In ‘Feel After Him’, delivered in February 1972, Neville Goddard explores the foundational principle that imagination is the sole creative power and is synonymous with the divine. He identifies human imagination as God in action, emphasizing that every moment of imagining shapes objective reality. Drawing on Acts 17 and the potter metaphor from Jeremiah, he urges listeners to ‘feel after’ this inner power by assuming the feeling of their desired state. He explains the process of prayer as a simple request spoken, followed by an inner ‘thank you’, trusting the divine imagination to manifest outcomes. Neville advises constant awareness of thoughts, pruning all negative imaginal acts, and persistently dwelling in the imagined end to transform one's external circumstances. He supports his teaching with biblical and poetic references, and illustrates how habitual negative imaginings lead to unwanted results. Ultimately, he challenges seekers to test these principles through disciplined mental practice and faith in the universal power within.
New ideas require many reiterations and restatements before they become part of the generally accepted currency of thought. The idea that I’ve been trying to get over since I started back in 1938 is still new. It comes as a shock to anyone who hears it. And even after you’ve heard it for years and years, and think you’re living by it, I’ve discovered that one is not really living by it. It has not yet become a part of their thinking. And it is that imagining creates reality.
I say this because I identify imagining with God in action. To me, man is all imagination and God is man and exists in us and we in him. The eternal body of man is the imagination. And that is God himself. If by God, I mean the creator of the universe, the maker and the master of the whole vast universe and I identify that creator with the human imagination, then man should be more careful as to what he’s imagining. So, I can give lip service to the statement imagining creates reality. And yet if I’m observant in the course of a day, if I observe what I’m imagining, I would find unnumbered moments in my life, in one twenty-four hours or other, the waking eighteen, where I am imagining things I do not wish to experience.
If I really believe that imagining creates reality, I would be more careful, more concerned about what I’m imagining. So, I will give it lip service and say imagining creates reality and go blindly on imagining anything other than what I want to create, beginning with the morning paper and reacting to things that you do not know, whether they be true, they could be planted by some press agent, planted by some lobbyists. You do not know. And here we react as we read and then we go through life in just twenty-four hours and find that most of the twenty-four hours we spend imagining what we do not wish to experience. If man would only look upon the world as a world of appearance, behind which the reality of imagining lay, he would find the truth, he would find God.
As it is totally told in the 17th chapter of the book of Acts, now it’s a story, whether it was historically true or not, it doesn’t really matter. It’s trying to push a point to the fore. It is said that the men of Athens spent all day in the marketplace looking for a new idea, either telling one or hearing one. Then came upon the scene one called Paul. And they wondered, what has this babbler have to say? What is his new idea? And he told them the idea of Jesus and the resurrection. And we are told the Epicureans and the stoic philosophers mocked him and scoffed at him. Others say we will hear more about this later. And he said to them, and this is all ironical if you read it carefully. He said, “Oh men of Athens, I see in every way you are very religious. For, as I passed by, I observed the objects of your worship.” Right away that’s irony, the objects of their worship. Then he said, I noticed this inscription over an altar, “to an unknown God.” What you, therefore, worship, unknown, I declare to you. Then he tells them of the only God, the God that created everything and he’s not a God of far off. He is indwelling, he is within every single being in the world, the God of the universe, not made with hands. You wouldn’t find him in a temple, in a church, in a cathedral, or the little objects of your worship that you make of man with your own hands and then worship him and call him Apollo. But hear the God that I speak of is within everyone. That’s the God of whom I speak. That’s the God that raises from the dead.
Well, they laughed and they mocked him. Then we are told he went on from Athens to Corinth. What he performed there, no one knows, whether Athens ever took him up because they were the wise men. They were called the very learned men of the day. We have them today, too. They scoff at anything that is not part of their great voluminous works. But I am telling you, if as Paul said to the Athenians, if you would only feel after him, you’d find him. If you would feel after him, you would find him.
Find what? Find the God of the universe. For he gave us not the spirit of the world but the spirit of himself. That spirit of himself in man is man’s own wonderful human imagination. When you say, I am, that’s God, the one and only God, and there is no other God, therefore he’s in every man, every woman, every child born of woman. It is the God in that being that allows that being to breathe, live, and experience what we call life in this world. That is the immortal you. So, the eternal body of man is the imagination. And that is God himself. The one we speak of in the New Testament as Jesus. That is God. But where is it? Something on the outside? No, he is in you. When you say I am, that’s Jesus.
Now the world is taught differently, therefore, it comes as a shock when they hear it, they don’t want to hear it. They will listen if it could simply improve their life in this world, get more money, do things that they want to do, and still hold onto this little object on the outside. So, he spoke, “I observed the objects of your worship.” Well, man does that with what they call Jesus. They take their human hands, they make a mold of something, they call it Jesus, put it on a piece of wood, or put it on something else, stick it on the wall, and then cross themselves for good luck. There is the object of their worship. Something they made themselves. The maker is greater than the thing made, no matter how wonderful it’s made, certainly the artist is greater than his work. And so, we make all these things and put it on the outside and then bow before it and worship it. I tell you your own wonderful human imagination is God; that’s God. Now, if I would only observe this and keep it in mind, I should be able to put Paul to the test. He said, “Feel after him and you’ll find him.” Blake said, “Imagination is spiritual sensation.”* Spiritual sensation, but how would I “feel after him and find him?” Well, first of all, he does all things good, bad, or indifferent. And he waits on me just as indifferently and as swiftly when the willing me is evil as when it is good because he’s creative power.
He kills, he makes alive, he wounds, he heals—all things are done by the one creative power. There isn’t another God who is evil and one that is good. One that is altogether loving. And one that is altogether hating. No, only one power. And that power is the human imagination. So how will I then feel after him? What would the feeling be like if it were true? What true? That I am the man that I would like to be. What would the feeling be like? Test it, for all things are made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made. But now if I had dared to assume that I am now the man that I want to be, and I persist in that assumption, watching my mind morning, noon, and night. So, anything that I find myself dwelling upon that is in conflict with that assumption, I ignore it, I put it aside. I will be faithful to this divine vision, the vision of myself. So anytime I catch myself daring to feel less than the thing that I’m feeling or trying to externalize in my world, I simply stop it and go back to that assumption that I am the man that I want to be. If I persist in it and it becomes a fact then I have found him. I don’t observe imagining as I do objects in space. I am the reality that is called imagining. So, you don’t see God because God is spirit, but you see the results of his activity in you. He’s active in you as you imagine. You’re completely free to imagine good, bad, or indifferent. So, you simply select what you want to imagine. Would you like to be—and you name it. But you say, I don’t have the background for it. I do not have any of the qualifications for it. It doesn’t really matter. If imagining creates reality, you do not need the qualification that the world thinks you need. All you need do is simply to boldly assume that you are the man, the woman that you would like to be. And if it proves itself in performance, then you have found him.
So, Paul said to the Athenians, “Feel after him and you’ll find him.” Well, I have seen it numberless times in my thirty-four years of teaching. I started back in February of 1938 and here I am, this is February of 1972, and I’m yet to see it fail—if we, the operant power, apply it. It doesn’t apply itself. We are the operant power. For in man is God and God is man’s own wonderful human imagination. So, if I dare to assume that I am the one that I would like to be, well, that’s God who’s doing it.
So how will I turn then to God tonight? Say a half-dozen people asked of me tonight, it takes no time, they voiced their request. It’s a statement made in the book of John, the Epistle of John: “If we know that he hears us in whatever we ask of him, we know that we have already obtained the request made of him.” Well, when they’re talking to me, they say, I would like so and so, instantly it comes within the frame of my golden rule. It’s something I would like myself. If I were in their present state of consciousness, I would like that. It doesn’t violate my rule. It doesn’t injure someone. It doesn’t take from anyone. Well now, did I hear it? I heard it. Well, if I and my Father are one, well then, my Father heard it. I do not know the means that will be employed to bring it to pass, but I can’t deny that I heard it. If I heard it, and I and my Father are one, well, can I not now say to my inner being, “Thank you, Father”? You heard it because I heard it, for if we know that he hears all that we ask of him, then we know we have already obtained the request made of him. So, as they say to me, I would like so and so, well then, I heard it. I do not know as a man called Neville how it’s going to happen. I do not know. I’m not going to suggest what they do or what they should do. I only know that I heard it and if I heard it, my Father heard it because he and I are one. He is my own wonderful human imagination. So, I could actually say within myself, as though we were two, “Thank you.” You heard it because I heard it, and then allow the depth of my own being to devise the means necessary to bring it to pass. And that I am not responsible from that moment on, I do not call them up and say, “Did it happen?” I do not get in touch with them and write them and say, “Tell me, how are things coming?” It’s not my concern. I did what was asked of me. And all it was asked of me was to hear and use my imagination lovingly on their behalf. Well, I did it in the twinkle of an eye. You don’t have to go into some sweat to do it. I don’t have to go to some church and do it, go to some synagogue and do it, or some so- called holy place. Wherever I stand should be holy because the Father is within me. And where can you go to a more holy place than where God is? If I know God is my own wonderful human imagination, then where can I go that could be more holy than wherever I am, no matter where it is?
So, the request is made, I heard it. And then having heard it, I give thanks to the being within me, who has the means, the wisdom, and the power to externalize it. Knowing that the entire outside world, that all objective reality, is solely produced through imagining. What is now proven in the world was once only imagined. Try to deny that, try to deny it. There isn’t a thing in this world that you can say that’s real that was not first only imagined. So, I say to everyone here, take the statement, “Feel after him and you’ll find him.” He didn’t say you may find him. Feel after him and you’ll find him.
But these ideas are so new and yet they aren’t new, they go back into the Old Testament. Here, we find the word for imagination used as the word potter. Well, if you say the word potter, go down to the Potter’s house, and I let you hear my word. So, I went down to the Potter’s house and there he was working at his wheel and the vessel in his hand was spoiled. So, he reworked it into another vessel, as it seemed good to the potter to do. If you read it in the form of the story, in which it is told in the 18th chapter of Jeremiah, you will think of a man with clay in his hands, at his wheel, pumping away, making a vessel, making some kind of a, well, it could be anything, a plate. That’s not it. The word potter means imagination. It’s like saying to you go into your own imagination and see what you are doing with a friend. You just heard that he was in need. Are you now going to finish that and take him now into a greater need, or are you going to rework it into another vessel as it seemed good to you to do? You don’t go to some Potter’s house, go down to the Potter’s house, and there, I will let you hear my word. So, I went down to the Potter’s house and there he was working at his wheel. And the vessel in his hand was spoiled. He didn’t throw it away and discard it. He reworked it into another vessel as it seemed good to him to do. So, a man, a friend of ours, he’s unemployed. All right, so he’s unemployed and he doesn’t have the qualifications for a better job and there is no job at the moment for what he has. So what? I will rework it. I will hear him tell me that he has the most marvelous job and he’s gainfully employed. What the job is, I do not know. But I can say to myself, well, if I heard it surely the depth of my own being heard it. And so, I can say, thank you. Having reworked him in my own mind’s eye into an entirely different being; the same friend, but not one unemployed, he is now gainfully employed. So, feel it. If I can feel this state, I’m finding God for God is spirit.
And may I tell you, and by spirit, I do not mean some intangible thing. It actually is the human form divine. When I speak of the human imagination, it is a form, it is a reality, it is the divine form. So, the eternal body of man is the human imagination. And that is God himself. And there is no other God. He said, “I kill and I make alive. I wound and I heal. I do all things and none can deliver out of my hands.” This is Scripture. But man, when he hears the word, God, he thinks there’s something out in space. Where, he doesn’t quite know, but something in space. If the word God, in any way, conjures within you something that is other than your own wonderful human imagination, you’ve got the wrong God.
If the word Jesus causes you to think of a man who lived 2,000 years ago and died 2,000 years ago and rose 2,000 years ago, you’ve got the wrong one. You’re told Jesus is within you. If he’s within me, I should find out exactly where he is in me. And then who is he? Well, I found him. He is my own wonderful human imagination. That’s Jesus. And all that is said of him, every child born of woman, is going to experience, to discover he is Jesus, and there is no other Jesus. So, you’re told in Scripture, in the 17th of Matthew, “In the end, there is Jesus only.” Why? You’re told now in the book of John, the Epistle of John, “And when he appears, we shall be like him.” Because when he appears and it’s only Jesus, well I have to be like him. So, within me, the whole thing unfolds itself.
And everything said of him, at least whether people believe it or not, I have experienced. And personally, I do not care whether they accept it or not. Any more than Paul did, the wise men, the Epicureans, and the stoic, scoffed at him and laughed at him, mocked him. So, he went on to Corinth. He simply did the work he came to do. So, he told the story and said you’re worshiping, what? Something on the outside. And here you put an inscription over the altar, “To an unknown God.” You say the unknown. What you know, say is unknown, I will tell you of a known God. Now take my word for it and feel after him and you’ll find him. How would I find him? Well tonight if I wanted to be in New York and I put my body down on the bed tonight when I go to bed, I must assume that I am already in New York. Well, how would I know that I am there? If I am all imagination, I must be wherever I am in imagination. Well, if I am in imagination in New York, now think of the world, think of California, Southern California, where you place the body, or do you see it on the bed as you’re thinking, well then you are not in New York. Do you see it 3,000 miles away to the west of you? Well then you are in New York. For were you in New York, you would see the body in your mind’s eye, 3,000 miles away in Los Angeles. And you’d be thinking from New York rather than thinking of New York. So, the whole thing is simply finding out this fantastic power, creative power in man and how it operates. For, there is no problem in the world comparable to this problem of solving the mystery of imagining. For supreme power and supreme wisdom and supreme delight is in store for the one who conquers this mystery.
So, whether you be in jail, all right, so you are in jail, and you dare to assume that you are free. You aren’t going to break through the doors and be picked up and be sent to a longer term, you simply assume that you are free. Today on death row, many of them pray that their sons would not be put in the chamber, and they believe their prayers. And so, the Supreme Court brings in a verdict: no more killing of men because they kill someone. Whether you approve or disapprove, that’s not the point. All things are possible in God’s world, all things. So, I’m not going to pass any opinion, whether this thing is right or wrong. I’m not going to be involved emotionally as to whether they did the right thing or the wrong thing. I only know from personal experience, if I had a son there, I want him free. If he were there, he’s not there, but if he was there, I’d want him free. Regardless of what he did, as one who loves his son, I’d want him free. But I am not going to pass any opinion or any judgment concerning the Supreme Court’s decision. The thing is all things are possible. You tell me what you want and if it comes within the framework of what I call the Golden Rule, which is simply doing unto others, as you would have others do unto you. If it fits that frame, well then, you are on the right course.
Well then, you can’t do it physically, no. You don’t have the power or the wisdom to do it. But there’s something in you, which is your essential being—it can do it. It knows exactly how to do it. Can you trust it? Can you trust this being within you to have heard what you heard? I heard it on this level, the request made. And if I heard it on this level, certainly the depth of my own being heard it, and on that depth, he has ways and means I do not have on this level. Therefore, I’m not concerned as to how it’s going to work. I only know it will work. By simply assuming that I am already the one I want to be. And if I dare to assume it and remain faithful to it, then it becomes a fact.
So, imagining, plus this kind of faith, faith in God, and God is your own wonderful human imagination. So, faith in God is the way to success. You imagine it as though it were true and then you walk your way, not knowing how it’s going to become true, but it will become true, and I invite you to test it, just try it, costs you nothing. And if I take from you your gods, as Paul took from the Athenians their gods, then it’s a blessing. If you can lose your God, it’s a good thing because the real gods you can’t lose and you can never lose being, you can never lose a sense of I am. You can lose everything else, but you can never cease to be aware that you are; that’s God. And so, if I can’t take that from you, well then, I can’t take the real God from you. If I can take any other thing from you and you worship it, you have the false god. And I did you service in taking anything but the reality, because I can’t take the reality from you. So, all other services and ceremonies, they mean nothing, nothing. Go about your Father’s business, which is yourself doing noble things in this world, imagining the best and it will come to pass.
That’s why I say if it seems that I reiterate and restate night after night after night, it’s essential. Because if you are perfectly honest with yourself this day and you observe what you are imagining in the course of one day, you’d be ashamed of what you imagined. And yet you are imagining things you do not want to happen. And yet you’ll give lip service to a statement, imagining creates reality. And then one moment later, a friend of mine up in San Francisco, she was a friend of a mutual friend and they didn’t get on very well, only at moments. One night, riding with her, we went down, oh maybe seventy-five miles down the peninsula for a dinner, a lovely dinner, and all the way back, this very, very heavy fog, you could hardly see a few yards before you. And she was talking of this friend of mine, who she claimed to be a friend of hers, and she would rant against this woman. So and so and so, I wouldn’t even print it. You couldn’t print it, it burned the page. And then at the end of her statement, she would say, “God, bless her soul.” She kept up the entire seventy-five miles blasting this woman. And then she would qualify the whole thing and is all forgiven. “God bless her soul.” So, she is still here, the other one has gone from this little section of time, and she’s still playing the same part, using her imagination in every way she doesn’t want in this world. And things went from bad to worst in her world. And they’re still that way. And she can’t for one moment believe she’s the cause of the phenomena of her life. Oh no, she can’t for one moment. And yet I had one long, seventy-five- mile drive with her. Well, it would take a whole lifetime to reap that harvest, what she said in that long drive from dinner back home.
So, man has a very weak memory and he doesn’t remember when he did these things, but the depth in man who does not forget. We are warned in Galatians, “Be not deceived. God is not mocked. As a man sows, so shall he reap.” Then we are told by the poet, “See yonder fields! The sesamum was sesamum, the corn Was corn. The Silence and Darkness knew! So is a man’s fate born.” So, you don’t recognize your own harvest, but it couldn’t make a mistake. Everything is after the identical seed. You plant a seed. What seed was it? I had forgotten what it was. Well, wait until the tree comes up, you’ll know because it can’t be other than what was planted. If I plant an oak, well, then the oak is going to spring up into the oak tree. I plant that sort of acorn, that’s going to be the oak tree. But if I plant something else, well then wait. If I have forgotten what I planted, wait, the harvest will show me. And man denies his own harvest. So, I’m telling you that your own wonderful human imagination is God, is the God of Scripture, the only God, whether in the Old Testament, you call him the Lord or call him Jehovah or call him God, or in the New Testament, you call him Jesus, it’s the same thing. This is the creative power in man. And that creative power in man is man’s own wonderful human imagination. Why repeat unnumbered stories that I’ve told you in the past? I could start with new ones but you know the technique and the technique is simple. If all things are created out of man’s human imagination, well, then, let him start imagining what he wants to be. And if he does, success will follow him.
But in the meanwhile, try to prune the plant because when you hear for the first time that your imagination is God, it’s an awful shock. Because as the poet said,
“Behold this vine, I found it a wild tree
Whose wanton strength had swollen into
irregular twigs …
but I pruned the Tree,
Then it grew temperate in its vain expense
Of useless leaves, and knotted, as thou seest,
Into these full, clear clusters, to repay
The hand whose foresight wounded it.”
So, when you first find the vine spoken of in the Bible, “I am the vine of eternity, I am the true vine and my Father is the vine dresser.” And you discover that vine is my imagination, but then the whole thing went into leaves, useless leaves and branches. It was not producing grapes. Then I start to prune the tree by observing what I’m imagining in the course of 24 hours.
It becomes a habit. Then the next day I do a little bit better; the third day, better still; by the end of a week, I am in the habit now of watching what I’m imagining. And don’t wait—instantly prune it. Stop it. Stop imagining, don’t indulge yourself. I have heard people say to me, “But just one more second. It’s such a pleasant thing to cut him off.” And so, in his mind’s eye, he’s telling off someone all in his imagination, knowing he’s going to reap the fruit of it. Now, if you know that, you aren’t going to simply spend an extra five seconds of precious time in finishing that emotion; stop that emotion and get on a new trend. And then you prune the plant. And finally, that plant’s going to reward you with clean, full clusters because you wisely wounded it. And then you keep that vine going and the vine will pay enormous dividends. I know from experience. When you go to bed at night, let your last thought be something noble, something wonderful that you are now, or those you love are now, what you would like to be and drop off into the deep in that state and make it a habit. As we are told, you plant a seed and then the seed becomes an act and the act becomes a habit and the habit becomes the character.
So if I seem to repeat myself, it’s because I have to, because if anyone here tonight could honestly tell me that in the course of 24 hours, they have observed what they were imagining and had not a thing to find fault with, well, I would like to hear that, and I will not call you a liar because I’m not here to judge, but it would be marvelous thing, if you could tell me that. But I know that all of us are victims of habit. And we get into the habit of these internal conversations that are not pleasant. And we think that no one observes, no one sees. So, as we are told in the book of Ezekiel, “He said, son of man, go down and see what the elders of the house of Israel are doing. So, I went down to the house to observe the elders of the house of Israel. And there they were, each in his own room, carving on the wall.” What wall? The wall of your own interior, the wall of your skull. And they are making abominable things. And they say whether no one sees us, the Lord has forgotten us. They thought because they did it in the silence that no one knows when the only reality is their own wonderful human imagination. And that is fully aware of what man is doing and rewards man, good, bad or indifferent, with his imaginal act.
Now, no one can tell me that you could not tonight start to become, if you want to be prosperous, that’s a relative term. What you mean by prosperous would not be what another means by it. But what you—and just take yourself—what would it feel like if it were true? Just what would it feel like?And then go about to your business feeling as though it is true, instead of spending your precious time reading about Howard Hughes, or who cares? I asked a friend of mine who asked me if I’m following the story; I said, you know, he doesn’t know me and I don’t know him. And I’m quite sure that if I met him, he would not really buy me a sandwich. So, what am I concerned about? He doesn’t pay my rent, he doesn’t buy my clothes, he doesn’t contribute to my way of living, and I am supposed to be concerned about what he’s doing? He doesn’t interest me, none whatsoever. So, I must spend my precious time reading about Howard Hughes? My heart almost goes out to the man, Irving, who wrote the thing because the so-called wise editors of Life and the wise ones of the other one, got taken. And they’re so wise, taken for a half-million dollars. And so, I’m not saying that I would want to duplicate it in my life, but it almost serves them right.
To pull that upon the people and who cares about Hughes, really? What is his contribution to life? So, he has made two billion. So what? Hasn’t bought you a dinner. Hasn’t done anything for you. And so, what is your concern? You take the story of Scripture. See it, as it really was intended in the beginning to be seen: that your own wonderful human imagination is the God spoken of in Scripture. And by him, all things were made and without him was not anything made that is made. Start right in this room, you’re wearing clothes, you’re sitting on chairs, you’re in a house. Everything here was first only imagined: the clothes you’re wearing, the chairs in which you are seated, the building that now houses you. Everything here was first only imagined. And then it became some objective fact. So, objective reality is solely produced through imagining. Now you want to objectify something entirely different from what you have so far. Well now, change the imaginal act. To attempt a change in circumstances before I change the imaginal activity is to struggle against the very nature of things. I can’t do it because my imaginal activity is producing the objective realities. And I can’t change that objective fact until I change what is causing it. And the cause is an unseen imaginal activity.
As we are told, “He brings things that are not seen and calls them as though they were seen and they become seen.” Things that are now seen, were made out of things that do not appear. That’s what we are told in the book of Hebrews. What you now see, it was made out of things that do not appear. Well, if that is a fact, and Scripture’s had it now for centuries and centuries as fact, well then put it to the test. Challenge, yes, challenge the Scripture, as you’re taught in Scripture to challenge it. “Do you not realize that Jesus Christ is in you? Examine yourselves and see whether you are holding to the faith.” Well, test him. Test him and see. If he is in me and he does all things, I’m going to test him. Well, I have tested him over and over and over and found him faithful. I dared at moments in my life to assume that I had what reason told me I did not, and my senses denied it, but I dared to assume that I had it, and it happened. It came out of the nowhere. It happened. So, I taught that principle to others. They applied it and it happened. But strangely enough, after someone becomes a little bit better off than they were, they reflect on it and because it always happens in a perfectly normal, natural manner, they say, “Oh, well, it would’ve happened anyway.” And then they go sound asleep again.
You can give someone a sedative and you try to awaken them. And for a moment they’re alert, seemingly alert. And while you are talking to them, sound asleep again. That’s humanity. They’re dreaming this dream of life.And they see the fruit of what they’ve imagined and deny that their imagination produced it. So, they go sound asleep again, back up on the negative state. But I’m asking you who come here and persist in coming to observe what you are doing in the course of twenty-four hours. You’re not alert for twenty-four hours, but take, say sixteen hours. If you give eight hours for sleep, well take sixteen hours and try to observe what you are imagining. And if perchance you catch yourself imagining what you do not wish to experience, stop it, stop it right there and then, and don’t give it an extra second. It may be you are in the midst of an emotion and you’d like to complete the emotion and tell him off completely. Don’t. Stop it. Break it. And that causes a sort of a mental, well, a mental abortion, a mental miscarriage. If you break it without exploding the emotion.
So, feel after him and you’ll find him. That’s what he told the Athenians. But he pointed out all the objects of their worship. And every object he pointed out was something they themselves made with their hands and then worshiped it. I can see it now when I was a young man in the dancing world, there was a young girl, a pretty young girl, and she had a little figurine of what she called the Holy Mother. And before she took the stage, she would kiss it. The whole thing was to simply bring in rays from her kisses. And she really thought that gave her success. She kissed it and smothered it with kisses and on the stage she would go. And that was her little object of her worship. She thought that really was the Holy Mother. I mean, I tell you, without any criticism of the thing, most of these things are made by people who call themselves artists and are so far moved from any concept of being an artist. They’re monstrous things made by the millions, not by good artists at all; but she had her little one and sitting on top of the stage at her little dresser and she would smother it with kisses and then dashed on the stage and she danced.
I went to a party once, these boys, one with a priest or he was going to be a priest and he quit to join the war, the others, they all went into the army. One came out deaf, one came out with one foot missing above the knee and an arm. And this one who was the priest, or about to be the priest, he came out with something else, didn’t go back into the priesthood. But they all wore their St. Christopher medals when they dived into the pool at their home and they attributed their recovery or their so-called coming out of the army to St. Christopher. That was before St. Christopher was demoted. He’s now demoted. The Pope just said there was no such a thing as St. Christopher. But before that, they attributed the entire thing to that; one with a foot missing, arm missing, one deaf, and one with TB, and that is St. Christopher. He didn’t do a good job. But they’re actually, were completely, I said to my wife, I said, “Darling, suppose they know what I teach? Suppose they have heard what I do? Would they have me here?” “Oh,” she said, “certainly they would have you here because as far as they’re concerned, you aren’t saved, you couldn’t be saved. You are a Protestant. So how could you be saved?” They loved my father dearly, said my wife, loved him more than they loved their own people, but he couldn’t be saved because he was a Protestant. Therefore, it doesn’t really matter what you do. So don’t be concerned if they knew what you are teaching, they wouldn’t even pass an opinion because it doesn’t matter. Only what they have been taught to believe is true. And that’s the only truth. Therefore, enjoy the day. So, I did. I enjoyed the day and observed all this nonsense.
So, I’m telling you your own wonderful human imagination is God; there is no other God. If you think there’s another God, then you’ve got two gods. And if you start with two, you’re going to have four, and four is going to give you eight, and eight sixteen, and then you have millions of gods. There’s only one God. “Hear O Israel, the Lord, our God, the Lord is one.” And that God is I am. That’s his name forever and forever and forever. And when you say I am, you are actually announcing the fact that you are imagining. That is imagination, that’s God. And it’s the human imagination. And it is the eternal body of the Savior. And the only Savior is the Lord, God. “I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. And besides me, there is no Savior.” So, the Jesus of the New is the Lord, God of the Old. And where is he? In man. He gave us not the spirit of this world, he gave us the spirit of himself. And that spirit of himself is in man as man’s own wonderful human imagination.
Now, let us go into the silence.
Neville Goddard reinterprets key biblical passages to demonstrate that the God of Scripture is not an external deity but the human imagination itself. By referencing Paul’s speech in Acts 17 and the potter story in Jeremiah, he reframes religious symbolism as an inward spiritual phenomenon, challenging devotees to abandon external idols in favor of inner creative power.
From a psychological perspective, he positions imagination as the primary engine of experience and manifestation. Equating it with divine activity underscores the importance of mental imagery in shaping beliefs, emotions, and actions, and establishes a direct link between inner thought patterns and outer circumstances.
He outlines a practical methodology commonly known as the law of assumption: articulate your desire internally, assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled, and persist in that state while immediately pruning any conflicting thoughts. This discipline of vigilant self-observation and rapid interruption of unwanted imaginings serves as the operative mechanism for transformation.
The lecture carries profound theological implications by dissolving the dualistic divide between Creator and creation. In Neville’s monistic vision, recognizing the oneness of human imagination and divine consciousness is the essence of spiritual awakening, collapsing the barrier between subjective and objective reality.
Finally, Goddard emphasizes habit formation and mental pruning as indispensable for lasting change. By observing and halting negative imaginings, practitioners cultivate a refined inner life—one that yields clean, abundant results. His vine metaphor illustrates how disciplined mental gardening rewards the diligent with tangible manifestations of their ideal state.
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