In this lecture Neville Goddard teaches the method of mastering one’s emotional state or “mood” through the conscious use of imagination, drawing on Psalm 42 as a symbolic framework. He outlines a three-fold approach to engaging with a scripture: reading the story, extracting its meaning through personal testing, and receiving revelation as an autobiographical experience. Using the 42nd Psalm as an example, he shows how one can move from loneliness and thirst for God to joyful remembrance of past blessings, thereby shifting mood. He then shares multiple case histories from his audience—stories of imagined conversations, resolved conflicts, and manifested gifts—to illustrate how living from the end in imagination produces real-world results. Goddard emphasizes that one must deliberately “wear” the feeling of the fulfilled desire until it seems natural, just as one breaks in a new suit. He concludes by inviting listeners to practice these imaginal acts daily and to contribute their own testimonies, reinforcing that controlled moods are the operant power of creation.
Tonight’s subject is “Be Master of the Mood.” First of all, I want to thank you for your perfectly wonderful letters. Another windfall this week…one gentleman enclosed eight pages thick, another six, a lady two, and so it goes. Perfectly marvelous, really! The gentleman with eight said he only started coming here when I returned this past November and gave me this perfectly wonderful epistle. Tonight we will tie them in—-not all of them, we can’t use all—but tie a few with the deep part of the story which is taken from the 42ndPsalm, and how we read the Bible.
First of all, we are told the three-fold cord is not quickly broken. The first strand is that which anyone who can read will discover when they read the story. What you can’t read you can listen to the story, and the one who can read it for you can tell you. If he can tell it with understanding so you understand the story, that’s one strand. Then there’s a second strand—for that is simply a story, but it’s secondary to his meaning—and you try to extract the meaning of the story told. Then you must put it to the test because you are the operant power. If you can take what you extract or think you’ve extracted and test it and it proves itself in performance, you have the second strand. And the third comes by revelation, and you’ll find every passage of the Bible autobiographical. Every chapter of the Bible will be seen eventually in an autobiographical manner.
So we’ll take the 42ndtonight and show you how it is seen after one has had the experience as an autobiographical chapter: He’s experienced it. On the surface it’s called a Maskil. Well, a Maskil…there are thirteen Maskils in the Psalms…this is the second of the thirteen so called. A Maskil is simply special instruction, that’s really what it is. Unlike all the other psalms, read the Maskil, you’ll find that they are telling you something very, very deep. And don’t let go, just read it, and ponder it, and simply scrutinize it carefully, for it has something very profound in it. That’s a Maskil.
Take the Psalm, a psalm of loneliness, and here it is trying to give us instructions concerning the overcoming of loneliness. So here, as you read it, everyone suffers eventually, if not in the past or today, some time in one’s life they have a sense of loneliness, where it may be through the loss of some human company. But in this case it isn’t, for the beginning of it is a thirst for God that nothing in this world can satisfy but anexperienceof God. You could be among millions of people, and he’s alone, because he can’t be entertained by things outside of himself; he wants to find God. And so, here in this thirst…he said, “As the hart panteth after the waterbrook, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My soulthirstsfor God. When will I come and behold the face of God? My tears have been my food day and night, while men say to me and they say continually, ‘Where is your God?’” (verses 1,3). And so, here is this bruised body as it were. The scoffers knowing his interest in God, his belief in God, and he can’t prove the existence of God, and they throw it up at him. He has not a thing to prove the existence of God, the reality of God, yet he cannot quench the thirst with anything that happens on the outside. It’s athirstfor God that only an experience of God can satisfy.
So here, first of all, he confesses his own sorrow, and then he tries to urge his soul to find rest and hope in the certainty of God. But he himself is not sure of this reality of God. He believes in God, he hasn’t had the experience of God, so he’s urging his soul to really find rest and hope in the reality of God. So he makes the statement, “Hope in God!” after he tells himself, Why is this soul of mine cast down? “Why art thou cast down, O soul? Why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for yet again I will praise him, he who is my help and my God.” Then he gives us a cue. If you can take tonight as one of my friend’s said in a case history, maybe totally unaware of what he did, but he was using this Psalm. So in this he gives us a cue: that in his self-communion I find no rest, I cannot in some strange way find the peace that I seek; then I could by consultation with the past find it. And so he said, “These things I remember, as I pour out my soul” and then he itemizes the things that he remembers. The first one he remembers: “How I went with the throng, and how I led them in procession to the house of God. And then the crowds, they were gay crowds, and they sang these songs of praise and thanksgiving and it was a multitude—not just a few—a multitude keeping festival” (verse 4). He remembers that, so he claims. But that was not the satisfying experience that he wanted of God. And everyone wants it.
Well, here I’ll tell one story and how this gentleman used this unwittingly. For if I cannot by self-communion find the peace that I seek then I can employ this communion with time, consultation with the past. So he writes this story. I can only take three of his stories. The first one, he said, “I wanted really seriously to have my son say to me, ‘You’re the greatest dad in the world!’ and so that night before I retired I simply imagined that I heard his voice and he said to me, ‘You’re the greatest dad in the world!’ I did it twice. I told no one and then dropped it. On Christmas morning when I opened the presents, and opened my son’s present to me, he had bought it himself with his own money, a present he wanted only for me. It wasn’t something that could be shared with my wife, just my present. It was a gold-plated cup on a wooden bowl and on the wooden bowl there was brass for some inscription, and on it he had it inscribed ‘The World’s Greatest Dad!’ Now, he said, he kept it to himself. He didn’t mention it to anyone, not even to his wife, just simply inwardly he imagined it. He assumed that he heard it, told no one, and did it twice.
Then he said, “The same month of December, I went to the grocery store and as I went through the door here was a friend of my son. This chap is called Gary. He was selling mistletoe. He didn’t look very happy about it, and so I said, ‘Gary, how are sales going?’ He said, ‘They aren’t going very well.’ When I got outside by myself I went into the Silence and I heard my son say to me that Gary sold all the mistletoe and he made a profit of fourteen dollars.” So, he said, “I can’t tell you why I picked out fourteen dollars, other than the boy is only twelve and I thought fourteen dollars profit was good for this time. It’s enough for a lad of twelve. And so I just said, I heard my son say he sold all the mistletoe and he made a profit of fourteen dollars. Well, two days before Christmas when I came into the living room I noticed among the decorations some holly, and I inquired, ‘Well, where did the holly come from?’ My son said, ‘Well, Gary had some left over and he gave me some holly.’ So then I asked, ‘What happened to the mistletoe?’ Oh, he said, ‘He soldallthe mistletoe and he made a profit of fourteen dollars.’” Well, now these are two.
Now this is where his consultation withtimecomes in. He said, “At my home looking from my dining room, I could see in the past a beautiful landscaped hillside, about a quarter of a mile away. And then the neighbor next door grew bamboo, and the bamboo came up six to eight feet above my hedge and blocked off completely this lovely view of mine. And all the benefit I got from the bamboo, when the wind blew I got all the leaves. And so, I didn’t want to do anything about it physically or say anything to my neighbor, but I sat at my dining room table—-again I did not tell anyone what I am doing or what I did—-but I saw the past. That is, I saw that hillside as it used to be seen by me, sitting just where I’m sitting now. I saw it clearly in my mind’s eye, because I closed eyes to the obvious, and in my Imagination I recalled the scene of the past and felt satisfied in seeing that same wonderful, beautiful scene of the past. Ten days later when I came home my wife said to me, ‘Have you heard the news?’ and I wondered, ‘What news?’ She said, ‘Our neighbor is going to cut down the bamboo.’ Well, in the immediate present the neighbor took down the bamboo. And, he said, strangely enough, it was so detailed in keeping with my image, where mine would go over now and take my vision and put it over the fence. There is still bamboo out there, lots of it, but only the bamboo that blocked my vision, only that was removed, in keeping with exactly what I did seated at my dining room table.” Then he goes on and gives me another five perfectly marvelous ones.
But here, these five prophets, he’s telling us to consult with the past. He said, “These things I remember” and they’re only joyful things among the things that he remembered, not one sad note in the things remembered. So if I by communing with myself cannot dispel the loneliness, then I can just fall upon another aid and remember something lovely in my life, something perfectly marvelous, and once more consult with the past and put myself intothatstate; for I’m just moving from one state into another state. And so, that’s what he did in this third case history.
But here’s another one…and you watch this because you must getintenseabout it. A gentleman, who is in the audience tonight, he writes this, that he finds…of course, he’s an artist and so maybe he has to fire his Imagination with some peculiar twist, as he said, a negative twist. And so, “This is what I do. I stand in a long line for a deposit in the bank and the very last, and I’m annoyed. I’m annoyed that I have to wait in this long line to make a big fat deposit. And so I get a kick out of my own annoyance, because I’m annoyed that I have a big fat check in my hand to deposit at the end of this long line.” He said, “That’s the twist in my mind.”
“And so, I’ll go back eight years. I was new to TV eight years ago. And so, one day I discovered my house needed painting when at the moment I didn’t have the funds for a real job of painting the house, and so this is what I did. I imagined the house painted. I was annoyed with the painters at the window; they could see me taking a shower. That annoyed me that they could look right on me and see me taking a shower. And then I saw and could smell the wet paint. Then I took my hand, all in my Imagination, and put it on the paint. I didn’t trust the sign and itwaswet. So I got more annoyed that I had paint on my hands.” Well, he said, “The very next morning after I did this, I had written a pilot which was under consideration back East, so I called my agent and I asked the agent if he had any news about the pilot. He said, “No, but I was just about to call you because” (he mentioned this person by name) “he just called me and asked me if you would take twenty-one thousand dollars cash for your residuals? Well, he said, “At the moment, I didn’t know I had residuals. I was so new in the business I didn’t realize I had residuals coming from things already shot. But this man appeared, bought out his partner (he’s a producer undoubtedly), he bought out his partner and was trying to buy out everyone connected with this series and hold it all for himself; and was trying to get it for fifty cents on the dollar. So my agent said to me, ‘Knowing this man’s attitude towards money and how he operates, I’m going to suggest that you take this $21.000 and just run like a thief…because, just take it, take the twenty-one thousand.’ So, he said, I did, and to my knowledge I don’t think anyone else in the series ever received anything from their residuals. But he said, I was so new in the business I didn’t realize I had residuals. So the house was painted.”
So he annoys…if you want to, get annoyed. If it will make you annoyed to put your hand on wet paint when you can’t afford the paint…but if you put your hand on wet paint, the paint must be there. And if you’re going to get annoyed because you have a long line waiting for a deposit of a big fat check, well then, if that will do it, intensifying your imagination, then do it. For the thing is to get your Imagination worked to the point where it becomesrealto you. But he did it and he made it real. He used his sense of sight—he could see the man watching him while he was taking a shower. He could smell the paint, that’s another sense. He couldfeelthe wet paint, that’s another sense. And with his very annoyance took these senses and raised them to the nth degree. And then it worked and worked quickly. So in twenty-four hours there was twenty-one thousand cash waiting for him which he took.
Now this is a cute one. I hope she’s here tonight. But she wrote, she said, “I’m a grandmother and last fall I made arrangements to go to the South Pacific and to the Orient. So I said to my little granddaughter, two years old, ‘What would you like Nanny to send you?’ Well, she discussed it with her mother and together they came up with this request, a kangaroo, but a stuffed kangaroo. I said, ‘Alright, a stuffed kangaroo.’ So when I got to Australia I looked at all the toys and I didn’t like the kangaroos, so I sent her a little polar bear. I wrote the mother what I had done. So when the mother read the letter to the little child, only two years old, she said, ‘I don’t want a bear! I want a kangaroo!’ In the meanwhile she had been talking all the time about her little kangaroo. She told her mother, her friends, anyone who would listen to her only about the kangaroo.
So when this lady came back, she heard anew that her granddaughter was greatly disappointed in this little bear, in fact, wouldn’t want it, really. But the bear hadn’t yet arrived. Two weeks later the bear came and the little girl didn’t want it. She would have not a thing to do with it. And forty-eight hours later, a package addressed to this little girl arrived, it was a stuffed kangaroo. And the little girl said, “Iknewthat Nanny bought me a kangaroo.” The grandmother said to me in her letter “I never did, I never bought a kangaroo for her. I only bought and paid for one thing and that was the little bear. Now while I was gone, she in her Imagination only accepted the kangaroo.” So six thousand miles away some stock clerk is trying to explain the loss of a kangaroo, and the culprit is a little two year old girl right here in the city. And so, these are the stories that came in the week’s mail, all sheer fantasy, all based upon this conscious use of one’s Imagination to create reality. But we are the operant power; it doesn’t operate itself. When you know what to do, well, then you do it.
Now we go back to the great Psalm. He paints this most wonderful story of something that he remembered, this thing he remembered. “These things I remember…” and then he said, “as I pour out my soul.” And he starts with joining this enormous crowd and he led them: “I led them to the house of God.” He led a procession to the house of God, and they were all joyful, singing praises of gladness and thanksgiving to God. And then he saw this enormous multitude, a huge multitude in a festive light, keeping festival. I tell you, the day will come and you open that Bible and look at it, you will be looking at it through the eyes of one who experienced it. That’s autobiographical. This comes first, long before the kind of experience he wanted. But not a thing could satisfy him; he wanted an actualexperienceof God. But in this you don’tseeGod. He wants toseeGod, he said, “When will I come and behold the face of God?” That experience you do not see God; you only hear God’s voice.
And so, in this wonderful festive mood where there are unnumbered, you can’t number them, multitudes, and all moving towards the house of God, this wonderful sanctuary; and you, having the experience, you will lead them. You will actually be the leader, the dominant character in that entire drama. And you will hear a voice and the voice is the voice of authority, the voice of God. And the voice will say, “And God walks with them.” One of the crowd of this wonderful gay, praising crowd will ask the voice—-you don’t see the face—-“If God walks with us, where is he?” And the same voice will come back, “At your side.” And this one, who is only a projection of yourself; the whole vast world is yourself made visible—-and this one will only respond and echo that which is taking place in you. Because the voice is now going to answer…because she is going to look right in your eyes and she’s going to call you by name—the name that you respond to here, John, Robert, whatever the name is—-and she’s going to say, “What? Is Robert God?” And the voice will respond, “Yes, in the act of waking.” And she’ll be hysterical. You now why? Becauseyouare, you can’t believe it, it is too great. You can’t conceive that you reallyareGod in the act of waking. And so, she had to respond in kind; because you doubt and so she has to doubt. And she only reflects that theme, not concern so much as unbelief that is so great.
And then the voice will speak from the depths of your own soul and this is what you will hear: “I laid myself down within you to sleep, and as I slept I dreamed a dream. I dreamed…” and then you will know the end of the sentence: he’s dreaming that he’s you. That’s why all of this is taking place. He’s taking you towards his holy place. And you will wake with an experience of the crucifixion. Your hands, your feet, your head and your side will be whirling vortices, each a vortex; and you will be nailed upon this body; and awake on your bed where you had left it when you started the journey. So when you re-live that you will see it autobiographically—whole thing is talking about your own experience.
Ten years later will come the experiences the psalmist wanted. But bear in mind, he wasn’t asking for it, because the psalmist only received the dictation. As we’re told in the Book of Peter that no prophecy of scripture ever came by the impulse of man, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God. So men are organized by divine providence for spiritual communication, and these are called the prophets. They take it down, not knowing what they’re taking down. So on one level you can read the story and much of it doesn’t make sense. Then you read it and read it and try to extract its meaning, and that’s when you take the meaning extracted, and put it to the test, and make it prove itself in the testing—as the gentleman proved it without destroying anything. He didn’t ask the neighbor to cut the bamboos down; the neighbor had the impulse so he thought. But the neighbor’s desire to cut them down originated in the vision, the imaginal vision of his neighbor, who saw clearly, sitting in the dining room where before he was obstructed by these, well, about six or eight feet tall bamboos above his fence.
Now, here is another one.___(??). This gentleman writes me that in 1933 going down the Danube from Vienna to Budapest that he fell in love with the sight of Budapest, the lights of the night, and pledged himself that someday he would have a view just like that. So when he came back to America he came straight to California and sought a home that would have a view comparable to this view; and he found one in the hills of Hollywood. He bought it for the view, just for the view. Well, he said he lived there for years and recently someone planted poplar trees, and they grew up to the point where they just were blocking his lovely view which he lived for. Well, he saw the view and not the trees. He said, “Neville, did I misuse my Imagination? Was it selfish of me? The trees died…not all the trees, only the poplar trees that blocked my view. Every tree in that area that blocked my view they died.” And he had an orange tree and, for reasons not explained to me, the man chopped the orange tree down. Now, he said, “I just noticed another little tree planted and the leaves are coming out. But knowing what I did with the poplar trees, I’m not concerned.” He said, “I know having had the experience of God that God can’t kill God, and God being love, God can’t kill love. It only rearranges the furniture of the mind and lets something come in to conform to the structure of my imaginal act. For you can’t kill love. And God created all things, as we are told: ‘Never would you have made anything had you not loved it.’ And so, you don’t kill the tree when you burn the tree. You don’t kill anything as youthinkyou destroy it, really.’”
So that was blocking his view…and this thing in his mind’s eye was so vivid when he came down the Danube on his way to Budapest, and that vision of Budapest was to him so thrilling that it influenced his choice of a home. Then to have someone block it, he couldn’t stand it. So he, too, went forward and communicated with the past: He saw the city as he always saw it. He would have no trees block it, and so they died. He didn’t ask the man to cut them down, and that could have been an argument, because they grew on the man’s property, not his property. That could have started some unpleasant conversation. And so, without asking anyone’s permission he saw clearly that clear, wonderful vista that he’s always enjoyed.
So when you go back and when you read it, see it in three levels, like the ark. The ark is built on three levels. On the lowest level is where man’s senses, with intelligence, can read the story. But bear in mind that the story is like a dream. For these were taken down practically in a dream state. And so, every dream is a parable, for these are all parables. But the story is secondary to themeaningof the story, so you get the meaning. Don’t change one word of the story as it is. If it’s a good translation of the original text, leave it, for you’re going to experience it. And that’s the depth.
One day you will experience this enormous journey toward the house of God, and you will hear the voice, and you will know, with a thrill you’ve never known before, who you are! For you are destined to awakeasGod: for the voice will say, “Yes, God…in the act of waking.” Then the voice will speak to you from the depth of your own soul, and you will hear it, and pass through the sensation of being nailed on this cross of flesh and blood. Then will come all the others; for you are told, “Now we’re going to go up to Jerusalem…andallthat is written about the Son of man will be accomplished.” I am going to Jerusalem. That’s where you’re headed when you find yourself in this enormous crowd and all that is said of the Son of man—-that’s you—-will be accomplished as you start this journey. By the time you get there, itisall accomplished. What was accomplished there in that grand city? It’s birth. Weren’t you resurrected there? Who was resurrected there? That’s where he’s resurrected. And was it there that you saw David? It was David; it’s called the city of David. And all these things will unfold within you.
But here, on this mastery of moods, it is so important that you actually observe yours and use anything to get out of a bad mood, but anything at all. If you want to use an irritation, like you’re in a long line waiting to put in a huge big check, use it as an irritant if that is going to get you out of the mood of want into the mood of affluence. Because if you can deposit a huge big check and annoyance goes with it, just be annoyed. Not a thing wrong with that. And so you want to have it painted and you can’t afford it, and then you put your hands on wet paint and you get annoyed, then put your hand mentally on wet paint and get annoyed. And so, he has that quirk. And so, he’s creative and yet maybe he needs that peculiar quirk of negation to spur his Imagination to create, maybe he does. But if you can use that…that’s a contribution of that to each who will accept it…to bring here and share with me what they did. And then you can use that and apply that to business. If something annoys you in business, it’s so big that you didn’t have time to handle it, would something annoy you? If the oil for___(??) that you could fill, well, then get annoyed. It’s far better that way than not have any oil. And so, you take this and apply it wisely. It’s a simple, simple technique.
But I tell you the story of the lady who sits for one week and bathes herself emotionally with the feeling that she had security. “But I have security!” and she feels the way she would feelaftershe has confirmation of what the feeling is implying. Then one day after her six days of vigilance she gets confirmation that she receives now $540 from this fixed annuity and then her Social Security. For she’s entitled to it, so together she has over six hundred dollars a month for the rest of her earthly days. She just spent the winter in Barbados. She called me long-distance, she called me this past week, to bring me news of the family in Barbados. And that was an extra gift that didn’t come out of her $600 a month, because she couldn’t afford that for the time she spent in Barbados. But he who gave her this money, that pays $540 a month, said to her, “I’m going to give you for a Christmas present your two months in Barbados, and that would mean I’m going to pay all expenses, including your hotel and your transportation.” So that was additional.
She hasacceptedthat way of living now. And this lady before this never earned more than seventy-five dollars a week at any time in her life. Now that was a mood; that was a controlled mood. She was simply a receptionist in a beauty parlor. And so, before she left for work in the morning she took her morning tub, as she told me, and while seated there she would feel the way she would expect to feelaftershe had confirmation that she had financial security. She bathed in it as it were. Then on Saturday night of that very week she was informed by this man who did not entertain this thought until Wednesday of that week. She started on Monday morning and this man had said to her all through the years that he knew her: “I will never give you a nickel, so don’t look forward to any money from me.” They were friendly, they were friends, but he always said to her, “We have had fun together. I’ve paid for all the expenses in this world, like the theater and all these things. That’s all you’re getting from my world.”
And she believed it until I said to her the previous week, “Don’t you read my books? Go back and read the story of a lady in the book calledThe Law and The Promise, and turn to the chapter called “Moods.” That lady was just about your age, she is fifty-six, and you tell me sometimes you’re fifty-five, the next time you’re sixty-five, I don’t know. So I would say you’re both the same age. So you go back and read that book. But if you don’t have time to read it, let me tell you what she did.” So I told her exactly what the lady did. This is now on a weekend. The following Monday morning she began to put it into practice. So I made it very, very clear to her, you are the operant power. Knowing what to do and doing it are two entirely different things. So she did it religiously for five mornings. On Saturday night he said to her, “I don’t feel like going out to dinner tonight, suppose we have dinner sent upstairs?” and so they had dinner sent upstairs. And then he told her, “I took one look at you Wednesday night and I said to myself (calling himself by name) it’s later than you think.” So the very next day he went down to his factory in Pennsylvania, called in his legal department, and said to them, “I don’t want any if, ands or buts. I don’t care what it costs, I want so much money, $540 a month paid to this lady, and I want it now! I don’t want it next year; I want it to start immediately!” So he figured out all that it would cost, after the lump sum of money. He said, “But your taxes alone will be $28,000.” “I don’t care…it must be tax free. This gift is a tax-free gift, so add the $28,000 to it, whatever it costs for this lady’s age to receive for the rest of her earthly days. And furthermore, the money is a gift in the sense she does not have to pay it back to my estate should she precede me in death. She can throw it away. She can will it to a kennel. She can will it to anyone she wants in this world. It ishermoney, but she cannot touch the principal while she lives. I put that proviso only to protect her, because I know when someone has that sort of principal, someone will know of it, and then get it from her. So that is one proviso: she cannot dispose of principal while she lives. But she can give it away or tear it up in a Will of hers when she’s gone from this world. And so, he paid the $28,000 extra to make it tax-free gift.
That’s a mood. If you haven’t read that chapter, it’s the chapter called “Moods” inThe Law and The Promise. You catch a mood…and what would the feeling be like were it true? Well, then ask yourself the question, “Suppose I had so and so, well, what would the feeling be like if it were true?” Then you catch the feeling and you put on that feeling as you would wear a suit of clothes. You know, if you really put on a new hat for the first time, you think nobody knows it’s new, butyouthink that everyone knows it and you feel uncomfortable in that hat until you wear it. Well, the feeling of affluence when you don’t know what it is, is so new a feeling that you feel just as uncomfortable in that feeling as you do with a new suit on. You walk down the street…and a man buys a new suit for the first time, he has to walk around in it for a little while, and he actually has the mood that everyone knows it’s new. He feels uncomfortable in that new suit until he breaks it in, like a pair of new shoes. Nobody really knows or cares if you have a new suit, butyoucare and you know, and you wear it until it seems natural. Well, you wear a mood until it seems natural, and when it seems natural it has taken root, and it will grow and bear fruit in your world. So these are the moods. You can make a mood very natural in a little while. But you must wear it.
And so, you just dwell upon it and see how…you read the Bible and each chapter is telling you that below the surface is a message for you to increase your joy in this world. Don’t change it, leave it just as it is; and one day you’re going to experience that message in the depths of your soul. For, who on looking at the 42ndPsalm would think for one moment that it’s self-communion that’s done it? So he communes with himself in this Psalm. And it didn’t work…he communed with himself but he didn’t feel the relief that he sought. And then he took up time, past time, and then he said, “These are the things I remember”…andthenthere was ajoyfulremembrance, everything about it was happy and joyful. He tuned in on it and said, I will seek and praise the Lord, even though at the moment the soul cannot and the soul is cast down. “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me?” Then, asks you to have hope, “Hope in God,” and then try to repose and try to find some rest in this hope. Because, first of all, he asks you tohopein God long before you hear him or you see him or experience him. And then try to find rest in that hope and that sympathy of God…and some day you will. So I never despair when someone tells me he’s an atheist, makes no difference, one day he will have the experience of God; and it doesn’t make any difference now what’s said after the experience of God. Khrushchev will one day experience God, Stalin will one day experience God, and in the end all of their hands dripping in blood will be washed clean. No matter what he’s done, it will all be washed clean. But today, hebragsabout the fact that there is no God. He says there is no God therefore it makes it so.
But I tell you, I know from experience not only there’s God but God is love, infinite love, so you can always approach him. And the day will come there’s no one to approach because he has completed his gift, and his gift is to give you himself. Not some little piece or part of him, he’s going to completely give you himself; that you can’t then commune with him, youarehe. It’s self-communion from then on. And yet it doesn’t rob you of the joy of knowing that infinite presence that once embraced you and made you one with himself. And you knew by that experience the joy of wearing the divine form of light; for love truly is the human form divine, and you once had the joy of wearing it. And you know, although you can’t see it and mortal eye can’t see it, still it will never detach from you. You are incorporated into that human form divine. An eye can’t see it but you feel it. And you’ve never been, I would say, at any time unaware of the fact that you wear it. From the very moment you are incorporated into it, you are fully conscious of the fact that you wear this form. And things seemingly, well, they may be more sensitive than man, but many a bird has sensed it, many an animal has sensed it, and made you fully conscious of the fact that they are aware of it. And you can’t even breathe it because it doesn’t make sense to any normal person. But then, something that is actually a flying being, a bird, and that bird will be arrested in its tracks. That makes it very, very conscious of the fact, fully aware, of the being that you are, and then you’re___(??).
I’ve had it happen time and time again, even to a little thrush. When I lived in Beverly Hills, this little thrush, every day of its life—-I was there ten months—-it would bring me its gift. Its gift was a sprig, come right up, follow my steps, look at me first to get my attention, and then drop it before me. Then one day it got what it wanted. It wanted to get into my house and so I let him. It walked around, perfectly tame, and then I opened the door and out he went again. But not one day did it fail to bring me a gift. The gift was to him a marvelous gift, a sprig. I didn’t feed the bird, I didn’t encourage it, I didn’t feed it, but I was fully aware ofitsknowledge and what it knew.
So Blake made the statement, “How do we know but every bird that cuts the airy wind is an infinite world of delight closed by our senses five.” He was not alone in his vision of the bird, the bird world. Victor Hugo saw it and described it beautifully. Many a mystic sees it and describes it beautifully. But we think they are just simply birds. And every bird that cuts the airy wind is an immense world of delight closed by our senses five. Man has no idea what is prepared for him when the gift is completed and his eye is opened and he’s wearing the human form divine. But in the meanwhile, use these moods wisely.Take any person and put yourself in a good mood relative to them, help them. Help every being in this world and do it lovingly, costs you nothing. Get into the mood that someone told you good news concerning himself, wonderful news; and don’t wait for confirmation, believe in the reality of that imaginal act, and go your way.
There’s a lady tonight in this audience, I haven’t seen her in the longest while. In fact, I often encourage her not to come. She comes alone, comes from a far distance, and she finds driving at night not the easiest thing in this world. But I know this problem because her husband had it, and every medical doctor confirmed the other doctor, that this open wound in his side could never heal. It could never heal! He’d been going back to the hospital from time to time for further treatment, but everyone assured him that it would never heal—no tissue would grow, none whatsoever. Two months ago she said to him, “Now look here, let us stop this nonsense. You and I know this principle, we know how it works. You look into my eyes and you see the expression on my face when I know that that thing is cured; and I’m going to see on your face when you tell it.” And he went to work doing it and he did it daily. This was religious practicing. He said to her here recently, “I’ve got to go to the hospital. Call up and make a date for me today. This thing will not stay in my side.” So they made a date, went to see the doctor, the family doctor, he took a look at it. “Why isn’t this remaining in the side?” Then he examined it, x-rayed it, he said, “This is a miracle! No one is going to believe this but tissue has grown, that’s why it can’t remain in. And you don’t need any operation to clean up what is there now. We can leave it just as it is. The tissue has started to grow in the most marvelous way, and not a thing can remain in there because the tissues will push it right out. It’s all growing.” And he’s had that like a thorn in the side of Paul, a constant reminder of his own mortality. Now the doctors saw it and the x-rays confirm it. There’s a new case history___(??). Well, isn’t that marvelous! All by the use of Imagination!
So I ask you to simply treat it naturally but seriously, and believe when I tell you that an imaginal act creates the fact. And all day long you and I are creating all the confusion in the world or the joy in the world depending upon what we experience. Just like the little girl, 6,000 miles away, simply caused some person to fill an order that wasn’t there. That’s exactly what she wanted and it came.
So I’ll hold the other stories for the next time. But still because I have so many now, don’t stop. Write them and write them and write them that I may share them with everyone who comes here. I want them by the hundreds. I have a few more weeks left and I still want as many as I possibly can get confirming the truth of what I’m talking about here.
Now let us go into the Silence.
In this lecture, Goddard’s core premise is that mood is the gateway to creation. He posits that our feelings are like garments we can don or discard at will, and that by sustaining an imaginal act until it becomes a lived experience, we align ourselves with the reality we wish to manifest. This concept draws on biblical exegesis but is reframed as a psychological-metaphysical methodology rather than strictly theological interpretation.
By dissecting Psalm 42, Goddard reveals how scripture can serve as a three-stage template: its literal narrative, the philosophical or moral meaning we derive, and the ultimate revelatory, autobiographical layer that we actualize through imaginative participation. His instruction underscores self-communion when reality feels lacking, and when that fails, the technique of “consultation with time” through joyful memory retrieval. Each case story—from a father’s imagined compliment to a child’s stuffed kangaroo—demonstrates the mechanics of assumption producing tangible results without external petitions.
Psychologically, Goddard’s method parallels modern cognitive-behavioral approaches that emphasize the power of guided visualization and emotional anchoring, yet he situates imagination as the primary creative force. The technique of intensifying sensory details and emotional tone until the scenario feels undeniably real speaks to the role of embodied cognition: feeling precedes form. His insistence on secrecy and privacy in these imaginal acts prevents doubt and social interference, preserving the integrity of the mood.
Metaphysically, the lecture advances a radical identification of the human self with the divine. The climactic vision of leading a vast procession to the house of God and speaking as God in the act of waking reveals Goddard’s nondual perspective: imagination is the crucible where human and divine merge. The promise of resurrection, transformation, and ultimate unity with the “human form divine” positions mood mastery not merely as life improvement but as spiritual rebirth.
Practically, Goddard offers a disciplined regimen: daily self-communion, mood assessment, choice of imaginative scenarios, and meticulous sensory engagement. He frames every negative mood as an opportunity for creative redirection, advocating that frustration, annoyance, or joy can serve as levers to shift consciousness. His closing examples of physical healing and financial provision confirm the universality of this approach, inviting rigorous practice and community testimony to validate the law of assumption in diverse circumstances.
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