Zechariah 6: Crowns and Consciousness

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Quick Insights

The four chariots are movable states of consciousness that travel out from a place of inner solidity, each color naming a different energetic quality that shapes perception.
What returns from captivity are faculties reclaimed from conditioning; when honored and united they become crowned aspects of the self that can build an inner sanctuary.
The figure who is crowned represents an integrated inner authority where priestly imagination and kingly will sit together, producing a counsel of peace that governs experience.
Imagination is the formative power: when you deliberately assume the state you wish to dwell in, the earth of your life rearranges itself to reflect that inner temple.

What is the Main Point of Zechariah 6?

This chapter invites you to recognize that what appears as external movement and political change are first movements within consciousness: four dynamic qualities issue forth from a hardened belief, they range across inner geography, and when the parts that were scattered or captive are gathered and honored, a central imaginative authority emerges to build and inhabit a new reality. The work is psychological and imaginal — reclaiming, crowning, and settling into the state that is to be realized so that outer conditions follow.

What is the Spiritual Meaning of Zechariah 6?

Seen as an inner drama, the mountains of brass speak of long-held convictions that have become rigid and protective. From between those convictions move the chariots — impulses that will test and reshape the borders of your inner world. The colors are not random; they describe passion, shadow, clarity, and the mixed tones of experience that must all be observed and allowed passage. The angel’s commentary about where they go is an observation of how different currents of feeling and thought make their way through the psyche, quieting or agitating various regions until the whole field adjusts. When the word comes to take from captivity, it describes the retrieval of parts of yourself that have been exiled by shame, fear, or past conditioning. To take silver and gold and make crowns is to confer dignity and office to those recovered faculties so they can stand in their rightful place. The crowning of the inner high priest is an act of assumption: you assign leadership not to external circumstance but to the honored image within. This crowned presence is called the Branch because it grows out of your grounded center and will be the builder of the inner sanctuary — a continuous act of imagining and maintaining a state that underlies outward form. The counsel of peace promised between priest and throne is the lived experience of integration, not an abstract idea. It is the alignment between imagination (the ability to conceive and inhabit a new state) and will (the decision to abide in that state until it yields results). When those faculties cease to fight and begin to consult, your inner life becomes a coherent field that attracts corresponding events. The warning and promise woven through the chapter — that obedience to the voice of this inner guidance matters — points to disciplined attention and faithful assumption as the practical condition for transformation.

Key Symbols Decoded

Four chariots: moving forces of thought and feeling that traverse the landscape of the mind; their emergence signals that inner dynamics are active and wanting direction. Mountains of brass: established beliefs and defenses that have weight and resistance; they frame which possibilities feel allowable. Horses by color: red suggests passion and creative force, black the hidden or shadow energies that need direction, white the clarifying insight that follows disciplined work, and the grizzled/bay tones the matured, mixed experiences that integrate lesson and habit. Joshua crowned: the inner priestly king, a personage of consciousness who can sanctify desires and regulate action by occupying the imagined throne. Silver and gold: qualities of perception — silver as reflective receptivity, gold as steady creative intention — used to invest recovered parts with honor. The temple to be built is an internal dwelling made of sustained states: it is the habitual field in which imagination lives so thoroughly that outward life conforms to it.

Practical Application

Begin by watching the four currents within you without judgment: notice where passion charges, where shadow withdraws, where clarity lights, and where mixed compromise lingers. Give each its moment to move, then intentionally gather the parts of yourself that feel captive to old stories; imagine them returning, cleaned by light, and picture placing a crown upon them made of silver and gold. This is a simple imaginal ritual that enacts the crowning: in quiet, name the function you restore, visualize the metal, and see the recovered faculty accept its office. Once crowned, speak as the crowned one — not in arrogance but in settled assumption. Live from that assumed inner authority for small spans at first: hold a feeling of composure where once you reacted, carry a sustained imagination of completion where you used to doubt. Build the temple by repeating these small habitual acts until they feel natural; allow the counsel of peace between your creative imagining and deliberate will to resolve choices. The outer world will begin to move in accordance with that internal architecture because imagination, tended and honored, creates the pattern that experience eventually mirrors.

Wheels of Judgment, Crown of Restoration

Zechariah 6 reads like a compact psychological play staged inside the human mind. The visual elements are not historical props but states of consciousness: mountains, chariots, horses, crowns, priests, and a mysterious Branch. Read this chapter as an inner map and the figures as parts of the psyche acting out a transformation from fragmentation to integrated authority. The story tells how imagination and attention move through rigid belief, retrieve exiled capacities, and crown the restored priest-king within.

The two mountains of brass form the scene from which the four chariots emerge. Mountains are archetypal structures of belief and habit; brass implies something hardened, metallic, resistant. In inner terms these brass mountains are the set convictions and defenses that frame our perception. Between them, unexpected energies are born. The space between rigid beliefs is precisely where new movement can appear: attention loosening its grip, a gap in which imagination can operate. The four chariots coming out from that interval announce ordered functions of consciousness released into the field of experience.

Each chariot is paired with horses of distinct colors. Colors in scripture function like psychological shorthand for affective tone. The red horses carry the fiery, impulsive energy of desire and will. They are the drive toward action, ambition, and the rush that initiates change. The black horses represent the subterranean unconscious, the unknown contents that travel toward the north country, a place of reserve or cold containment. Black is not simply evil; it is the depth of unlit material that must be acknowledged and moved. The white horses follow the black; they are clarity and conscious apprehension that come after the hidden has been stirred — understanding, purification, the interpretive faculty. The grisled and bay horses are mixed, seasoned experience: mottled memory, wisdom matured through life, ambiguity and nuance. They carry the capacity to integrate seeming contradictions.

An inner presence — an observing awareness — asks the meaning of this procession, and that very question models what the chapter prescribes: an inquiry into mental contents rather than a literal report of external events. The answer names them ‘‘the four spirits of the heavens which go forth from standing before the Lord of all the earth.â€™â€™ Psychologically, these ‘‘spiritsâ€™â€™ are fundamental modes or currents of consciousness that act from the position of the divine subjective center (the I AM or higher self). They are not foreign forces but facets of mind that proceed outward to influence perception and behavior.

The directions the horses take are significant. The black horses go toward the north country. North, in symbolic language, often suggests a place of reserve, reflection, or inner winter: the mind’s archive, the hidden zone where repressed material rests. Declaring that these spirits quieted the Lordâ€™s spirit in the north country says that when the unconscious is engaged and allowed its passage, inner agitation is calmed. The white horses follow the black, suggesting that conscious clarity follows from engaging the obscure material. The grisled/bay horses move to and fro, describing the restless, exploratory quality of maturated experience that walks across the inner landscape, synthesizing what it finds.

The phrase get you hence, walk to and fro through the earth reads like an internal command to distribute attention. The chariots are authorized to patrol the inner world. This is the imagination at work: ordered elements of mind sent on reconnaissance, changing the scene through persistent mental movement. Attention walks to and fro; imagination plays out corrective scenes in the theater of the mind until the felt reality within shifts.

The vision then pivots. The speaker is told to take certain persons from captivity and go to the house of Josiah. These named persons are not literal exiles but symbolic fragments of personality and capacity that have been held in confinement. Captivity denotes exile from conscious recognition: gifts, memories, loyalties, or skills relegated to the margin by trauma, shame, or neglect. The instruction to take them ‘‘that same dayâ€™â€™ models immediate psychological retrieval: the moment one recognizes what is in exile, one can move to welcome and reinstate it.

Bringing them to the house of Josiah is equally symbolic. Houses in inner language are sanctuaries: the sanctuary of attention. Josiah, a reforming figure, represents the part of the psyche committed to cleansing and reorientation. House plus reformer suggests an inner place where deliberate restructuring takes place. There is no waiting for external change; the work is to bring the lost parts into the inner sanctum where they can be honored and integrated.

The making of crowns of silver and gold and setting them upon Joshua the high priest is the core creative act. Crowning is not an external bestowal of status but imaginative assumption. A crown is a mental image of authority. To fashion crowns of precious metals is to imagine and accept oneâ€™s own value and dignity. Silver and gold themselves carry psychological resonance: silver as receptive, lunar, reflective consciousness; gold as royal, solar, creative consciousness. Together they signify a balanced recognition: the person in whom receptive intuition and sovereign imagination are combined.

Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, stands for the priestly function in the psyche: the faculty that mediates between the inner sacred and the everyday life. Crowning Joshua symbolizes installing the priestly consciousness as a self-authorized center. The priest becomes visible and acknowledged in the mind, no longer exiled to the unconscious but seated and honored. This act of crowning is an imaginative decree. It is also practical: when we truly imagine and assume our inner authority, the outward life follows the inner fact.

The proclamation that the crowned one is the Branch who shall grow up out of his place reveals how the creative self emerges naturally once given attention and honor. The Branch is the generative faculty of imagination — the part of us that sprouts new identity out of the soil of the present. Growth ‘‘out of his placeâ€™â€™ means that the creative self is not manufactured but allowed to arise from where it already exists. It will build the temple of the Lord: imagination constructs the inner temple, the coherent inner life where values, loyalties, and meaning are arranged and consecrated.

He shall sit and rule upon his throne and be a priest upon his throne. This is psychological wholeness: the uniting of kingly will and priestly consecration. The divided mind — the one that alternates between ruthless ambition and guilt-bound piety — is healed when ruling authority is also priestly: when will is consecrated to inner truth, and service is empowered instead of being passive. The counsel of peace between them both is the reconciled dialogue between function and sanctity, between doing and being, between achieving and surrendering. Peace here is the product of integration.

The crowns given to Helem, Tobijah, Jedaiah, and Hen for a memorial in the temple indicate the importance of remembering and honoring all integrated faculties. Small capacities, helpers, and recovered memories deserve a place within the temple; memorials are interior ceremonies that secure integration. When the psyche cares for its parts, they remain accessible and contribute to coherent functioning.

Finally, the promise that those far off shall come and build in the temple points to the rippling effect of internal reformation. Latent potentials, ancestral streams, future possibilities — those distant aspects of self — respond to inner restoration and return to help complete the inner work. But there is a condition: this will come to pass if you will diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God. Psychologically, obedience is disciplined imagination and attention. The LORD is the inner guide; obedience is the faithful application of attention to the scene you wish to realize. It is not slavish conformity but the consistent practice of assuming the state you desire and acting from it.

In sum, Zechariah 6 is a psychological drama of retrieval and coronation. Rigid beliefs and hidden material give way to movement; subterranean contents are stirred and followed by clarity; exiled fragments are gathered, honored, and crowned; the creative self arises to build the inner temple where authority and sanctity are unified. This is how imagination creates and transforms reality: by retrieving imprisoned aspects, by staging new internal ceremonies, and by persistently assuming the crowned state until the outer life conforms to the inner fact. The chapter is an instruction: send the chariots of attention to patrol the inner landscape, bring home what is captive, make crowns in imagination, and let the Branch grow. Do these things faithfully and the architecture of your interior world will be rebuilt, and through that rebirth your outward experience will follow.

Common Questions About Zechariah 6

How does Neville Goddard interpret the four chariots in Zechariah 6?

Neville Goddard reads the four chariots as movements of consciousness rather than literal steeds, seeing the vision as an inner drama of imagination where different colors and directions signify emotional tones and the stages of creative activity (Zechariah 6:1-8). The chariots “going forth” are imaginal states sent out from that which stands before the Lord of all the earth, meaning your awareness issuing forth beliefs that return as experience. The north and south, the to-and-fro motion, and the calming of the spirit point to how persistent inner states quiet or disturb outer circumstances; choose and dwell in the state that already has the end you desire, and the world will conform.

How does Zechariah 6 connect with the Law of Assumption and inner conviction?

Zechariah 6 illustrates the Law of Assumption in symbolic form: the Branch that grows up out of his place and builds the temple models how an assumed inner state matures and erects its outer counterpart (Zechariah 6:12-13). The act of making crowns and placing them upon the head is the deliberate assumption of identity, and the promise that those afar off will come to build shows how conviction attracts cooperating circumstances. The scripture’s call to obey the voice of the LORD your God becomes the injunction to persist in the chosen state; steady assumption and feeling are the obedience that brings the imagined scene into manifestation (Zechariah 6:15).

Where can I find a Neville Goddard-style commentary on Zechariah 6 (PDF or audio)?

Search established archives of lectures and public-domain recordings where Neville’s talks and transcripts are collected, such as audio repositories and the Internet Archive, and look for lectures keyed to Zechariah or titles that mention the chariots, crowns, or the Branch; many students have also posted annotated transcripts and podcast-style commentaries. Libraries and spiritual study groups often host mp3s and PDFs of talks that treat prophetic visions as psychological states. When you find resources, prefer original lectures or faithfully transcribed notes and listen with discernment, comparing what you hear with the scriptural text (Zechariah 6:1-13) and your own inner conviction.

Can Zechariah 6 be used as a meditation for manifesting according to Neville's methods?

Yes; the vision lends itself to a scene-based meditation that embodies the method Neville Goddard taught: imagine the completed scene vividly, feel the state of the fulfilled desire, and live from that end as if present (Zechariah 6:11-15). Picture the chariots as inner currents, see yourself crowned and seated as the Branch, sense the peace between priest and throne, and offer silver and gold as symbols of inner reverence and conviction. Repeat the scene until it impresses your sleeping or waking consciousness, then persist without argument; the text’s admonition to obey the voice of the LORD underscores the discipline of faithful inner practice until outer events align.

What does the crown and priesthood in Zechariah 6 teach about imagination and identity?

The crowning of Joshua and the union of priesthood and throne teach that imagination crowns and ordains identity from within (Zechariah 6:11-13). Making crowns of silver and gold and setting them upon the head signifies offering your best inner riches—assumption, feeling, and conviction—to a new self; when you assume a title or role inwardly, that identity grows up and builds its temple in outer experience. The priest upon his throne implies that the inner worshiper and ruler are one: you legislate and minister from the imaginal realm. By accepting and persistently assuming a dignified state, you become authorized to wear the crown in fact.