom, skill, knowledge, and ability come forth, and bless others as well as yourself. You are about your Father’s business if you are operating a small store, and in your imagination you feel you are operating a larger store giving a greater measure of service to your fellow creature.

If you are a writer of short stories, you can be about your Father’s business. Create a story in your mind which teaches something about the Golden rule; then pass that story and all its characters through your spiritualized and highly artistic mentality; your article will be fascinating and intensely interesting to your public.

The truth about man is always wonderful and beautiful. When writing a novel or story, we should be sure that we clothe Truth in her garment of Loveliness and Beauty. You could now look at an acorn, and with your imaginative eye construct a magnificent forest full of rivers, rivulets, and streams. You could people the forest with all kinds of life; furthermore you could hang a bow on every cloud. You could look at a desert, and cause it to rejoice and blossom as a rose. “Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle tree.” Men gifted with intuition and imagination find water in the desert, and they create cities where formerly other men only saw a desert and a wilderness.

An architect of a city sees the buildings and fountains already in operation before he ever digs a well or builds a house. “I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.”

Long hours, hard labor, or burning the midnight oil will not produce a Milton, a Shakespeare, a Phidias, or a Beethoven. Men accomplish great things through quiet moments imagining that the invisible things of Him from the foundation of time are clearly visible.

You can imagine the Indescribable Beauty of He Who Is is being expressed on your canvas, and if you are a real artist in love with beauty, great beauty will come forth effortlessly. Moments of great inspiration will come to you; it will have nothing to do with perspiration or hard, mental labor.

In Greenwich Village I met a poet who wrote beautiful poems; he had them printed on cards, and sold them at Christmas time. Some of these poems were beautiful gems of spiritual love. He said when he got still, the words would come into his mind accompanied by a lovely scene. Flowers, people, and friends would come clearly into his mind. These images spoke to him. They told him their story. Oftentimes the complete poem, song, or lullaby would appear complete and ready in his mind without the slightest effort. His habit was to imagine he was writing beautiful poems which would stir the hearts of men.

Shelley said poetry was an expression of the imagination. When the poet meditates on Love, and wishes to write on Love, the Invisible Intelligence and Wisdom within him stirs his mind, casts the spell of God’s beauty over him, and awakens him to God’s Eternal Love, so that his words become clothed with wisdom, truth, and beauty.

The Great Musician is within. If it is your business to play music or compose music, be sure you are on your Father’s Business. Your Father’s Business is first of all to recognize God as the Great Musician; then meditate, feel, pray, and know that the Inner Music sings or plays through you the Song of God’s Love, and you will play like you never played before.

Every invention of Edison’s was first conceived in his imagination. The same was true of Tesla, another great inventor and scientist.

I think it was Oliver Wendall Holmes who said we need three story men who can idealize, imagine, and predict. I believe it was the capacity to imagine and dream that caused Ford to look forward to putting the world on wheels.

Your capacity to imagine causes you, and enables you to remove all barriers of time and space. You can reconstruct the past or contemplate the future thought through your inner eye. No wonder it says in Genesis, “Israel loved Joseph [imagination] more than all his brethren.” Imagination when disciplined, spiritualized, controlled, and directed becomes the most exalted and noblest attribute of man.

I was in conversation some years ago with a young chemist, who stated that his superiors for years had tried to manufacture a certain German dye and failed. He was given the assignment when he went with them. As he commented, he did not know it could not be done, and synthesized the compound without any difficulty. They were amazed and wanted to know his secret. His answer was that he imagined he had the answer. Pressed further by his superiors he said that he could clearly see the letters, “Answer!” in blazing red color in his mind; then he created a vacuum underneath the letters knowing that as he imagined the chemical formula underneath the letters, the subconscious would fill it in. The third night he had a dream, in which the complete formula and the technique of making the compound was clearly presented.

“Joseph [imagination] is a dreamer, and a dreamer of dreams.” “They conspired against him to slay him. And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh.” Perhaps as you read these Biblical quotations there are thoughts of fear, doubt, and anxiety conspiring in your own mind to slay or kill that desire, ideal, or dream of yours. You look at conditions or circumstances, and fear arises in your mind; yet there is the desire within you which if realized would bring you peace and solve your problem.

You must be like Joseph, and become a practical dreamer. Decide to make your dreams come true. Withdraw and abstract your attention now from appearances of things and from sense evidence. Even though your senses deny what you pray for, affirm it as true in your heart. Bring your mind back from its wandering after the false Gods of fear and doubt to rest in the Omnipotence of the Spiritual Power within you. In the silence and quietude of your own mind, dwell on the fact that there is only One Power and One Presence. This Power and Presence is now responding to your thought as guidance, strength, peace, and nourishment for the soul. Give all your mental attention to recognizing the absolute sovereignty of the Spiritual Power knowing that the God-Power has the answer, and is now showing you the way. Trust It; believe in It, and walk the earth in the Light your prayer is already answered.

All of us read the story of Columbus and his discovery of America. It was imagination that led him to his discovery. His imagination plus faith in a Divine Power led him on, and brought him to victory.

The sailors said to Columbus, “What shall we do when all hope is gone?”

His reply was, “You shall say at break of day, “Sail on, sail on, and on: “ Here is the key to prayer; be faithful to the end; full of faith every step of the way, persisting to the end, knowing in your heart the end is secure, because you saw the end. Having seen and felt the end, as Troward said, you have willed the means to the realization of the end.

Copernicus through his vivid imagination revealed how the earth revolved on its axis, causing the old astronomical theories to be cast in the discard.

I think it would be a wonderful idea if all of us from time to time recast our ideas, checked up on our beliefs and opinions, and asked ourselves honestly, “Why do I believe that? Where did that opinion come from?” Perhaps many ideas, theories, beliefs, and opinions which we hold are completely erroneous, and were accepted by us as true without any investigation whatever as to their truth or accuracy. Because our father and grandfather believed in a certain way is no reason why we should.

One woman said to me that a certain idea she had must be true, because her grandmother believed it. That is absurd! The race mind believes in many things which are not true. What came down from generation to generation is not necessarily valid or the final word and authority.

The above mentioned woman who was honest and well-meaning had a mind that was very touchy on psychological truths. She took everything in the Bible literally. This mind worked by prejudice, superstition, and opposed everything which was not in accord with her established beliefs, opinions, and preconceived notions.

Our mind must be like a parachute. The latter opens up; if it does not, it isn’t any good. Likewise we must open our eyes and minds to new truths. We must hunger and thirst after new truth and new knowledge, enabling us to soar aloft above our problems on the wings of faith and understanding.

The famous biologists, physicists, astronomers, and mathematicians of our day are men gifted with a vivid, scientific imagination. For instance the Einstein theory of relativity existed first in his imagination. .

Archaeologists and paleontologists studying the tombs of ancient Egypt through their imaginative perception reconstruct ancient scenes. The dead past becomes alive and audible once more. Looking at the ancient ruins and the hieroglyphics thereon, the scientist tells us of an age when there was no language. Communication was done by grunts, groans, and signs. The scientist’s imagination enables him to clothe this ancient temple with roofs, and surround them with gardens, pools, and fountains. The fossil remains are clothed with eyes, sinews, and muscles, and they again walk and talk. The past becomes the living present, and we find in imagination there is no time or space. Through your imaginative faculty you can be a companion of the most inspired writers of all time.

I gave a lecture on the twenty first chapter of Revelation some time ago in the Wilshire Ebell Theatre in Los Angeles to our Sunday audience. The previous night while I was meditating on the inner meaning of the following verses, I intuitively and actually felt the presence and the intimate companionship of the mystic seer who wrote the inspired verses.

“And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and be their God.” (Rev. 21:2, 2)

Can’t you now walk down the corridor of your own mind, and there see, inwardly perceive, feel, and sense God’s river of peace flowing through your mind? You are now in the Holy City—your own mind—inhabited by such lovely people as bliss, joy, faith, harmony, love, and good will. Your mind is clothed with God’s radiant beauty, and your mood is exalted, noble, and God-like. You are married mentally and spiritually to God and to all things good. You have on your wedding garment, because you are in tune with the Infinite, and God’s Eternal Verities constantly impregnate your mind. In your imagination you sense and feel that you are the tabernacle of God, and that His Holy Spirit saturates and fills every part of your being. Your imagination now becomes seized with a Divine frenzy. You become God-intoxicated, having received the Divine antibody, the Presence of God in the chamber of your heart.

You can look at a rock, and out of that rock through Divine Imagination you can reveal the Madonna, and portray a vision of beauty and a joy forever. Never permit your imagination to be used negatively; never distort or twist it. You can imagine sickness, accident, and loss, and become a mental wreck. To imagine sickness and lack is to destroy your peace of mind, health, and happiness.

On board ship one time I heard a passenger exclaim when looking at the setting sun, “I am so happy, I hope this lasts forever!”

How often have you seen a glorious sunrise—perhaps you said, “I hope this lasts forever?” Nothing in this transitory world lasts eternally; however the Truths of God last forever. Darkness follows night, but morning will come again. Twilight will also come.

You do not want things to stand still. You do not want to stand still either; for there are new worlds within and without to conquer. Change eternal is at the root of all life. You do not want to remain in a rut. Problems are life’s way of asking you for an answer.

The greatest joy and satisfaction is in overcoming, in conquering. Life would become unbearable and unendurable if we did not experience change. We would be bored by the monotony of things. You meet with night and day, cold and heat, ebb and flow, summer and winter, hope and despair, success and failure. You find yourself moving through opposites; through your power to imagine what you wish and to feel its reality subjectively is to reconcile the opposites, and bring peace to the mind.

In the midst of sorrow, grief, or the loss of a loved one, your imagination and faith, the two wings of the bird, take you aloft into the very Bosom of God, your Father, where you find peace, solace, and Divine rest for your soul.

In your imagination you look into the very Face or Truth of God, and God wipes away all tears, and there shall be no more crying. All the mist and fog of the human mind dissolves in the sunshine of God’s Love.

“And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying; neither, shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. Behold I make all things new.” (Rev. 4,5.)

When the night is black, you see no way out; i.e., when your problem is most acute, let your imagination be your saviour.

“I will lift up mine eyes [imagination] unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.” (Ps. 121:1.) The hills are of an inner range—the Presence of God in you. When you seek guidance and inspiration, fix your eyes on the stars of God’s Truth, such as “Infinite Intelligence leads and guides me;” or “Divine Wisdom floods my mind, and I am inspired from on High.”

There is a designer, an architect, and a weaver within you; it takes the fabric of your mind, your thoughts, feelings, and beliefs, and moulds them into a pattern of life which brings you peace or discord, health or sickness. You can imagine a life which will take you up to the third heaven where you will see unspeakable and unutterable things of God, or through the distorted, morbid use of your imagination you can sink to the depths of degradation.

Man is the tabernacle of God, and no matter how low a man has sunk, the Healing Presence is there waiting to minister to him. It is within us waiting for us to call upon It.

You can use your imagination in all business transactions in a wonderful way. Always imagine yourself in the other fellow’s place; this tells you what to do. Imagine the other is expressing all that you long to see him express. See him as he ought to be, not as he appears to be. Perhaps he is surly, sarcastic, bitter, hostile; there may be many frustrated hopes and tragedies lurking in his mind. Imagine whatsoever things are lovely and of good report, and through your imagination you have covered him with the garment of God. God’s world of ideals and God’s infinite ideas are within him waiting to be born and released. You can say if you wish, “God waits to be born in him.” You can open the door, and kindle the fire of God’s Love in that man’s heart, and perhaps the spark you lit will burst into a Divine Fire.

The greatest and richest galleries of art in the world are the galleries of the mind devoted to God’s Truths and Beauty. Leonardo Da Vinci through his gift of imagination meditated on Jesus and the Twelve Disciples, and what they meant. Lost in deep reverie, his imagination secreted the perfect pictures from the Infinite Reservoir within him, and due to his perfect focus his inner eye glowed with an interior luminosity, so that he was inspired, and out of his Divine Imagery came the masterpiece—The Last Supper.

You have visited a quiet lake or a mountain top. Notice how the placid, cool, calm surface reflected the heavenly lights, so does the quiet mind of the spiritual man reflect God’s interior Lights and Wisdom.

Picture your ideal in life; live with this ideal. Let the ideal captivate your imagination; let the ideal thrill you! You will move in the direction of the ideal which governs your mind. The ideals of life are like the dew of heaven which move over the arid areas of man’s mind refreshing and invigorating him.

The inspired writer’s imagination was fired with Truth when he wrote, “There is a river the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High.” (Ps. 46:4.)

By now you know that imagination is the river enabling you to flow back psychologically to God. The streams and rivulets are your ideas and feelings, plus the emanation of love and good will that goes forth from you to all men everywhere.

Man looks out into the world, and he sees sickness, chaos, and man’s inhumanity to man. The man with the disciplined imagination soars above all appearances, discord, sense evidence, and sees the sublime principle of harmony operating through, in, and behind all things. He knows through his Divine imagery that there is an Everlasting Law of Righteousness behind all things, an Ever Abiding Peace, a Boundless Love governing the entire Cosmos. These Truths surge through the heart, and are born of the eternal Truth which through the imagination pierces the outer veil, and rests in the Divine meaning of the way it is in God and Heaven.

Imagination was the workshop of God which inspired the writer of the following matchless, spiritual gems which will go down through the corridor of time, and live forever. For tender beauty and for Divine imagery they are unsurpassed in dealing with the availability and Immanence of God’s Presence.

“For he shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways.” (Ps. 91:11.)
“Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
“If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
“If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;
“Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.”