Joshua 6: The Siege of Consciousness

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Quick Insights

A closed city is a closed state of consciousness that must be patiently encircled by persistent attention.
Repetition and ritual in the imagination establish a steady expectation that reshapes perception and opens the way for change.
Silence and disciplined refusal to react preserve the inner position until the appointed moment of realization.
The final shout and falling wall signify an abrupt inner breakthrough when sustained assumption is allowed to become fact in experience.

What is the Main Point of Joshua 6?

The chapter describes a psychological economy in which steady, disciplined imagination and repeated assumption collapse the barriers of an old reality; what is held firmly and acted upon in the mind will eventually alter outer circumstances. The drama is not a military conquest but an inner campaign: the walls are patterns, fears and inherited narratives that yield only to patient, ordered attention and the decisive acceptance of the new state as already true.

What is the Spiritual Meaning of Joshua 6?

The sealed city represents any area of life that feels inaccessible: a stalled relationship, a stalled career, a frozen identity. It resists casual hope or frantic effort because its defenses are built of accumulated thought. The instruction to circle the city maps a method of steady, uninterrupted focus. Each circuit of attention affirms the imagined outcome, not by volatile emotion but by calm persistence, turning imagination into a habit of consciousness. The seven priests and trumpets are the inner faculties—faith, attention, memory, will, expectation, feeling and imagination—coordinated in a ritual of alignment. When these faculties march together, they vibrate a pattern that the outer senses must obey; the long blast and the shout are the publicized acceptance of the imagined state. Silence before the shout is crucial: it prevents doubt from dissipating the energy before the final assumption. The eventual collapse of the wall is the psyche acknowledging a new boundary; external events rearrange in response to the interior decision. The command that certain things be devoted or accursed reads as a call to moral and psychological discrimination. Some attachments must be relinquished because they embody the old order; others—like Rahab’s hidden allegiance—are spared because they signaled a readiness to join the new consciousness. Mercy is shown to those who covertly accepted the messengers of change, reflecting that small acts of faith within a closed environment are preservative. The burning of the city is purgation: when an inner city falls, its debris is cleared so that a new architecture of identity can be built on consecrated ground.

Key Symbols Decoded

The wall is not a physical barrier but a cumulative habit of perception that says "this is impossible." It is built of repeated thoughts, inherited fears, and habitual speech. The ark and the priests symbolize the sacredness of imagination and attention; they lead the procession not because they are visible power but because they embody the belief that guides action. The trumpets are calls of intent—clarifying signals in consciousness that announce determination and readiness for manifestation. The sevenfold structure implies completeness and rhythm: repetition embeds a new nerve pattern until the body, mind and circumstances align. The silence before the shout decodes as restraint of the skeptical faculties until the inner scene is fully ripe. The shout itself is the inner declaration that collapses contradiction; it is the moment of uncompromising assumption when imagination ceases to be private and becomes the operative fact of life.

Practical Application

Begin with a clear, imagined end and establish a simple, repetitive practice of circling that end in the mind: each day commit a few minutes to envision living from the fulfilled state, as if the wall around that desire were already down. Use ritual markers—time of day, a short gesture or a phrase—to signal attention so the imagination becomes habitual, and refuse to discuss the matter with inner critics during the process. Keep silence toward doubt; note it without argument and return to the assumed scene until it feels stable and embodied. When the image is vivid and persistent, allow yourself an internal proclamation—a private shout that confirms the new identity—and then act outwardly as that new state would act. Clear away attachments that contradict the new assumption by making small consistent choices that align with it. Recognize and preserve whatever within you already sided with the new reality, even if it seems insignificant, and dedicate the gains to service beyond self. Over time, this disciplined combination of imagination, repeated attention and decisive inner declaration will erode the old walls and reveal opportunities that formerly seemed sealed.

The Trumpet That Topples Walls: Rituals of Inner Breakthrough

Joshua 6 reads as an archetypal account of an inner operation in consciousness: the reduction of a closed state, the disciplined application of imagination, and the ultimate overthrow of a fortress of belief. Read psychologically, Jericho is not a literal city but a mental citadel — an entrenched structure of thought, habit, and identity that has shut itself off against new life. Its walls are the amassed counterbeliefs, fears, social identities, and defenses that keep perception confined. To enter and possess Jericho is to transform that inner citadel so that desire can appear in the outer world.

The narrative begins with the phrase that the city was 'straitly shut up.' Psychologically this maps to an obstinate state of mind. When a person 'goes within' and finds their imagination blocked, they encounter Jericho. No one goes out and none comes in: the inner gates of receptivity are closed, ideas cannot escape into manifestation, and new impressions cannot penetrate. The order that follows — the instruction to compass the city and the presence of the ark — shows the method of inner work: a systematic, repeated, faith-filled imagining accompanied by the felt presence of the I AM.

Joshua is the active consciousness, the willful imagination, the one who directs operations. His title 'son of Nun' can be read as the offspring of the unconscious 'seed' or of the deep well in which creative images germinate. He is the faculty that organizes the act of incarnation of desire into lived reality. The ark of the covenant that goes before the people represents the inner awareness of the divine promise — the living belief, the sacred center of feeling that carries the sense of already having. It is not an external instrument but the concentrated awareness of the creative I AM that precedes and opens the way.

The seven priests with seven trumpets are stages and instruments of the creative process. Seven, a number of completion, indicates an entire cycle of inner functions — layers of consciousness, frequencies of feeling, or steps of conviction. The trumpet is breath and voice: the expressive faculty that signals inner readiness. Yet Joshua commands silence. This prohibition on noise is crucial psychologically: the imagination must work quietly. The discipline of silence protects the assumption from contradiction and distraction. It is the law of concentrated faith; the mind must not comment, rationalize, or doubt while the image is being impressed. Each circuit around the city is a rehearsal of the assumed state, a repeated inner living in that which is desired.

For six days the people walk and return to camp: the imagination practices without visible change. The camp is ordinary consciousness, the field where life goes on between acts of deliberate assumption. Repetition without immediate result cultivates endurance and persistence in the subconscious. The seventh day, when the compassing is done seven times and the long blast occurs, symbolizes a consummation — the point at which sustained inner assumption becomes ripe and ready to be released. The long blast matches the inward accumulation of conviction; the shout is the deliberate, harmonious external expression that finally aligns word, feeling, and belief.

The fall of the wall is the psychological climax. Walls fall flat not because of force in the world but because imagined reality has been accepted on the inside. Habitual resistance, which once seemed immovable, collapses when the subconscious has been rewritten by persistent, assumed feeling. The sudden nature of the collapse reveals that transformation in consciousness can be immediate once the inner conditions are met: the appearance follows the change of state. The text’s 'great shout' is the freeing proclamation that the desire is now true; manifestations obey the inner law when conviction becomes complete.

The command that the city is accursed and that all be destroyed is a symbolic prescription: the annihilation of obsolete parts of the self. 'Utterly destroyed' suggests ruthless psychological cleansing. In the drama of self-creation there are elements that must be burned out — habitual judgments, resentments, limiting identifications — so they cannot be re-collected and mixed with the new life. The injunction to keep oneself from the accursed thing warns against salvaging old forms that would contaminate the new state. Psychologically, to take back old beliefs is to reinvite the walls to be rebuilt.

Rahab, the harlot, and her household who are spared represent the humble, receptive element within the psyche that acknowledged the messengers. Rahab is the marginal, disreputable, or ashamed part of the self that nevertheless shelters truth and is willing to act on faith. She is the sensibility that recognizes intelligence from within and hides it from the shouting crowd of doubt. Her salvation shows that anything in consciousness that receives and protects the promise will be integrated into the new life. Those elements that accept the new assumption are redeemed; they are not to be thrown away but welcomed as allies.

The spies sent into Jericho are exploratory imaginal acts. Before committing to an identity, consciousness sends out scouts — tentative imaginings, feelings of what might be — to learn the terrain of the closed state. These scouts return with reports; what they find shapes the later sustained assumption. Their work is indispensable: they reveal that inside even hostile structures there are points of receptivity (embodied by Rahab) and thus possibilities for transformation.

The consecration of silver, gold, and vessels to the Lord is the turning over of the fruits of manifestation to the sovereign imagination. In psychological language, material success and evidence are not to be hoarded for egoic purposes but recognized as the offspring of inner faith. When external goods are consecrated, they become testifying tokens — evidence that supports the new assumption — rather than idols that will reassert old limitations. The burning of the city and the keeping of the treasure to the treasury indicate that manifestation must be purified and dedicated to the higher purpose of inner transformation.

The curse pronounced on anyone who would rebuild Jericho is a stern psychological injunction: do not reconstruct the old identity from the old materials. The builder who fashions the same defences recreates the same limitations; the gates set in the youngest son and the foundation laid in the firstborn represent the earliest impressions and the most recent habits used as the base for identity. The warning is to resist reconditioning, to refuse old patterns the moment they show up. True possession of a new state requires vigilance against nostalgia for what once protected the self.

Throughout the chapter the creative power operates as an internal, sovereign agency. Nothing in the text functions as an independent external causality: the people follow Joshua's instruction, the priests carry the ark, the trumpet is blown — all acts of imagination and faith. The sequence teaches that manifestation results from disciplined inner rehearsal, sacred expectancy, and a final calibrated release of voice and feeling. Silence guards the assumption; repetition stabilizes it; consecration secures its fruits; and ruthless inner housekeeping eliminates obstacles.

Finally, Joshua 6 as psychological drama shows the paradoxical ease of inner victory: it is achieved not by force but by the quiet power of assumption. The most potent weapon is a settled feeling of already having. That feeling is carried like the ark before the host and it alone opens the way. The walls of doubt and the ramparts of habit cannot withstand sustained internal conviction. The mind that will 'compass' its closed citadels in faith, day by day, and that preserves the faithful part of itself, will find that the external world rearranges in perfect obedience. This is a prescription: know the inner Jericho, send forth your spies, shelter the faithful parts, practice the silent, repeated assumption, and at the appointed moment release the call — then watch the walls fall and enter into the life you have imagined.

Common Questions About Joshua 6

What practical manifestation lessons can I learn from Joshua 6?

Practice making your desired end vivid and real in imagination, then assume the feeling of its fulfillment and persist without contradicting it; the daily circling of the city shows steady, repeated attention to the end, and the priests' unceasing blowing signifies sustained inner affirmation (Joshua 6). Keep silent about doubt and do not speak probabilities; live mentally in the state you desire until it becomes your dominant consciousness, then release it with confidence and gratitude. Protect your assumption from contamination by old beliefs, and allow the inner conviction to shape outer events without hasty interference.

How does Neville Goddard interpret the fall of Jericho in Joshua 6?

Neville Goddard sees the fall of Jericho as a dramatized account of how imagination and assumption bring down the walls of limitation; the city is the world of sense and the walls are the obstacles of unbelief, while the ark and priests represent the living I AM within and the tone of inner conviction that precedes outward change (Joshua 6). The seven days and seven trumpets teach persistence in a chosen state until it is accepted by consciousness; the final shout is the inner proclamation of the fulfilled desire, at which point the imagined fact externalizes and the impossible becomes manifest.

Why did the walls of Jericho fall according to Neville's teachings?

The walls fell because sustained assumption and imaginative conviction altered the state of consciousness that constructs external circumstances; persistent inner living in the desired scene undermines the solidity of the outward obstacle until it collapses (Joshua 6). The trumpets and shout symbolize concentrated imaginative activity and the inner declaration of reality, causing the belief-built walls to dissolve. In this view, external resistance is not the primary enemy but a reflection of inner disbelief; when imagination and feeling hold the end as already accomplished, the world's barriers fall away and your inner command becomes visible in outer experience.

How do I use imagination and assumption from Joshua 6 to manifest outcomes?

Begin by forming a clear, sensory-rich scene implying the fulfilled desire and enter it in imagination as if already real, feeling the satisfaction and gratitude of the end; this is the ark of your consciousness moving before the world (Joshua 6). Repeat the scene daily, circling it mentally until it dominates your state, and refuse to give voice to doubt or opposing talk. The final act is to rest in the assumption and live from it without anxiety, allowing the inner shout of conviction to discharge into the world; practical patience and disciplined imagination convert wish into fact.

What does the marching and silence in Joshua 6 symbolize in consciousness work?

The marching represents steady, ordered attention and the deliberate movement of awareness around the object of desire, showing that sustained practice, not frantic effort, effects change; the priests and ark signify the inner presence and living assumption that must lead every action (Joshua 6). Silence points to refraining from contradicting words and self-defeating thoughts, preserving the purity of the assumed state. Together they teach that a disciplined, silent fidelity to an imagined end, repeated until it is accepted by consciousness, is what dislodges entrenched conditions and allows manifestation to occur without turmoil.