Exodus 7: States of Consciousness — Strength vs Weakness

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Quick Insights

Consciousness speaks through characters: Moses as awakened awareness, Aaron as articulating belief, and Pharaoh as the resisting habit of doubt.
The drama shows how imagination, once assumed and acted upon, transforms perception and reshapes the outer world because inner states precede outer events.
Opposition and mimicry emerge from familiar patterns attempting to replicate change without true conviction, which only deepens the resistance.
The narrative teaches patient persistence: some shifts require repeated, embodied imaginal acts and a refusal to surrender to immediate sensory evidence.

What is the Main Point of Exodus 7?

The chapter teaches that the willing exercise of imagination and the clear declaration of inner conviction function like commands to the psyche; when awareness assumes and speaks the new reality, habitual resistance is exposed, challenged, and gradually displaced by a lived inner change that inevitably colors external circumstances.

What is the Spiritual Meaning of Exodus 7?

The encounter with Pharaoh is not merely a political confrontation but the inner contest between newly awakened purpose and entrenched identity. Moses, advanced in age and thus seasoned in inward labor, represents the awareness that finally claims authority over the imagination. Aaron, who speaks, is the faculty of expression that gives form to that inner claim. When the rod becomes a serpent it signals an imaginal act so vivid and accepted that it takes on life within the psyche, moving possibility from mere idea into felt reality. Resistance appears as Pharaoh’s hardened heart, which is the accumulated refusal to yield to a new self-conception. That hardening is not imposed externally but repeatedly reinforced by attention given to doubt and by the habit of explaining away inner movements. The magicians who perform similar feats are the ego’s familiar defenses trying to imitate change without the inner surrender that produces lasting transformation; their rods becoming serpents but ultimately being swallowed symbolizes superficial imitations being subsumed by a deeper imaginative truth. The turning of the river to blood dramatizes how dominant feeling floods perception. Water, ordinarily life-giving and fluid, becomes contaminated when imagination is seized by conviction or terror; the senses then report a world aligned to the inner state. This teaches that the sensual evidence of the world is pliable to the prevailing inner mood. The seven days that follow imply a period of gestation and testing: transformations are rarely instantaneous in lived experience, and the psyche often requires cycles of consolidation before the new pattern reorders the whole field of perception.

Key Symbols Decoded

The rod is the instrument of focused attention and the will of imagination; when it is thrown down and becomes a serpent, the image you live in imagination acquires motion and intention and becomes a ruling part of the inner life. The serpent is neither wholly hostile nor wholly benign; it is the energized image that carries authority. When one rod swallows another it signifies the supremacy of a dominant contemplative state over lesser, competing beliefs that only mimic surface change. The river represents the stream of feeling and habitual perception that sustains daily experience. Blood, in this psychological reading, is the saturation of that feeling-stream with a vivid, defining belief so intense that it alters how everything tastes and looks. The magicians are the rationalizations and learned scripts that attempt to recreate transformation without inner conviction, showing how the mind will mimic change if given clever words but cannot generate true reordering without authentic imaginative acceptance. Pharaoh’s hardened heart is the pattern of refusal anchored by repeated attention; it is not mystical punishment so much as a psychological endpoint of unexamined, repeated reactions.

Practical Application

Begin by identifying the roles within: name the Moses-quality in you that is willing to assume a new state and the Aaron-quality that will speak it aloud in imagination. Choose a single inner claim you intend to live — a short, present-tense scene that implies the new reality — and rehearse it in feeling with decisive attention until it moves you more than your old habit does. Use a simple symbolic gesture if it helps: hold your hand as if holding a rod and imagine turning the felt scene into a living presence that commands your attention. When familiar doubts arise, notice the magicians at work, how they mimic change with words or clever explanations; refuse to be satisfied by imitation and let the dominant imaginal scene swallow those half-measures by being repeatedly and persistently assumed. Expect resistance and give it time: allow cycles of consolidation, observing how the ‘‘river’’ of feeling shifts gradually and how your sensory world begins to align. When the outer world seems to contradict your new inner state, persist inwardly rather than argue outwardly, for the evidence of the senses will follow the sustained state of consciousness. Practice this patiently and repeatedly until the old hardened responses soften and the new imagining becomes the governing mood of your life.

The River's Reckoning: A Drama of Signs, Sovereignty, and Stubborn Hearts

Exodus 7, read as inner drama, is a compact theater of consciousness in which names, objects, and acts are not external events but the movement of states within the mind. In this scene Moses and Aaron are not merely historical persons sent to a physical king; they are the modalities of awareness that confront the ruling center of a limited self. Pharaoh is the ego-state of stubborn sense-bound identity that insists on its separateness and control. Egypt is the field of sensory evidence and habitual interpretation. The river is the stream of feeling and belief that gives life to the visible world. The rod, the serpent, the magicians, the turning of water to blood — each become metaphors for imaginal acts, resistances, counterfeits, and the creative power by which inner reality shapes outer appearance.

The opening word — 'I have made thee a god to Pharaoh; and Aaron thy brother shall be thy prophet' — is a statement about legitimate imaginative authority. To 'become a god' here means to operate as the conscious creative center that shapes experience. Moses represents the awareness that recognizes itself as divine cause; Aaron represents the articulate function, the voice that translates imagination into proclamation. The instruction that Aaron shall be the prophet points to the necessity of speech and inner declaration: imagination must be given expression through inner speech, ritual, or picture, otherwise the old order maintains its hold.

When the text says, 'I will harden Pharaoh's heart,' it stages the paradox that the resistance of the ego can appear as an external agency. Psychologically, hardening is the consolidation of disbelief, the self-protective crust of habits and rationalizations that refuses to accept a new imagining. But this hardening is not some foreign punishment; it is the ego's insistence upon evidence and the reflex to defend its identity. The hardening exists so that the fuller creative work might be seen and tested: the sameness of behavior gives the imaginal agent an arena in which to operate. The text frames this dynamically — the resistance intensifies the demonstration, and the imagination must act more boldly.

The first staged miracle — the rod cast down becoming a serpent, and the magicians doing likewise — dramatizes conflict among imaginal powers. A rod is a symbol of authority and direction; cast down, it becomes a serpent: the living, active form of imagination. When Aaron's rod swallows the rods of the magicians, the inner message is clear: a true imaginative assumption consumes and transforms lesser, mimetic images. The magicians are the habitual, reactive imaginations — the cultural and familial suggestions that can imitate a spiritual act superficially but cannot fulfill it. They produce serpents too, because belief alone can shape appearances. Yet their works are swallowed when the higher imaginative assumption acts from a centered consciousness; genuine creative conviction integrates, neutralizes, or transmutes competing beliefs.

That Pharaoh's court has its own sorcerers tells us how many human systems have built in counter-imaginations — rituals, justifications, and shame loops that reproduce the same world. These inner magicians are skilled at producing phenomena that maintain the status quo. Their enchantments are the learned ways the subconscious manufactures appearances to make the ego's story seem true. But the swallowing of their rods by Aaron's rod dramatizes the primacy of the imaginative assumption rooted in awakened awareness. It demonstrates how an integrated, authoritative act of imagination consumes smaller assumptions and changes the pattern of results.

The scene by the river, where Moses strikes and the waters become blood, is central to the psychological reading. Water is feeling, flux of attention, the emotional substratum that nourishes thought-forms. To ‘turn water into blood’ is to show how a change in meaning — an inner imaginal act — can convert life-sustaining feeling into perceived contamination. Blood here symbolizes the life-blood of identity, appropriated into a narrative of scarcity, threat, or guilt. When the mind imagines itself in a posture of lack or danger, the whole stream of feeling is experienced as tainted. Fish dying in the river are the inner faculties of perception and creativity that suffocate when the feeling life is redefined as poisoned. The stench is the feeling-tone of revulsion that accompanies a settled negative assumption.

The instruction that Aaron stretch the rod upon all waters — streams, rivers, pools — is an inner ritual: a targeted imaginal declaration that re-signifies feeling environments. It teaches that imagination is not random; it is applied and specific. The phrase 'throughout all the land' underscores how a ruling assumption colors every vessel of perception, 'in vessels of wood and of stone' — in softer and harder structures of thought alike. All containers of consciousness are affected when a dominant assumption takes hold.

The magicians repeating the feat with their enchantments returns us to the theme of imitation versus authenticity. The subconscious can be adept at reproducing effects; habit and collective suggestion can mimic the shape of a transformation without the density of conviction behind it. But Pharaoh's heart remains hardened; the effect is seen but not accepted. This is the difference between observing a psychological shift and inhabiting it. The hardened heart refuses to let the imaginal proclamation govern action; it treats signs as curiosities rather than as evidence of inner cause.

Pharaoh’s withdrawal to his house, failing to 'set his heart' to the matter, dramatizes the split between witnessing change and allowing identity to be rearranged by it. The ego can watch its feelings change and still cling to its older narrative. The Egyptians digging round the river for water models the frantic, reactive efforts of the intellect and habit systems to find substitutes when the primary source of feeling is re-signified. They seek external solutions rather than accept an internal re-creation. The seven days that follow mark a gestation or testing period: in psychic processes a new assumption may require time to manifest fully in outer results. Seven suggests completion — a circumscribed timeframe of inner incubation during which the new imagination impregnates perception.

The line 'that I may lay my hand upon Egypt, and bring forth mine armies, and my people the children of Israel, out of the land of Egypt by great judgments' expresses a purposeful movement: the imagination (I AM) mobilizes inner forces to extricate the true self from the prison of sensory identity. 'Armies' are not literal troops but faculties, powers, and virtues that have been held in abeyance by the reigning ego. The 'children of Israel' are the higher possibilities in a person — the self that is covenantal with I AM — that must be liberated from Egyptian bondage (bondage to sense-impressions, roles, and conditioning). The 'great judgments' are decisive inner reckonings in which the imagination summons the necessary events (felt, thought, and enacted) to effect liberation.

Important too is the dialectic of authority and testimony. 'Thou shalt speak all that I command thee; and Aaron thy brother shall speak unto Pharaoh' symbolizes the need for the inner leader to assume authority and for the articulating function to give witness. An imagined future must be accepted in consciousness and declared as present truth. The prophet-function (Aaron) is not a passive announcer but the faithful echo of the inner sovereign; speech completes the circuit between assumption and reality.

The repetition — that Moses and Aaron did as the LORD commanded — tells a psychological story about fidelity. Change in life requires repeated acts of imagination executed with obedience to the inner instruction. It is not occasional fantasy, but disciplined imaginal enactment that effects transformation. The ages assigned to Moses and Aaron — life-worn, mature — speak to the fact that the creative encounter often comes to the consciousness that has been tempered and prepared, not to a fledgling desire untested.

Finally, the chapter frames a radical thesis: reality shifts because consciousness shifts. Signs and wonders are inner phenomena made public by their outer consequences. Imagination, as the operative 'I' in man, is the divine instrument that molds feeling, thought, and circumstance. What is called 'God' in the story is the self-aware creative faculty that says 'I AM' and thereby imposes a sense of being that underlies all events. Pharaoh's resistance is the ego's last grasp, but even this resistance is useful; it furnishes the arena in which the imagination proves itself. The magicians' mimicry shows that the subconscious can be enlisted to fake transformation, but authentic liberation comes when the sovereign act of assumption is followed through until the old orders are dissolved and the higher self emerges.

Reading Exodus 7 as a psychological drama frees the reader from literalism and reveals a practical psalm of inner technique: name the sovereign center, give it voice, make the imaginal act, confront the hardened beliefs, and persist through the gestation until the streams of feeling are re-signed. Then the armies of inner faculties will come forth to escort the self out of Egypt and into a wilderness where imagination, not mere appearance, governs the formation of reality.

Common Questions About Exodus 7

How does Neville Goddard interpret the water-to-blood miracle in Exodus 7?

Neville Goddard reads the water-to-blood miracle as a portrait of inner transformation: water stands for the common, outward consciousness and blood for the life that flows from a changed inner assumption. Moses represents awakened awareness and Aaron the speaking faculty which declares the new state; the rod is the power of attention that, when assumed, changes appearance. The magicians mimic appearances but Aaron’s rod swallowing theirs shows the supremacy of a single dominant assumption. The hardening of Pharaoh’s heart demonstrates how fixed inner belief resists change until the new assumption is persistently felt and held (Exodus 7).

What practical Neville-style exercises can Bible students use based on Exodus 7?

Use the Exodus episode as an imaginative scene to be lived: sit quietly and picture the river as your present difficulty, then imagine with sensory detail the rod in your hand striking the water and it turning to blood, dwelling in the feeling that the change has already occurred. Speak the declaration aloud in imagination, embrace the certainty, then end the session feeling gratitude for the fulfilled outcome. Repeat nightly for five minutes before sleep and revise any contrary day scenes into the assumed end. Let Aaron’s spoken role remind you to articulate the new state until your assumption overpowers old appearances (Exodus 7).

How does the confrontation between Moses and Pharaoh illustrate the law of assumption?

The confrontation dramatizes the law of assumption by showing two opposing states of consciousness meeting: Moses’ assumed authority and Pharaoh’s entrenched refusal. The miracles are not random but the visible consequence of which inner state rules; Aaron’s rod acting as prophet’s word makes the assumed state manifest, while Pharaoh’s resistance is the persistence of a contrary assumption hardened into fact. The story teaches that the imagination held as real compels circumstances to conform, and that persistent assuming of the end dissolves opposing appearances until the outer world yields to the inner conviction (Exodus 7).

What does Exodus 7 teach about the role of imagination and consciousness in manifestation?

Exodus 7 teaches that imagination and consciousness are the creative architects of our world: what is borne inwardly will be manifested outwardly. The river as collective thought becomes altered when a new inner word is spoken and felt; miracles follow the state impressed upon the imagination. Those who merely imitate outward signs without the inner conviction produce lesser effects, while a dominant, living assumption swallows opposing appearances. The narrative shows that persistence of inner thought hardens into external fact and that revelation is manifest when consciousness changes its object and dwells in the end as real (Exodus 7).

Why did God 'harden Pharaoh's heart' and how would Neville explain that in terms of inner belief?

The hardening of Pharaoh’s heart is, from an imaginative standpoint, the outward disclosure of an inwardly fixed assumption; God allows the prevailing state to show its fullness so that the power of the inner word may be demonstrated. Rather than arbitrary punishment, it reveals how persistent inner belief crystallizes into outer resistance until confronted by a stronger assumption. This hardening teaches that beliefs, once entertained and repeated, take on a life of their own; to change the world one must first change the heart within, displacing the old assumption with a convincingly felt new scene (Exodus 7).