In this lecture Neville Goddard teaches that the human imagination is God within each individual, describing two inner characters—Esau (the outer man of the senses) and Jacob (the ‘Second Man’ or divine imagination). He draws on biblical passages (Genesis 25:23, John 14, Psalm 46:10) to show that true prayer is not petitioning an external deity but subjectively appropriating an objective hope. Goddard illustrates the principle with a personal story about manifesting a ship passage from Barbados to New York, demonstrating how vivid imaginative experience births real events. He emphasizes ‘‘catching the mood’’ of fulfillment by entering the desired state, giving it sensory reality, then returning to the outer world and allowing events to unfold. Listeners are urged to test and trust their own ‘‘I AM’’ presence, abide by the Golden Rule, and apply this creative process daily. Ultimately, he asserts that every biblical promise about Jesus Christ can be personally experienced when one recognizes that Christ is one’s own wonderfully creative imagination.
You will find tonight’s message a very practical one. I don’t think it will disturb anyone, but there are adjustments to be made concerning what man believes God to be, and what God really is. We are told in Scripture, in the birth of the twins, which begins the great drama as told in Scripture, “In your limbs…” and I am speaking now, not of anyone, but of you individually:
“In your limbs lie nations twain, rival races from their birth; one the mastery will gain, the younger o’er the elder reign.” (Genesis 25:23, Moffatt translation)
These are in you individually. We are told that the younger, which naturally is the second . . the “second man” . . is the Lord from Heaven. That’s the Second Man; He sleeps in you. You will rouse Him, and He will become the Master. He will reign. At the moment, in the majority of the world, they are totally unaware of it. So, He sleeps, and so He doesn’t reign. That one known in Scripture is called Jesus Christ; The Lord Jesus Christ is your own wonderful human imagination. That is God!
Now, the whole vast world, and all within it, is nothing more than the appeasement of hunger. That’s the whole of life: the appeasement of hunger. And there are infinite states from which the Lord may view the world to appease that hunger. The “first man” can’t do it. He can only feed upon what his senses dictate. Wherever he is, he feeds upon the facts of life as he sees the facts.
It takes the “Second Man” to disengage Himself from that restriction and enter into a state . . any state in the world . . and feed upon it, and then . . in time . . bring the “first man” to feed upon it.
We are told in the 14th chapter of John: “Let not your heart be troubled, neither be afraid. Ye believe in God, Believe in me also.” (John 14:1) Now, this is not a man talking to you from the outside. “Believe also in me.” “You believe in God, believe also in me.” In the same chapter He is going to tell you He is God! But what man would actually believe that this Presence within himself is God?
Now, He tells you: “Be still and know that I AM God.” (Psalm 46:10) This is not another man speaking to you, other than yourself, “Be still, and know that ‘I AM’ is God.” Can you believe that? If you can believe that, then all things are possible to you. For, “all things are possible to God.” (Matthew 19:26) Can a man really believe that? That’s what I AM told in the 46th Psalm, “Be still, and know that . . I…”. Put the little word is in there now.
Now we are told, He sleeps, and then came the call, “Rouse thyself. Why sleepest thou, O Lord? Do not cast us off forever.” (Psalm 44:23) This one sleeps in man. Man has to rouse Him. He doesn’t know that his own wonderful human imagination is God!
Now, “In my Father’s house are many mansions. Were it not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? When I go I will come again, and I will receive you to myself, that where I AM, there ye may be also.” (John 14:2, 3) Now, this conversation takes place in you individually, between the two.
I am speaking now to myself, “In my Father’s house” . . I AM the Father “…are unnumbered mansions” . . states of consciousness. “Were it not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And when I go, I will come again, and I will receive you to myself, that where I AM there ye may be also.”
I am standing here, and my senses tie me here in this room but I don’t want to be here. I want to be elsewhere. I know my bank balance. I know my obligations to life. I’m tied by what I know. The “outer man” feeds upon that, but he wants more than that. There is something in me . . the “Second Man” who is born from Heaven . . who is telling me there are “unnumbered mansions” into which I can go . . you can’t go . . I can go and prepare it for you. But, “when I go to prepare it for you, I will come again and receive you to myself, that where I AM, there ye shall be also.” Now, how do I do it?
I take a look at my world, and I am very restricted. Everything about me is something I would like to break through . . transcend it, become a bigger person, a more secure person, where I’m doing a greater job in the world. All these things I would like to do but reason tells me I am not doing it, and my senses confirm my reason. Now, is there something in me that is my True Self that can do it? Yes, my imagination can do it.
In my imagination, I go and prepare the state. I actually go into the state and fill that state with my own being, and view the world from that state. I don’t think of it; I think from it. When I think from it, I’m actually preparing that state.
Then I return to where I left this . . “the outer man,” and once more fuse with it, and we become one, once again. Now I take him across a bridge of incidents . . some series of events . . that takes me towards the thing that I’ve prepared, and I take him with me and enter into the very state itself. He feeds now, literally, upon that state. This is what I call prayer. I don’t vote for it; I don’t petition, I ask no being in the world . . no one, including what the world would say is God. For, when you find God by being still, and know that “I AM” is God, then to whom can you turn for anything in this world, if you really believe Scripture, “Be still and know that I AM God”? (Psalm 46:10) If you are not familiar with Scripture, read it in the 46th chapter of the Psalms of David, the 10th verse “Be still, and know that I AM God,” . . then, to whom could you turn? It’s an inner communion with Self. But man talks to an outside god and pleads with an outside god, and begs an outside god.
This reminds me of a dinner party that William Lyons Phelps gave. If you do not know who he is . . in fact, who he was, he was one of the truly great educators in our country in this twentieth century: William Lyons Phelps. He and Mrs. Phelps entertained Edna Ferber, the writer. As they sat down to dinner, Mrs. Phelps said to him, “William, will you please say grace.” He closed his eyes, bent his head, and after maybe ten or fifteen seconds he said, “Amen.” And she said to him, “Why, William, I did not hear one word that you said”; and he said to her, “I was not talking to you, my Dear…”.
People sit down to say grace as: “Bless the hands that prepared this food,” all these words meaning nothing. You go within, and you don’t petition: you appropriate. Prayer is nothing more than the subjective appropriation of the objective hope. I hope for so-and-so; I want it as an objective fact. Now, I must go within and appropriate it subjectively..
So, prayer is the subjective appropriation of the objective hope. That is what I call “faith in God,” which is nothing more than faith in my Self, for the Self of man . . the true identity of man . . is God! That is the “Jesus Christ” of Scripture..
“Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? Test yourselves and see.” That is what we are told to do in Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians. Read it in the 13th chapter, the 5th verse, of II Corinthians. “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are holding to the faith. Test yourselves. Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you?” (II Corinthians 13:5, Revised Standard Version).
Well, if He is in me, then where will I go to meet Him? How will I address Him? He is in me. He is in my very Self. I simply commune with my Self..
There are unnumbered states in the world, so I single out the state that I want to express in this world, and I don’t ask you or anyone else in the world if it is good for me. I don’t consult anyone. Does it come within the frame of the Golden Rule? What I am now asking, would I ask it for another? Would I ask another, if what I am seeking now for another is something I would ask for myself? Well, the Golden Rule is: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” If you keep that in mind, you cannot go wrong..
What’s wrong with asking for anything in this world for another that you would ask for yourself? Is there anything wrong in being secure? Nothing. Anything wrong in being clean and wholesome and decent? Anything wrong in being one who contributes to the world’s good? What’s wrong with that? Is there anything wrong in being happily married, proud of the girl who bears your name, or she proud of the man whose name she bears? What is wrong with that?.
Forget that. The whole vast world is a field to reap. You don’t pick out this woman or that woman. Pick out the state. I want to be blissfully happy, and if I were, how would I see the world? And how would the world see me? Well, shut out the world and go within and appropriate that state. And from within, you let your friends see you, as they would have to see you if what now you are assuming that you are is really true..
That is why I have titled tonight’s talk, “The Mood” . . catching the mood. This whole thing is based upon that mood. The 25th chapter of the book of Genesis: and she brought forth twins, for in her limbs were these rival races . . rival races from their birth, called in Scripture “Esau” and “Jacob”; and you think they were two individuals who lived thousands of years ago. No, they are right here in everyone in this world! These are the eternal states of consciousness personified in Scripture as two little boys..
Scripture is not secular history. It is salvation history. And, so, they did not live thousands of years ago; they live now in you, and you have to give birth to both of them. You have given birth to the first one. The first one is your “outer man,” the man who is now a man of the senses . . a man who is covered with hair, as we are told. Esau came out first, and he was covered with hair all over. Whether you be female or male, you are covered with hair all over. That is the external you, the man of the sense world..
Then in comes the “Second Son,” and he is the smoothest skin lad, called Jacob. The name “Jacob” means to supplant. He is going to supplant his brother; he is the second, but he will come first. The Second Man is the Lord from Heaven, and the Second Son is your own wonderful human imagination. When you stir it and rouse it and make him come into being, you can do wonders in this world..
Try it right now. You sit here in this room . . I stand here; I could, in the twinkling of an eye, put myself outside of this room and view it from there, and see the interior of this room, not from this lectern, but see it from the outside. That is exercising the Inner Man. Go outside mentally, not physically, and view this room from the outside. While seated here, I can put myself in my hotel room downstairs, and then view this room and think of it, but thinking from my room downstairs. I can put myself in any part of the world and think from it, and think of the world and everything else. That is the secret: thinking from what I want, instead of thinking of what I want..
When I know what I want in this world, when I am thinking of it, it is always beyond me. When I know what I want, I enter into that state and think from it. Put yourself mentally into your own home tonight now, and view this building . . this club . . from your home, and you see this building, not from it; you think of it, and you are viewing it from your room..
Now, the state of consciousness to which you most constantly return is the place you really dwell . . that habitual state from which you view the world. Do you view it from poverty, saying, “I AM poor?” Do you walk the street feeling, “How poor I AM?” You are then viewing the world from the state of poverty. Am I viewing the world from the state of one who is completely unknown and unwanted? Well, that’s my home. The place to which I habitually return constitutes my dwelling place. I need not dwell there..
“In my Father’s house are unnumbered mansions. Were it not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you?” And when I go and prepare the place, I will return again and take you with me, that where I AM . . in that state prepared . . you shall be also. So, I now take a state. I want to be known. I want to contribute to the world’s good. I want also to live well . . and I mean well. I want to feel secure, not only financially, but secure socially, that when I enter a room I am not embarrassed, no matter who they are. They can have all the degrees in the world. They can come from all the great universities in the world and be honored by the world. But I want to stand in their presence and not feel little. I want to feel a man. I am not to bow my head in shame because of any restriction in my past. If I were born “behind the 8-ball” socially, financially, intellectually, it doesn’t matter. I want to feel important; I want to feel great. I want to feel right..
All right, what state would that be if it were true? I conceive a state that, if it were true, that would make all my wishes come true. I go into that state. Now, the first time I enter the state and view the world from it, it is wonderful, but I may never reenter that state. Therefore, it is not my home. I want to make that state my perpetual home, so I automatically dwell in that state, and if I dwell in it so that automatically I am in that state, it becomes my dwelling place. So, “I will go and prepare a place for you.” I am not talking to you; I am talking to myself: “I will take you, Neville, born behind the 8-ball . . born unknown, unwanted, poor . . everything that is simply behind the 8-ball, and I am going to take you, Neville . . now that you have found me, the Second Man, the Lord from Heaven, your own wonderful human imagination . . now that you rouse me, I will go.”.
And I will dwell in the state and feel myself to be Neville . . that “outer man” I just left on the chair or left on the bed, and I will see the world as Neville would see it if he were with me now. I view the world from that state. And, then, when it seems natural to me, I return to the physical “outer man” that I left on a chair . . that I left on the bed and as I return, we fuse and become one person, not two. Then I move across a bridge of incidents that I don’t really, rationally build . . it simply appears, and I move across a series of events that I do not reasonably determine . . they simply happen. I will move across this bridge of events up to the state where I entered and now dwell. But when I get there, it seems so natural!.
The man that thought, because of his past limitations, he could never enter that state . . now he finds himself in that state. No matter whom he meets, he meets them from that state, and it is perfectly natural to him. This is the story that Scripture teaches to you, to me, and to everyone in the world. But until you find God, which is your own Self, you aren’t going to do it. “Be still, and know that ‘I AM’ Is God.” There is no other God!.
And you think that’s blasphemy? All right, the one who teaches the story was also accused of blasphemy, for he said, “I AM God,” and they picked up stones to stone him. It doesn’t mean a man is making a bold statement on the outside. The “outer man” takes the facts of life . . these are the “stones” . . to stone him, and then he quotes Scripture, and he quotes the 82nd Psalm:.
“Is it not written in your scripture that I say, ‘Ye are gods, all of you sons of the Most High’? If, then, I say that I AM the Son of God, and the Son of God and God are one and the same Being, why do you stone me when scripture teaches you, you are the sons of God?” (See John 10:34-37).
So they could not stone him then because he was only quoting their book. Well, I am only quoting tonight your book, which is my book. It’s the book to set every man in this world free if you know Who-You-Are. Your true identity is Jesus Christ! And Jesus Christ is not a being who came two thousand years ago and then departed. He said, “I AM with you always, even unto the very ends of time.” (Matthew 28:20).
If He is with me always, where is He? He said, “I AM with you always, to the very ends of time.” Then where is He? I surely know where He is..
The conversation now . . I am quoting from the 8th chapter of the book of John. It is taking place in you. No one else is hearing it. I am only now quoting from a passage from the 8th [chapter] of John, “You are from below, I AM from above; you are of this world, I AM not of this world. I say you will die in your sins, for you will die in your sins unless you believe that I AM He.” (John 8:23, 24) I am only quoting from the 8th chapter of the Gospel of John..
In Scripture, above and within are the same; below and without are the same. So, when you read, “I AM from above,” he’s telling you, “I AM from within”, for he tells you, “the kingdom of heaven is within you.” (Luke 17:21) So, I AM from above, therefore I AM from within. You, the ‘outer man’ . . you are from without, therefore you are from below. You are of this world. I don’t have to remain anchored to what my senses dictate and tell me that I AM. I need not be here. You, looking at me from the outside, as the “outer man,” will say, “Neville is on the platform.” Knowing my complete outer world, you would know my restrictions, my limitations. You do not know my ambitions, my dreams, my wishes. I, and I alone, know my ambitions and my wishes. The “Inner Man” knows them, and He knows how to enter these states and prepare a state for the “outer man” to fulfill it. The “outer man” can’t do it. The “outer man” is completely anchored by his senses and confirmed by his reason..
Now, let me share with you a simple story. At the time that it happened, it seemed an impossible thing. Right after the war was over, I took the first trip out with my wife and little girl to the Island of Barbados in the West Indies. I made no preparation for return. I sailed from New York. I thought I would go and stay a few months in the island with my family, who were all in Barbados, making no preparation for my return..
Then it came time for my return, for I had a schedule in New York in the first week of May. I arrived in Barbados the last of December and had these four heavenly months . . or almost four. When I went to the steamship company, they showed me a list which was as long as from here to there [indicating] of people waiting to get on the boat. That was only in the Island of Barbados. There were lists equally long in all the other islands: Trinidad, St. Vincent, Grenada . . all the islands, and only two ships servicing all the islands: one little one taking sixty passengers, and one taking a hundred and twenty-five passengers; and hundreds and hundreds in each island waiting..
Well, they said, “Why, Mr. Goddard, you couldn’t get out of this island until the month of October at the earliest.” I said, “Is that your final verdict?” They said, “Why, that’s final. Look at the list, and this is only in Barbados.”.
This is the month, now, of April. I never thought of applying before that. My brother Victor said, “How on earth could you have left New York, the capitol of the world . . the financial capitol of the world . . they know everything there how to do these things. Why didn’t you arrange there when you left for return?” I said, “It never occurred to me. It doesn’t really matter.”.
I sat in my hotel room in Barbados and got comfortable, and then I assumed that I was in a little boat . . a little tender, taking me off to the waiting ship in the bay. I could feel the rock of the little boat. In that boat I placed my family . . a few members of my family: my brother Victor, my sister Daphne, and one or two others, and naturally my wife and my little girl. Then I felt the ship come alongside the main ship that would take us back to New York. And, then, in my imagination I assumed that my brother Victor took my little girl and stepped on the gangplank and walked up with her and I aided my wife next, and then my sister Daphne, and then I got on, and we went up. When I got to the top of the gangplank . . all in my imagination, giving it all the sensory vividness, giving it all the tones of reality . . I have no committed stateroom, so I could not go down to the stateroom. I simply turned at the top of the gangplank, walked three or four steps, and then put my hands on the rail, so I could smell the rawness of the sea, I could feel the salt driven by the wind. I could feel it on the rail, and then I looked towards the island with nostalgia. I was leaving a perfectly lovely island with so many members of my family, and yet it was a divided feeling. I was happy to be leaving because I had to get back to New York on my way to Milwaukee, and then, at the same time, I was split in my emotion because there was a sadness . . like a sweet sadness leaving them and still happy to go. And that’s the mood that I caught. I caught that feeling. I can’t tell you if you haven’t had the experience of going any place being divided between wanting to go and yet reluctantly so, because you are leaving something precious behind you. Well, that was my mood. I caught the mood. And then I kept on looking at the island, and then I broke it and here I am, sitting in my chair in the room in the hotel in Barbados!.
The next morning the phone rang. As I answered, it was the Alcoa Steamship Company calling: “Mr. Goddard, we’ve Just received a cable from New York canceling a passage sailing on the next ship, which could put you in New York on the first day of May. Would you like it for you, your wife and your daughter? It’s a smaller stateroom, really, there are only two bunks, but your little girl is only three years old, and so she could sleep either with you or with Mrs. Goddard, but there are two bunks, and there is a private bath. Everything is perfect but you know; the ship is small. It will only carry sixty passengers.”
I said, “I’ll be right down.” So, I went down, and I thought I would find out some more details. I asked the agent, “Why the cancellation?” “Well,” she said, “I could only speculate. They didn’t tell us: they cabled us. There was a cancellation for the return trip.” I said, “All right, it’s canceled. Why didn’t you give it to any of the others waiting?” There were hundreds and hundreds waiting. “Well,” she said, “we have one lady here . . an American lady who has been bothering us week after week to get her out of Barbados back to New York, so we called her first, and she said, ‘It’s not convenient for me to go now.’ So, then we called you because you have three to go, and I thought you could use the room for the three of you. And we will not notify any of the other hundreds waiting.”
So, I asked no further questions. I took it and got back in time for my place in New York and then my place in Milwaukee.
When I first tell that story, the usual reaction is: Was that a fair thing to do? Can you imagine that! Was that a fair thing to do with all the others who were waiting? I wasn’t running the Alcoa Steamship Company. I was applying the principle of God. I wouldn’t care if one million people were there; I’d jump over one million. That’s not my concern. I am simply applying the Law of God: “When you desire, believe that you have received it, and you will,” as I am told in the 11th chapter of the book of Mark, 29th verse, and whatever you do, whatever you say, if you do not doubt that it will come to pass, it will be done for you. Well, I did what I’m told in Scripture I ought to do, believe that I had received it, and act upon that belief. So, I acted upon the belief. What would I do if it were true? I would go up the gangplank.
In those days, back in 1945, we did not have a deep-water harbor; we have one now. But then you had to go out to the ship by a little tender, so I did exactly what I would have to do if I went aboard the ship. So, I got aboard the little ship, and then, as we got to the big ship, strangely enough, my brother Victor went up with my little girl in his arms . . the very first one to step off. And then here came my wife, here came my sister, just in the order that I had imagined it. I wouldn’t care if that order was broken or not, but it did happen in the order that I imagined it. So, I tell you, I have found Him. Who? Found who? I have found the Lord Jesus Christ. You did? What does he look like? He looks just like me! Have you found Him? Well, don’t look at me, because when you find Him, He’s going to look just like you! That’s the Lord Jesus Christ . . just like you. There is no other Lord Jesus Christ.
He actually became you, that you may become the Lord Jesus Christ. And when you see Him, He is just like you.
So, do not turn to anyone in this world and say, “There he is,” for that’s a lie, or, “Here he is” . . that’s a lie. So, anyone telling you that Neville is the Lord Jesus Christ . . your Jesus Christ, deny it! Deny it completely. Neville is not the Lord Jesus Christ for you. But I have found the Lord Jesus Christ in me as my own wonderful human imagination. And I share with you what I have found. One day you will find Him as your own wonderful human imagination. Then will come the day that everything said of the Lord Jesus Christ in Scripture, you are going to experience in the first-person, singular, present-tense experience . . everything said about him. Then you will know who the Lord Jesus Christ is. Then you will know who the Father is, who . . really . . God is!
Meanwhile, test him. Go to the extreme test. I tell you, you will find Him never failing. He’s your own wonderful human imagination.
Well, in this story that we started tonight, the two sons are brought now to the father. The father is Isaac, and Isaac is blind. There were two sons; the first one is Esau. He is covered with hair. That’s every child born of woman; that is the “outer man,” for hair means the most external, objective thing in the world. In man, the hair comes first, then you get the skin, then you get the fat, then you get the bones, but the hair is the most external part of man. So, he is covered with hair. The next one has no hair. He is hairless. He is Jacob, The word means supplanter.
The father has requested a meal. That is why I told you earlier the whole vast world . . the whole of life is nothing more than the appeasement of hunger. So, the father is hungry, and he wants venison properly prepared as he always loves it and he gives that command to his first son, Esau. Esau was a hunter. He goes hunting for the venison, and prepares it to please his father.
Jacob overhears the request of his father. Remember, his name is supplanter but the command was given to his brother Esau, So, he slays a goat and skins it, and puts the skin upon his body to deceive his father into believing that he is Esau. He prepares the goat and brings it to his father, and he says, “Father,” and Isaac answers, “Yes, my son.” Then Isaac said, “I am blind, my son. I cannot see. Come close that I may feel you, that I may touch you.” And covered with the skin of the goat, he comes close, and Isaac stretches forth his hand and touches him. He said, “You know, your voice sounds like my son Jacob, but you feel like my son Esau,” and then he gave him the blessing. And, then, having been given the blessing, Jacob disappears.
Then his son Esau comes with the venison, and he said, “Who are you?” He said, “I AM your son Esau.” “Well,” he said, “it must have been your brother who came, and I thought him to be you, and I gave him the blessing; and I cannot reverse it. I cannot take it back. I have blessed him, and the blessing remains his.”
So, you close your eyes, and you are Isaac; you cannot see. Isaac is blind. Shut your eyes, and you can’t see the room. Now, inwardly you have the two sons. The outer room is your Esau. You shut it out completely, and they both go hunting. Esau comes after; Jacob comes first, and he gives the tones of reality to his father. His father is his own wonderful “I AM.” Well, that’s God! God’s name forever is “I AM.” So, I AM is waiting to feel the tones of reality of what he wants, and he feels it to be so real, so natural.
Now, he knows this thing is subjective, so he said, “You sound like Jacob, but come closer, my son, that I may feel you”, and he feels him as I felt the rail on the ship, as I could smell the salt of the sea in the wind, as I could see mentally the island, as I could feel the ship rolling a little under my feet. All this was the tone of reality. This, now, is Esau; it seems real, and so I am giving a reality to this state . . I am giving a blessing to it.
Then I open my eyes to find I am sitting on a chair in my hotel room. Well, suddenly Esau returns. Well, Esau was the place that I left. The room that I sat in was my Esau; that was the objective world. It comes back. And I say, “What have I done?” I went into a state and I clothed it with reality. I gave it all the tones of an objective world, and it seemed so real to me that I gave it the blessing to be real . . to be born. Now this comes back, and without one word spoken, it is telling me, “You deceived yourself. You were deceived by my brother, the subjective state called Jacob.” And I say to myself . . knowing who God really is, He can’t take back His blessing. He gave it the right to be born . . the right to become objective . . the right to become real, and in 24 hours it was born, . . it was real.
And, then, three weeks later I sailed on that ship and completed the entire journey. I’ve repeated it over and over again, and it never fails. And those who will believe it and who will put it to the test cannot fail. They cannot fail. This is the principle of Scripture.
So, will you actually give it the tones of reality? Will you actually, first of all, believe that the God that you now worship as something without, actually exists within you as your own wonderful human imagination? If you will believe that, and not think me blasphemous for telling it and think me something accursed for having spoken it . . but may I tell you, I hope for your sake you will believe it. But really, in my heart of hearts, whether you believe it or not, I am not concerned, because the day will come you will have to believe it, because you will experience it. If only I can aid you to hasten the day . . that’s why I am here. But to actually say I am going to hit you over the head and make you believe it . . no. I am not indifferent to your believing it; I can only appeal to you to believe it for your own good, that you may take whatever you have and transcend it by the use of this Law. Whatever you have in this world, may I tell you, no one is really satisfied! I dined well today, but tomorrow I am going to be hungry. And hunger is forever with man, and God is the ultimate satisfaction of hunger, but that hasn’t yet come upon the majority.
He tells us in the 8th chapter, the 11th verse, of Amos: “I will send a famine upon the world; it will not be a hunger for bread, or a thirst for water, but for the hearing of the word of God.” Now, that comes at the very end, for the average man is not hungry for the word of God. He is complacent. He will say, “I AM a Christian!” So, what! “I AM a Christian. I go to church. I contribute to the church,” and so he thinks that means all that he does as a Christian . . it stops right there.
Well, the hunger is not satisfied, because when He sends that hunger upon the individual, nothing but an experience of God can satisfy that hunger. Well, until He sends that hunger, all the other hungers can be satisfied, like the hunger for security, the hunger for a better job, the hunger for a raise in authority in your present position, the hunger for . . you name it. Every hunger can be satisfied if you apply this principle. But then will come that day He will send the famine upon you, for you are the earth of which He speaks. It hasn’t a thing to do with the world, the famine in the world, or whether there is famine all over the world, because they don’t know how to satisfy their hunger. There is famine, but that is not the famine of which he speaks. He says it’s not a hunger for bread; it’s not a thirst for water, but for the hearing of the Word of God!
So, I am giving you the Word of God as I personally have experienced it. So, tonight you try it. Close your eyes to the obvious. That’s Esau; send him hunting. And, then, become self-deceived. In his absence, bring in the “second son,” who is the Lord from Heaven, and clothe him in the tones of reality, and feel how real it is. Give him all sensory vividness, and when it takes on the tones of reality, open your eyes! Then Esau comes back from the hunt, and then you tell him what you’ve done, and he cries out because your son . . the “second man” . . has deceived you and betrayed him the second time.
Every day you can apply this principle and become self-deceived, but it works. But always keep it within the frame of the Golden Rule, so that no one will be hurt. I do not care who did not get the passage north. I do not care what prompted the woman not to take it. I do not care what prompted the passenger from New York to cancel it. I have no complaints, no words; I simply did what I was called upon to do. I wanted to get out. I found myself locked in . . locked in until October at the earliest, with my commitments in Milwaukee going. I couldn’t do that. I had to get back, and get back, I did!
So, I tell you, this principle cannot fail you. But we are the operant power. And you do not get down on your knees and pray to an external god. Do exactly what the great William Lyons Phelps did, and say to the whole vast world, “I am not talking to you, my Dear,” . . I am communing with my Self. And if I give thanks for what has happened, I don’t give it to you; I give it to the Being-within-me . . constant praise for this miraculous power that is housed within me. And you walk in the consciousness of being constantly praiseful for this miraculous power that became you, that you may become It! And that power is the Lord Jesus Christ who is in you, and there is no other.
So, when the whole vast world is looking for Him to come from without, as the great evangelist today has said, “It is imminent. He is on us. He is coming. I am here to greet Him.” He will wait forever in vain. For when He comes, He is not coming from without. When He comes, He rises from within, and you are He! So, he’s reaching millions of people, but he’s in kindergarten. And what do you expect? He cannot give them more than milk. But in time, you have got to be weaned from milk, and take meat, and then the true meaning of the great mystery of the Christian faith.
So, the world has accepted it in a little story. All well and good, but don’t forever and forever go on seeing only the little story. Learn to extract the meaning of the story, and hope it unfolds within you.
Meanwhile, you apply what you have heard tonight, and before I leave the City at the end of next week, you should be able to tell me that what you tonight desire you have.
Now let us go into the Silence.
Neville Goddard’s “Catch the Mood” lecture is a masterful fusion of mystical exegesis and practical pedagogy. By personifying two inner forces—Esau (the outer, sense-bound self) and Jacob (the divine imagination)—he recasts ancient scripture as an allegory for psychological transformation. In doing so, he challenges conventional religion, inviting the audience to realize that ‘‘I AM’’ is not some distant cosmic being but the creative power that animates every human heart.
Central to the teaching is the concept of prayer as subjective appropriation rather than supplication. Goddard dismantles the idea of begging an external god and instead prescribes an active process: enter the desired state in imagination, invest it with all sensory vividness, then fuse it with your outer awareness and watch reality conform. This shifts spiritual practice from humility before an idol to mastery through self-realization.
The Barbados ship story functions as empirical proof of his doctrine. Faced with a supposedly impossible return voyage, he simply embodies the scene in his mind, feeling every detail, from the rocking tender to the salt spray. The next day, a cancelled reservation miraculously becomes available. The anecdote illustrates his law in action: belief and vivid imagination create tangible results, regardless of external odds.
Goddard’s repeated biblical citations—Psalm 46:10, John 14, Mark 11:24—reveal his hermeneutic method: he reads scripture as ‘‘salvation history’’ rather than dry chronology. Every verse becomes a blueprint for inner awakening. He urges listeners to ‘‘test themselves’’ (II Corinthians 13:5) and to live as though their Kingdom of Heaven is already within them, governed by the Golden Rule rather than by external authority.
By the lecture’s close, Goddard anticipates skepticism and challenges the audience to apply the formula: ‘‘Close your eyes to the obvious, bring in the Second Son, give him tones of reality, then open your eyes.’’ This four-step protocol encapsulates his approach to manifestation and meditation—catch the mood, inhabit it fully, return to the world, and witness the unfolding of events. It is a call to experiential faith, rooted in imaginative sovereignty and confirmed by personal proof.
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