Notes on Neville
Goddard
The popularity of Neville Goddard has been on the rise for the
past few years; and for good reason. As The Law of Attraction gained fame, following the
release of the wildly popular movie “The Secret,” LOA teachers have popped up seemingly
everywhere; unfortunately for all of us, most of them are little more than
charlatans. Neville Goddard has,
perhaps, the most interesting and clear teachings on the subject and
had the wisdom to both record his lectures and publish notes. After listening
to countless hours of lectures, I’ve prepared some notes to help all of you get
up to speed on the teachings of Neville Goddard.
Neville Goddard’s core philosophy was based on a sort of
Christian Spiritualism that presumes that we are all God in human form; a
philosophy that he often attributed to William Blake, an English
poet circa 1800’s. Neville regularly affirmed that “God is our own wonderful
human imagination.” It’s not to suggest that God is a figment of our
imaginations but to say that we are a figment of His and we are the
manifestations of His desires and intentions. The connection between man and God is in fact our
imaginations. When we use our imaginations in a particular
and disciplined manner, the power of God flows into our lives in miraculous
ways.
Goddard taught that it is not only possible to affect the lives
of others with the power of our minds, but that it’s both easy and advisable to
do so. Through the late 1800’s and into the mid 1900’s, Christian Spiritualism
and Christian
Science were quite popular. Practitioners of these spiritual
“sciences,” such as Goddard, Judge Thomas Troward, Florence Scovel Shinn and Geneviève
Behrend commonly entertained requests for “treatment” from people in
need of help. Neville often taught, in keeping with Blake, that it is indeed possible and advisable to use the
power of consciousness to effect others; Jesus certainly did so.
If all people are indeed the spirit of God in flesh, then it would be perfectly
acceptable for Him, in one manifestation, to help Himself in another.
Goddard believed in the unity of spirit. Similar to Judge
Troward, Neville saw creation as a playground for God and each of us as
tabernacles in which He dwells. Tasting and experiencing life from different
vantage points, each vantage point
is a person or individual personality through whom God experiences His creation.
God is not using us; He is us. Troward described it as “general” to “specific.”
God is the generalized existence of universal intelligence while
each of us are the specific, localized manifestation of Him.
As a version of, or manifestation of God, it’s necessary for you
to exhibit intentional amnesia regarding your actual identity; it’s the only
way to enjoy the full human experience with all of its intensity. With God as
the underlying source of our imaginations, any person with a heart-felt desire for change is poised to
receive a magnificent gift from God; just as soon as that
person engages in prayer facilitated by the imagination.
It’s a bold break from orthodoxy to see prayer as an imaginal
process rather than a discussion with an aloof and heavenly god figure. It’s
bold to see prayer as the function
of your inner God-Spirit, making choices for itself, rather
than seeing prayer as a way for a dreadful sinner to assuage the anger of God.
If indeed we are each a local instance of God, Neville suggested that our individualized
set of circumstances amount to our “state” of existence; God is experiencing
what it’s like to be you, living in that particular state. If the state becomes
tiresome, God may want you to move on to another one; His desires express
themselves through you. If your current state is unsatisfactory, then you’re
being cued by the spirit to change to a new state. If you’re in poverty and wish for change, then move
to the state of abundance. If you’re in a state of
illness, then move to the state of health. This change is accomplished in the
spirit, not in the flesh.
If you struggle to change circumstances through human effort,
you have not changed state; you’ve simply dug-into your current state and have
chosen to fight the dragons that live there. Pastor Joel Osteen has
shared the story of a married couple who both smoked cigarettes. The wife
struggled to quit with great angst but was unable. The husband chose one day
that he simply didn’t want to “be”
a smoker anymore and he stopped immediately. The wife
lived in a state as a smoker and, in her efforts to stop smoking, she simply
added a new struggle into her existing state. The husband changed his state
entirely, becoming a non-smoker. Consider the difference in attitude: one person fought for change while the other chose to
change. If you choose to fight the dragons in your life,
you can’t transfer to another state until you finish the battle that you’ve
chosen to fight. So, stop playing the “knight in shining armor.” Disengage from
the old state and transform into a new person who lives in a better place. This
all happens in the mind through spirit.
Let’s say it a different way. Perhaps you could say it’s “your
story” rather than your state. If
you don’t like how your story reads, then change the narrative.
After all, it’s your life. Jesus said that the Kingdom of God
Allow me to add some of my own commentary at this point.
Remember that prayer is an internal dialog used by the spirit to sort through
choices regarding its own desires. When your human mind and the spirit
cooperate to identify the best options, the result is a strong and motivating
desire to do those things. Intentional cooperation by the conscious mind is
required to move the plan forward; this is called faith and obedience. Without
the obedience of the human mind, the will of God remains a seed, waiting for
germination. If you prove
unwilling to do the thing that God inspired, you will remain in an unsatisfying
state of existence and He may motivate another person to
go and enjoy the things that you refused to do.
In another place, I write about the competitive nature of the
human existence and God’s part in it. All of the great inventors had rivals who
nearly or sometimes did succeed in stealing their glory. When God is ready to
move on to a new phase of the human experience, he waits for no one. Your
deeply held desires are evidence of the things that you’ve been given to
accomplish within this complex relationship. New phases in the human experience
can also be called states; you
must be ready to change your state when the spirit moves or you risk getting
out of position.
It’s imperative to understand that your deeply held desires are
not selfish, they are your holy calling and it’s the process of prayer that
untangles them from the messiness of ordinary life. Prayer must amount to an
honest evaluation of your desires and purpose without pragmatic compromise.
Don’t downgrade your purpose by merging it with the things that now
exist. During prayer, carefully
think about what you like and what you don’t.Identify bogus
“desires” that were born of compromise at times when you felt that you had to
remodel your dreams to match the cold realities of your situation. Dump the
bogus desires and find the golden nuggets of truth that have gotten buried
beneath the trash heap of time. God has given you a pure vision of something
new; dump the emotional and psychological trash that clouds that vision and
move on to visualize the perfect fulfillment.
Neville often admonished his listeners not to interfere with the
process. Identify the desired end result but don’t make assumptions about the
details. If you desire a mate, for instance, then imagine being happily married
to the perfect person but do not assume that you know who that person will be.
Judge Troward offered the same advice; he taught us to “get into the spirit” of our desire but not to
make specific demands about the material manifestation. The
spirit may inspire you to ask God for a husband but it’s your assumption, and
possibly your mistake, to assume it will be the person you’re dating. Goddard
advised us to pray for the best possible result that matches our desire and
then to let God’s systems work out the details.
Often times, when it seems that God is silent, it’s because
you’ve gotten off subject. Perhaps you’ve wisely asked God for a new state but
then you made an error in some specific point of order. Suppose you’ve asked
God for a promotion at work; this is an example of being overly specific. If
God is inspiring you toward a new career in another city but you wrongly
assumed that he meant to promote you at your current job, you may struggle to
manifest the wrong outcome. God gave you a desire for career advancement but
your human mind misread it as a promotion in your current state. This is why Neville strongly warned of the
danger of using your power to force the wrong outcome. Get
into the spirit of your desire in general terms but do not force specific
outcomes or assume a specific path.
When you identify the spirit of your desire, take it into “the
silence.” The silence is a type of meditation that borders on self hypnosis.
Neville instructed his students to find a quiet and peaceful place to relax, close their eyes and begin to imagine their
desired results while being careful not to sleep. This process
is predicated upon the fact that we are all God in human form and that our
imaginations direct the universe to provide the type of experience that we
desire according to our imaginings. The more experienced and focused you become
in this endeavor, the better the results will be.
While imagining your perfect state, there are a few guidelines
that will help you along; the first two seem contradictory but they are not. First, don’t be overly specific. Second, be
very focused on details. As I mentioned earlier, it’s not
good to be overly specific. If you are desiring a mate then you should imagine
being married to the perfect person but don’t assume who that person will be.
Infuse details into your image by feeling the imaginary ring on your finger and
pretend to see the faces of your friends and hear them congratulate you on your
beautiful wedding. The use of intense sensory information sends a strong
message to the universe, instructing it how to construct your future.
Refusing to identify your future mate makes room for the
universe to create the perfect outcome. If you hired a painter to decorate a
room in your house, you may show him a picture of the type of room and colors
that you like but you would never advise him on how to choose his brushes,
prepare the surface for paint or how to do the work. To summarize: you’re
telling the universe how you want to feel in your future but you must let the
universe paint the portrait without your help. The universe will provide the emotional experience that you
requested, complete in every detail, that fulfills your wish. Don’t
interfere with the universe’s process; the universe is the painter and you are
the customer.
As you visualize the pictures and generate the feelings
associated with your perfect future state, the intensity of the detail that you
generate will cause you to become lost in thought. You will know that you’ve
had an effective meditation when two things happen: first, you lose track of
time, and second, you gain an assurance that “you know” that you got it.
Losing track of time. On this subject, I would advise you to
study the books written by Dr. Joe Dispenza;
he has spoken on this subject in detail and has a lot to say on the order of
the mind and consciousness. Losing yourself in thought disconnects the
suspicious, conscious mind and allows the subconscious mind to do its thing.
For example: when you thought that
you’d meditated for twenty minutes but it was actually an hour and a half,
you’ve successfully disengaged the conscious mind and gone to another state of
existence.
Dr. Dispenza and Neville both agree on the next point: when you
condition your mind adequately, there comes a point when you cross a threshold.
When in meditation and prayer, there
comes a moment when “you know that you have it.”For Neville, he
described this as the moment when the seed is in the ground and you need only
to be faithful to the vision and wait. For Dispenza, he described it in the
introduction for his book “You Are the Placebo.” For him, he experienced a
moment in time when he intensely visualized his shattered spine becoming
perfectly healed; within days of
that powerful and emotional vision, he got out of his bed and resumed his life. Joe
has a lot to say about the process and the discipline involved in miraculous
reversals and I recommend that you carefully study his material.
Neville and Dispenza both speak strongly on the need for
discipline and focus. Consider your imagination to be like a laser beam; if you
scatter your beam in many directions, it will dissipate and become worthless.
Neville warns against a wandering imagination; he taught us to limit the scope
of our visualizations to a small window of virtual time and to fill it with
intense sensory details that you would expect to experience if it were
real. Don’t visualize complex and
long stretches of the future, instead, imagine a 10 minute stretch of time in
the future and fill it with plenty of sensory data like smell, touch, sight and
sound. Make it as real as you can then stop. The more you rehearse this
process, the sooner you will cross the threshold.
Ultimately, when you’ve learned to isolate your truest desires
and then learn to take them into the silence where you plant them in the soil
of your imagination, you will see a shift in your state of existence. The universe will knit together a new life for you
that closely matches the spirit of the thing that you felt in your heart when
you prayed and imagined. “Now, let us go into the silence.”
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