Psalm 111: Praise as a State of Consciousness

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Quick Insights

Praise as an inward posture names the conscious attention that energizes creation and aligns experience.
Whole-heartedness and assembly speak to integration of inner faculties and the harmonized company of focused imaginal states.
The enduring nature of righteous works describes assumptions and patterns that once accepted persistently order outer events.
Fear as reverent awe and covenantal mindfulness are the disciplines by which imagination feeds and sustains new realities.

What is the Main Point of Psalms 111?

This chapter read as states of consciousness teaches that reality is shaped by a consecrated, attentive imagination: when the mind praises and recognizes its own creative works, when intention is remembered and nourished, and when awe holds steady as a formative discipline, inner imaginings crystallize into lasting experience. The central principle is that a reverent, whole-hearted assumption, sustained and shared inwardly, acts like a covenant with the deeper mind and brings orderly manifestation.

What is the Spiritual Meaning of Psalms 111?

To praise with the whole heart describes an undivided attention that consecrates thought and feeling to a chosen end. In psychological drama this is the moment of alignment when desire, emotion, and belief cease their internal quarrel and agree upon an image to live in. Such praise is not polite gratitude but a creative consent: it empowers the image until it moves from private feeling into public fact in the psyche, and then in outer life. The assembly of the upright and the congregation are not bodies in a building but the inner company of aligned impulses — memory, imagination, will, and feeling — that witness and support the chosen state. When these faculties take their place together, the mind's creative faculty is no longer fragmented. Memory remembers the desired state as real, imagination lives there, will sustains it, and feeling supplies the fuel. The psychological drama resolves from conflict into organized action and the 'works' of consciousness begin to appear. The chapter's repeated insistence on enduring righteousness and sure commandments describes the nature of habitual assumptions. Once an assumption is honored and fed, it becomes a law within the individual's experience. That law governs perception and choice, producing consequences that feel like verity and judgment. Redemption and covenant here refer to the possibility of returning from scattered, fearful states into a stable habit of creative imagining — a vow with the deeper self to dwell consistently in a chosen scene until it transforms outer circumstance.

Key Symbols Decoded

Symbols such as 'works' and 'wonderful works to be remembered' are states of imagination and the impressions they leave upon the subconscious. A 'work' is simply a sustained inner act — an image rehearsed until it acquires the gravity to pull events. Remembering such works is the process of recalling and rehearsing that image with feeling, so it becomes the operative background of experience. 'Mindful of his covenant' becomes the steady attention and discipline by which the conscious mind keeps faith with the inner agreement; it is the practice of returning to the same creative assumption until the subconscious registers it as fact. 'Fear' translated here as reverent awe functions as the discipline that initiates wisdom. It is not terror but a respectful seriousness toward the creative power of imagination, the sober stewardship of attention. The 'heritage of the heathen' and 'redeemed people' symbolize the transfer from old inherited patterns to a new inheritance — the states of mind one intentionally claims. Commandments that 'stand fast' are the rules of imagination: persistent assumption, emotional conviction, and repeated inner experience. These are the only laws that ultimately stand in the psyche long enough to produce an enduring outer order.

Practical Application

Begin by cultivating a simple, whole-hearted scene you wish to inhabit. Sit quietly and praise the scene inwardly: describe it with feeling, allow the sensations to fill you, and refuse every impulse to contradict it. Treat this practice as a covenant with your own deeper consciousness — a repeated agreement to return to that scene until it becomes the dominant background of your awareness. Do not treat praise as passive gratitude but as deliberate sustained attention; hold the image with delight and seriousness together. In daily life enlist the 'assembly' of inner faculties by naming and coordinating memory, imagination, will, and feeling. When doubt arises, let memory recall evidence consistent with your chosen state, let imagination embellish it with sensory detail, let will refuse lower impressions, and let feeling supply the lived experience. Over time these small rehearsals become the durable commandments of your inner world, and the outward circumstances will reorganize to reflect that new inner law.

When Praise Becomes Wisdom: The Enduring Testament of Divine Works

Psalm 111, when read as inward drama, describes a single waking intelligence discovering and exercising its own creative power. The poem is not a report about events in the world but a map of consciousness, each line naming a posture of mind, an experience, and a technique for bringing the unseen into form. Read from this angle, the LORD named in the psalm is not an external deity but the living I AM within the individual, the center of awareness that makes and remembers, judges and redeems.

The opening call, Praise ye the LORD, is the impulse to give attention. Praise here is not mere approval; it is focused, whole-hearted applause by the faculties of perception for the presence that creates. I will praise the LORD with my whole heart indicates complete attention as the creative instrument. The heart in this language equals feeling allied to imagination. To praise with the whole heart is to sustain a delighted, believing mood toward an inner image. The assembly of the upright and the congregation are then the harmonized parts of consciousness — thought, feeling, will, memory — gathered and aligned. Only when the scattered inner elements assemble uprightly does the creative act proceed without self-contradiction.

The psalmist announces that the works of the LORD are great, sought out of all them that have pleasure therein. The works are inner acts of imagining and willing. They are great because they alter the field of experience and persist until the personality recognizes them. Those who take pleasure in these works are the ones who enjoy constructing reality; their delight is not trivial but the fuel of creation. Pleasure here signals that imagination has entered joyful expectation rather than anxiety, and that expectation invites form.

His work is honourable and glorious, his righteousness endureth for ever. Honourable and glorious describe the integrity of imaginal acts that are coherent and generous in aim. Righteousness enduring speaks to the durability of a self-consistent assumption. When you assume a state without inner contradiction, it endures; it becomes the new law of experience for that consciousness. The psalmist says that wonderful works are to be remembered, which gives memory a central role. Memory is the registrar where imagined acts are filed and replayed until they harden into habit and outer circumstance. To make the wonderful works remembered is to repeat and internalize the victorious scene until it colors all subsequent perception.

The LORD is gracious and full of compassion. In psychological terms, grace and compassion are qualities of the I AM when it meets the personality. Grace is the unearned uplifting that consciousness offers when it is assumed as already fulfilled; compassion is the willingness to transmute failure into new possibility. These are not moral attributes imposed from without but operative modes of mind that transform resistance into resource. He has given meat unto them that fear him. Meat is sustenance of idea, the conceived scene or word that feeds imagination. Fear, when used in the biblical tone, means reverential attention — the awe that allows imagination to be receptive. Those who respect the creative center receive the nourishing idea and are sustained in the work of embodiment.

He will ever be mindful of his covenant. Covenant is the agreement between awareness and its own imagining. Psychologically this is the promise one makes and keeps with oneself: the assumption that I am already what I seek. Mindfulness of the covenant is the practice of not breaking that assumption when facts appear contrary. This guarded, steady fidelity is the discipline that translates inner promise into outer reality.

He hath shewed his people the power of his works, that he may give them the heritage of the heathen. Here the people are the parts of the psyche that have been instructed in creative law. The power of his works is demonstration; consciousness demonstrates by producing change. The heritage of the heathen is the world formerly ruled by blind habit and public opinion; to give it as heritage is to claim the formerly unconscious scene and reimagine it as belonging to the renewed self. In other words, by persistent, deliberate imagining one appropriates the environment to the inner decree.

The works of his hands are verity and judgment; all his commandments are sure. Hands are the faculties of attention and imagination made operative. Their works are called verity because what is imagined with conviction becomes true to the experiencer. Judgment here is the discriminating faculty that maintains internal consistency, ensuring that the imagined state is supported by the whole personality. Commandments are not arbitrary rules but psychological principles: assume, feel, persist. They are sure because they agree with the structure of mind; they stand fast forever when practiced without contradiction.

They are done in truth and uprightness. To act in truth is to imagine without countering thoughts; uprightness names integrity of intention. When the imaginal act is untainted by doubt, the inward work is complete and outward manifestation follows. He sent redemption unto his people; he hath commanded his covenant for ever. Redemption is a shift of identity. In the drama of consciousness, the people are trapped by past assumptions and are redeemed when they accept a higher self-definition. This redemption is not a one-off miracle but the steady re-issuing of the covenant that commands the inner state and thus reorders experience.

Holy and reverend is his name. The name of the inner power is reverent because it demands respect; holy because it is set apart as the source of new being. This line is a psychological injunction to honor the creative center, to treat imagination not as trivial fantasy but as the sacred instrument capable of birthing worlds.

The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom. Reverent attention to the I AM initiates true understanding. Wisdom emerges not from intellectualizing but from a practiced awe that recognizes the power of assumption. A good understanding have all they that do his commandments. Understanding is the fruit of obedience to psychological law. Those who follow the inner directives — to assume, to dwell, to feel — develop an intuitive understanding that governs successful creation. His praise endureth for ever. Praise is the sustaining mood; when it endures it keeps the field aligned with the assumed state and secures lasting transformation.

Taken together, the psalm prescribes an inner method. First, assemble the faculties; give whole-hearted attention to an imaginal act that pleases. Let the feeling of accomplishment be present, and repeat the scene until it is remembered within the structure of mind. Receive the sustenance that reverent attention brings; do not betray the covenant by entertaining contradictory thoughts. Allow the discriminating faculty to police the inner field so that the imagined state is consistent and upright. Expect demonstration; the power of the works will reveal itself by reassigning outer facts to the assumed inner condition. Finally, honor the process. Reverence for the I AM and persistent praise of the assumed reality are the final elements that secure long-term manifestation.

This is not a promise about external miracles in miraculous language, but a psychological account of how imagination creates reality. The psalmist describes no magic separate from the knower; he records the lived law that shapes experience when attention is deliberately directed. Blessings are not arbitrary favors but the natural product of right use of inner faculties. Redemption is the correction of the self-image, and heritage is the new landscape that results when inner law is obeyed.

Thus Psalm 111 becomes a manual for inner transformation. Its characters are states: the LORD is awareness, the assembly is alignment, the works are imaginal acts, the covenant is disciplined assumption, and praise is sustained feeling. The drama is simple and practical: praise what you are becoming until your whole mind participates, remember the imagery until it roots in memory, and hold the covenant against contrary reports until the outer life conforms. When this is done in truth and uprightness the creative power within you acts exactly as described, and the world without is transposed into the heritage of a renewed self.

Common Questions About Psalms 111

Can reciting Psalm 111 daily change my consciousness and outcomes?

Yes, when recitation is transformed into inner practice it can recondition your habitual state and thus alter outcomes; spoken words become seeds only when accompanied by feeling and assumption. Daily praise from Psalm 111 directs attention to God’s works, provision, and covenantal faithfulness, which trains the imagination to expect and embody those realities. Coupled with deliberate imagination—feeling satisfied, secure, and grateful—the repeated psalmic declarations shift your state so that outer events begin to correspond. Consistency, sincerity, and the avoidance of doubting analysis are essential; the psalm provides a spiritual script to inhabit, and inhabiting it will steadily change both consciousness and circumstance (Psalm 111:1,5,10).

How do you turn Psalm 111 into an imaginal act or visualization session?

Select a line or two from Psalm 111 that resonates with your desire and make a short, sensory scene around it; for example, imagine receiving sustenance and covenantal care from the Lord as promised in verse 5, feeling gratitude, warmth, and relief in your body. Enter a relaxed, receptive state, describe the scene in present tense, involve sight, sound, taste, and emotion, and persist in that state until it feels settled and natural. Repeat briefly before sleep to impress the subconscious, avoiding argument or wishing; simply live inwardly in the fulfilled scene. The psalm’s language of praise and remembrance supplies potent symbols to embody the desired reality.

Which verses in Psalm 111 best support gratitude and the Law of Assumption?

Several verses supply the raw material for grateful assumption: begin with the call to praise and wholehearted devotion (Psalm 111:1), then rest in the declaration that the works of the LORD are great and worthy to be sought out (Psalm 111:2–3). Verse 4’s testimony to his wonderful works and verse 5’s promise that he provides for those who fear him are excellent for imagining provision and care. Verses 7–8, “The works of his hands are truth and judgment,” ground the imagined good in faithful outcome, while verse 10, that the fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, affirms steady trust as the inner posture that makes assumption operative.

How can Psalm 111 be used as a Neville Goddard-style manifestation practice?

Begin by recognizing Psalm 111 as a script that fixes your inner recognition of divine provision and covenant; read the lines to evoke the feeling rather than merely the words. Take a verse such as “He hath given meat unto them that fear him” (Psalm 111:5) and craft a vivid imaginal scene in which you are receiving that provision now, savoring the senses and the gratitude. Assume the state of fulfillment and praise described in the psalm, dwell in that state until it feels real, and repeat quietly before sleep or in a relaxed state to impress the subconscious. Neville taught that sustained assumption feeling is the seed that brings the outward harvest, and Psalm 111 provides textured content for that inner act.

What is Neville Goddard's likely interpretation of 'The works of his hands are truth and justice' (Psalm 111:7)?

Neville would point to this line as an affirmation that what the imagination creates is inherently true to the state assumed; the phrase “works of his hands” (Psalm 111:7) becomes the manifest consequence of inner law. Truth and justice describe the fidelity of consciousness: when you assume a state and live from it, the outer world will realign to validate that inner reality. In practical terms, justice is not punishment but correspondence — your imagined state receives its rightful expression. Neville emphasized that the Creator and creation are not separate; the hand that fashions experience is the living imagination, and its works stand as truthful evidence of your assumed state.