In this lecture, Neville Goddard expounds on William Blake’s statement that “to raise imagination to the state of vision and the thing is done,” revealing that biblical “vision” encompasses all five senses. He illustrates through Old Testament examples—Isaiah, Obadiah, Job, and the Jacob-Esau narrative—how imagination can be raised to sensory vividness to effect change in the external world. Goddard frames the outer objective world as Esau and the inner subjective world as Jacob, teaching that one can supplant the former by empowering the latter through sensory imagination. He shares practical examples, such as a starving artist who imagines preparing a banquet and subsequently receives food, and a man who heals skin cancer by hearing congratulatory voices. Goddard even recounts his own discharge from the Army by living the desired outcome in imagination. Emphasizing self-impregnation through sensory conviction, he urges listeners to choose their dominant sense to manifest desired realities. The lecture culminates in a call to practice this principle daily, underpinned by scriptural mysticism and personal empowerment.
Blake said,“We have only to raise Imagination to the state of vision and the thing is done.”
Just imagine it’s all that you and I have to do…to raise Imagination to the state of vision and the thing is done. Anything, no matter what it is. When Blake used the word vision, he used it as the prophets of old used it in scripture. It’s not confined to the single sense of sight but takes in all the senses, either individually or in combinations. When we open the Bible and see the Book of Isaiah, it begins, “The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz…Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth; for the Lord has spoken” (1:1,2). Here, vision is now sound, it’s audio. In the Book of Obadiah: “The vision of Obadiah. Thus says the Lord God…” again it is sound (1:1). You can take it in touch…sight, sound, scent, taste or touch.
Possibly the most difficult…we follow the Book of Job…to raise Imagination to the state of vision would be the sense of sight…when he said, “I had heard of thee with the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees thee.” That is the very last chapter, the 42nd of Job (verse 5).But you do not have to raise it to the state of sight to get the results; you can raise it to the state of sound. That seems to be the most popular in scripture. Yes, in the story of Jacob and his father Isaac it was the sense of touch. We are told that he was blind and he could not see, and the first out of the womb was Esau. Although they were twins the first one out was Esau, and therefore he had the right of inheritance by law. But Jacob, who was the smooth-skinned lad, to deceive his father through the sense of touch killed one of the flock of his father and took the skin and put it on his hands, and came towards the father.
Now, the drama unfolds within us. This is not a man who is blind with two sons that came out of the womb of his wife. No, the whole drama is unfolding in us. My Esau is the objective world that I know by reason of my senses. This room now is my Esau, it’s your Esau. But if I desire to be elsewhere or to see other than what I am seeing, what I desire which is now subjective for the moment is my Jacob. Now, can I use the same technique to supplant what I am experiencing with my outer senses? So Jacob comes clothed in the garments of the outer world; he puts on hairy garments, which is what Esau had at birth. So the outer world is Esau, the inner world is Jacob. But Jacob desires to become objective…so your desire, your longing is seeking some objective existence. And you are the one to grant it, for you are now the Isaac, the father consciousness that can give reality to an unseen subjective state.
So when he comes, he said, “Come near, that I may feel you, my son, to know whether you are really my son Esau or not” (Gen. 27:21, 22). Then he said to him, “You have the voice that is the voice of Jacob, but you feel like my son Esau.” In other words, you have the feeling of Esau. Now here, the sense of sound was not equal to his sense of touch, so he had developed the sense of touch beyond that of sound. Others develop sound beyond that of touch, and the last would be that of sight. But in this he said, “You smell the smell of Esau” and that’s when he had the smell and the touch, and he granted him the birthright. He granted him that which belonged to objective reality and gave him the right to become an objective fact in the world.
So here, when Blake tells us that we have only to raise Imagination to the state of vision and the thing is done, he is using the word vision as it is used in the Bible. Now you know better than anyone else which sense is most developed in you.Some can hear the voice of a person and no matter where they are, in a crowd, all kinds of voices, single out that unseen voice that may be a thousand miles or ten thousand miles away, and tune it in, in spite of the noise and carry on a conversation with that unseen, unheard voice (unheard by anyone else) and have that one tell him or tell her what they want to hear. Can you become self-persuaded of the reality of what you are hearing? Regardless of what your senses, the other four, are dictating you ignore it, and bring one in and then let it overpower all the others. And you’re only going to hear what you want to hear.
Well now, some have developed hearing to such a point that they can exclude all the others and let it overpower them, and believe in the reality of what they are hearing, so that what they imagine that they are hearing takes on all the tones of reality, all the sensory vividness of reality. And when they are self-persuaded this is so, they do nothing about its birth. Birth takes place naturally after this impregnation. It’s just like a pregnancy. What do you do after you become aware that you are pregnant? You do nothing to aid it, you simply bear it, and then its normal natural time comes and it’s born in the world. No two eggs seem to have the same interval of time between fertilization and hatching out, so I do not know how long it takes any individual having once become impregnated through any medium.It could be through sight, through sound, through scent, through taste or through touch. But whatever you use to impregnate self…for if I could only become self-persuaded that a thing is as I desire it to be, using any sense to impregnate me, well then, the thing is done. So I raise Imagination to the state of vision and then the thing is done.
Now here is an artist. You would think certainly she would have sight. She is a fine artist and her works are in our national galleries. During the Depression she just didn’t have one dime, literally, not a dime. She said, “I was so exhausted I couldn’t even walk to the Y.W.C.A. and offer my services for a meal. It was too far to walk and I didn’t have the strength, so I stretched out on the couch and I said, ‘Lord, you said if you but believe all things are possible. Well, I believe, I believe that I am well fed.’” Here, she is starving, she has nothing. Then she said, “I didn’t actually hear words audibly, but I got an impression, and the impression was this: If you really believe as you now say that you believe, wouldn’t you prepare the table? If you say that you actually believe, wouldn’t you have the table prepared for the meal?”
She said, ‘“While stretched on the couch, in my Imagination I put out the best things that I had…even to the lighting of a candle…all in my Imagination…and prepared for the reception, to receive the good that is coming. And then I fell asleep from sheer exhaustion. Next thing I knew in my dream I’m dreaming I’m lifting the cover from a lovely big silver platter, and as I’m lifting the cover it begins to ring, it’s actually ringing. Then it dawned on me the telephone is ringing, and so I got up—it’s all a dream—and I answered the phone and a friend…I hadn’t seen this lady in twenty years; in fact, the last time I saw here was at my mother’s funeral. She and my mother were very close and dear friends. She said over the phone, “Suddenly I have a longing for a certain meal that you prepared years ago for your mother and for me. For some unknown reason I would love to have that or something similar. Could you do it for me?” And she said to the lady, “Willingly! I have the facilities for cooking, but I do not use them because I’m using it only as a studio.” The reason why she didn’t use them, she had no money to buy anything. So she had the facilities, but no money and not a thing in the cupboards.
The lady said, “Tell me the ingredients and I’ll bring them over right away.” So she itemized all the things she needed for whatever she wanted for this dish. Well, you can’t go into a store and buy, say, a cupful of flour, you buy a pound at least. Maybe two pounds is the smallest package that they put out. Same is true of spaghetti or anything of that nature. You simply go and buy the smallest amount which is still far in excess of what you would need to prepare a meal for two people. But the lady simply went in and bought everything that this lady, this artist, gave her. Within the hour here came the car, and she went out to help her, and brought in all this food. Well, it took another hour and a half or so to prepare it. She said, “I have a cat that I really thought went insane. It hadn’t detected the odor of food in our place in so long that it went wild. I had to put it out, and it jumped up on the window from the outside, and the lady said, ‘What’s wrong with the cat?’ I didn’t have the courage to tell her it hadn’t had food in this house for the longest while. I found scraps form the garbage pails for it. I’d go down the street and get scraps to feed my cat. Here after an hour and a half the meal was ready. She not only sat down and thoroughly enjoyed it with her friend, but there would be enough left over for at least two more weeks. Because you can’t use all that is brought in when only two people are going to dine.
Now she…although she’s an artist and her work hangs in the galleries of our country, she had developed the sense of touch, the tactile sense, beyond anything that she had seemingly as an artist, such as using the eyes. So she could actually feel…she could feel that thing, and then she heard the bell ring. But she went to bed touching the plates, touching the candle, lighting it, and doing all the things with the sense of touch. And that is the story of Isaac. But every one is dramatized in scripture…you can do it with any one. When you read scripture you’ve got to see it through the eyes of the mystic or you wouldn’t understand it. Blake said, “Why is the Bible more entertaining and more instructive than any other book?” Then he answers his own question, “Is it not because it is addressed to the Imagination, which is spiritual sensation, and only immediately to the understanding or reason?” Spiritual sensation! That’s spiritual sensation…you’re feeling what the outer senses at the moment cannot feel. So you’re touching something that is denied by the outer sense of touch, which is Esau. You’re touching it with the hand of Jacob, you’re seeing something with the eyes of Jacob, and you’re hearing something with the ears of Jacob.
So, here in the 115th Psalm the psalmist is now speaking of our Lord, “Our Lord who does everything that pleases him” (verse 3). There is nothing in this world that he can’t do. He does everything! Whatever it is that pleases him he can do it. Then he compares it to the gods of the world. He said, “Their gods are made of silver and gold. They have mouths, but they speak not; eyes, but they see not. They have ears, but they hear not; they have feet, but they do not walk. They have hands but they feel not. And those who make them are just like them; and also those who trust in them” (verses 3-8). So anyone who has an external some little thing that can’t talk, something on the wall, you go and light a candle and put it before some little thing that some man made with his hands and you pray to it. Can it speak? Can it utter anything? Can it hear your voice when you speak to it and ask and make your request? No it can’t. It cannot answer you, it cannot speak, it cannot see, it cannot hear, it cannot walk. It is simply something made with the human hand. Yet people trust it…and they are just as foolish as the thing they made. That’s what the 115th Psalm is telling you. They’re just like them. They haven’t exercised the internal man that is Jacob. And Jacob is in the line of Jesus Christ; it isn’t Esau. It’s the internal man that you begin to exercise. This then becomes the new man, and you bring him to the surface by the exercise of the senses. But any one of them that dominates the others can be used as the one to impregnate yourself.
So does it mean that a self-persuasion, though denied by the senses, will become a fact? Yes, if I can persuade myself of the reality of that which at the moment my senses deny, it will become a fact. I do nothing to make it so. It’s simply I’ve become self-impregnated; and now that that has taken place I am pregnant, and then the birth will take place in the most normal, natural way. And when I reflect upon it, it seemed as though it would have happened anyway. It seemed because so many people aided the birth seemingly, well, they would have done it anyway. And it isn’t so!
And so, when he made this bold assertion, someone would say, “Well, why wasn’t he rich?” Not everyone wants wealth. Blake was quite satisfied to live as he lived. He had no desire for fame, no desire for enormous sums of money. And people will say, “Well, why wasn’t he rich”…as though that is the epitome of everything in the world. Those who were known in his day, 200-odd years ago, they’re completely unknown today. The king of England was a madman, George the third, and he’s only known by reason of the fact that it was our revolution against England. If he didn’t reign at the time that we rebelled against England, no one would know who George III was. Name his predecessor, name his successor. He’s only known by reason that he reigned during that time…and he was as mad as a hatter. But name the other people at the same time. And Blake grows and grows in stature. He just simply dwarfs everyone of his day…and he had no money. He was unschooled by human standards…he taught himself. All of the languages he learned…he learned Latin himself, never went to school, taught himself Greek. He taught himself all the Latin tongues like French, Italian, Spanish and he was a master in the use of the English tongue. Here was this giant of a man who had none of the so-called opportunities of the world. But he didn’t seek them; he was always busy about God’s work.
So, when he used the word “vision” he isn’t confining it to sight…that you might think, well now, the whole vast world is vision to him. Well, if the whole vast world is vision to Blake and his greatest work by his own confession was Jerusalem, and he tells us that it was given to him by immediate dictation, therefore it came through the medium of sound. He didn’t see Jerusalem, he heard it. The words were dictated by the spirit of love, but he still called it a vision. He said, “It’s the greatest vision, this poem called Jerusalem.”
So tonight, I do not know which is the easiest for you, but whatever is easiest use it. Let it dominate the other four. See if you can blend, as Isaac blended, scent with touch.“Come close so I may feel to see whether you really are my son Esau or not” and he came close and he could feel him. Then he said he smelled the smell of Esau, therefore he pronounced the blessing. It seemed real to him…if I smell the smell of Esau it seems real. Do you know you can smell money and it’s unlike any other odor in the world? Try it. Take a dollar bill or a five dollar bill or whatever you have and hold it to your nose. Blindfold yourself. Let someone else do it. Let them bring it here and you can smell it. You can actually smell it, there’s something different about it. And so, everything has an odor. My brother, for instance, who was a huge success in business, I said, “Why do you like it?” He said, “I like the odor, the odor of business” and he called it an odor. He said, “When I come down to the store in the morning to open that door and get the things, the produce coming in, I just love the odor. I would go down just to satisfy myself…I want to run.”
He loved everything that I didn’t. He made a huge success in dollars and cents in the world of Caesar, but that excites him, and that odor doesn’t excite me at all. I’ll open up a book, say of Blake…and last year when I was home he came through the lobby of the hotel, he said, “What are you reading?” I said, “I’m reading Blake. Listen to this…” I read him one of the letters of Blake. He just simply smiled a vacuous smile; there was no interest whatsoever. In other words, what is he talking about? Well, that was my odor and to me the words themselves began to almost take on a taste. As far as I’m concerned I could taste them…they tasted so good I wanted to read it. My brother Victor, they meant nothing to him. But he’s a huge success. He uses his in a different way. He will use vision as he’s done it and he will use the sense of smell…the very odor of business excites him.
So whatever excites you, whichever medium is the best to you, use it. I think from what I have heard from those who come to see me that sound seems to be the easiest. They can single out the voice of someone and they can hear that voice. That seems to be the easiest.Yet, if you love someone, you can’t deny you can tell their feel, their touch over any other touch in the world. If you love someone, you know exactly how their flesh feels and no one can fool you as to that flesh. It’s different from the other three and a half billion people in the world…it’s something altogether different. And they have an odor. If you didn’t have a distinctive odor, how could a bloodhound find you? Your odor is not like any other odor in the world. We think only in terms of the thumbprint, and we know that is used against a man and could send him to the electric chair because it’s unique, there is no duplicate. There is no duplicate odor. There is no duplicate, actual duplicate voice. Oh, people could take your voice and imitate it, and it’s good enough to fool some people, but if you saw it on the graph, exactly what it looks like, it’s not like what you’re trying to imitate, so that no two people have the same voice. You are unique in this world and if you love someone dearly you know their voice and you know what they feel like and you know their odor if you are that close to them. Their odor is distinctive. And the whole vast world is just like that. So if you want to use them to impregnate you, in the sense that they are sharing your good fortune with you, and they’re empathizing, and they are telling you how thrilled they are because of your good fortune. Listen to their voice tell you how they feel because you are what you want to be…and revel in what you are hearing. Now believe in that and let it impregnate you. So you use them for that purpose…male or female or a bunch of them.
Here in this audience tonight, I told the story of this gentleman who had these skin cancers. He used sound. He said…watching his face in the mirror as he shaves and there they’re still on his face, but he’s hearing the voice of friends congratulating him on his good fortune. In spite of the evidence that denies it, he is still hearing what he wants to hear. And then they disappeared leaving not a trace of ever having been present. So he used sound. He didn’t put his hand on his face and feel these things, for as he passed the razor over his face he felt and he saw what was there. But he did something entirely different, he heard a voice and the voice congratulated him on his good fortune. They empathized with him and as they empathized—not sympathized, he had enough of that, they were empathizing—and then the whole thing began to disappear.
So all I can say to everyone try it. It costs you nothing and it seems too good to be true, but nevertheless try it!This is what Blake meant as he left it…it was a conversation he had with one called Samuel Palmer and to Samuel Palmer he made this statement. I think it a fantastic statement, that all we have to do is simply “to raise Imagination to the state of vision and the thing is done.” Well, you can raise it by using any sense to raise it to the point of vision, knowing that vision includes all the senses, either individually or in combinations. You can just imagine you see, and at the same time imagine you hear, and blend the two together. They together produce what you are imagining that you’re seeing and imagine that you are hearing. So, look as though you see, listen as though you hear.But you determine what you want to see and what you want to hear. Don’t argue. Just in advance do exactly what you want to see and exactly what you want to hear. Now bring them together and see and hear only what you want to see and hear, and see how it unfolds itself in this world…no matter what the world will tell you.
So here, you will find it all through scripture. For instance, in scripture you read so much about the heart, that God sees the heart, and you might think it means the heart, physical heart. Hasn’t a thing to do with that. The word “self” is a precise synonym for “heart” in scripture. Here, we find in the 17th chapter of Genesis, “…and Abraham talked in his heart.”
Well, it means Abraham only talked with himself, that’s all that it means. In the 4th Psalm, “Commune with your own heart on your bed and be still”…commune with yourself. So heart is simply self. Self in scripture means “the totality of one’s feelings, one’s thoughts, one’s desires, one’s motives,” and it’s always exposed to God the Father. You can’t conceal it from the garment. You can conceal it from me and from those who are all clothed in garments of flesh and blood, by you can’t conceal it from the depth of your own soul who is God the Father. So the deep of your own being knows your thoughts, your feelings, your desires and your motives behind those things. You can come forward and lie to me in words and put on such a wonderful show that I am taken in, but you aren’t hiding it from the depths of your own being. So when someone comes before the Lord he said, “I’ve rejected him, he is not my choice” and he rejects all the brothers and chooses David, “a man after my own heart”—meaning a man after my own self—“who will do all my will” (Acts 13:22). That’s what it means. But it is translated as “heart,” and the world will think, well now, he’s looking at my heart. No, he’s looking at me, the totality of my being, all of my thoughts and my feelings, and my motives behind my thoughts and feelings.
And so when you read it, you’ve got to see it through the eye of the mystic. Just know as you read it, it doesn’t mean this…what is behind communion with my own heart and then be still. I go to bed…and it starts off,“Be angry but sin not.” Be angry. Get it off your chest. You have something against someone, explode it. If it’s going to help you any, explode it; but don’t sin now, don’t continue it, just get it off. Now come down and construct a scene which will imply the fulfillment of your desire. After you’ve exploded, just what do you really want to find? Construct it. Now commune with yourself while you’re on your bed and then be still and drop into the deep. Like this lady who dropped into the deep and then she was awakened by the telephone, but she was lifting the cover from a huge, lovely silver platter, just about to expose what was on the platter when she discovered it was the phone ringing. And it was under that platter. Because it took another hour and a half or two hours, but she did sit down to a wonderful feast. And more than that, there was enough left over to carry her forward for another, well say, ten days to two weeks.
Well, this is what I’m talking about, that you can take this simple, simple principle and apply it towards any end in this world by simply taking your Imagination, just raising your Imagination to the state of vision, using the sense that dominates the others in your case. I doubt that it would be sight in a majority. That seems to come last where you become so intent that suddenly you walk into the scene just like this and you’re seeing it. But, before you do that, you can bring it in through hearing, bring it in through touch. When I was completely shut out, in the Army…and when you go into the Army they…it’s unlike today’s Army where we are not at war, so they say, and so when you’re drafted they send you off to Vietnam. But you have a certain length of time to serve and then you are sent back when your service is over. But in the 2nd World War, or the 1st when you’re drafted you’re in for the duration. Well, I was drafted, so I was in for the duration. When I made up my mind that I wanted no part of Army life, I didn’t go beyond the normal, natural thing that Caesar allows me to do: I requested a discharge. In four hours my request came back to me signed “disapproved” by the colonel of my battalion. Awfully nice chap, grand fellow, but he disapproved my request and that was final. You could not appeal it to any higher echelon. I couldn’t take it, say, to the divisional commander—it rested with my battalion commander whether he wanted me in his battalion or not and that was final—so I didn’t.
That night I went to bed in my Army cot physically and in the eyes of the other fifty men around Neville Goddard was sleeping on that cot…but he wasn’t there at all. He was 2,000 miles north of there in his own apartment on Washington Square in New York City. So I put myself on my own bed—knowing where my wife would be on her bed—in the bedroom. Then I imagined I’m off the cot, went to the window, looked out and saw the Holly Apartments across the way, imagined myself looking down toward 6th Avenue. Then I looked to this side and I looked towards Washington Square. Then I walked into my living room, into the dining room, into the kitchen, and felt the familiar objects, and brought as many of these five senses to play on the drama that I am now enacting. And then I went sound asleep. Then at four in the morning I heard a voice and the voice said to me, “That which I have done I have done! Do nothing!”
But who did it?—I did it. Who was speaking?—I was speaking. Well, I heard it as coming from without, but I know exactly what I did. I was actually…and I wasn’t there on furlough. I made very, very sure I wasn’t there on furlough; I was there honorably discharged. I did nothing for the next nine days. Nine days later, the same colonel—he is Colonel Theodore Bilbow, Jr. of Mississippi; you’ve heard of his father, his name was Bilbow—called me in. “Take a chair,” sat down, and he asked me the usual questions that any colonel would ask, “You still want to get out of the Army?” “Yes sir.” “You know the best dressed man in this country is the man wearing the American uniform, the soldier?” I said, “Yes sir.” “Still want to get out of the Army?” “Yes sir.” I yes-ed him to death…every yes a big “sir” at the end of it, for they demand it in the Army. And so, at the end of my interview he said, “Alright, Goddard, you are now honorably discharged. Go back and tell your captain I want him to sign papers that you brought in which were denied nine days ago.” Went back to my captain, told him what the colonel told me. I came back with my papers that the captain had signed and the colonel signed it, gave me ninety-six dollars to get back to New York City, and I was out of the Army that day.
So, I came on back in the usual way that soldiers travel. ___(??). Perfectly alright, I was going back not on any furlough. So I came back honorably discharged by simply actually believing what I believe the Bible is teaching the world, but they don’t see it. So I brought myself into feeling. I could feel myself on the bed. I could see the Holly Apartments across the way. We were living then on the seventeenth floor, right across from the Holly Apartments. Look down and here below and down, here is the park, Washington Square; over here is Sixth Avenue. Then I knew the things of the living room, I knew the things of the dining room, I knew the things of the kitchen. I walked through my apartment and felt it to be real. Went back to my bed and there I slept. Anyone awakening in that room who was psychic would have seen Neville in that bed. I slept there. Physically this garment was in Camp Cook, Louisiana, but in Spirit…for man is all Imagination and therefore he must be where he is in Imagination. If I’m all Imagination, where am I now in Imagination? I must be where I am in Imagination and therefore I had to gravitate there. The colonel who thought he initiated the desire to discharge me nine days later after he disapproved my application, so he has the pleasure of feeling that he discharged me and that he initiated that desire…and he had no choice in the matter. For the whole vast world is yourself pushed out and they must do what they do if in the doing it aids the birth of what you have done.
So, did you do it? Don’t say, “Well now, I know what I ought to have done.” Do it! And so, if you hear it and then you act upon what you’ve heard to the point of actually raising Imagination to the state of vision, then you’ve done it. What else must I do? The voice said to me, “That which I have done I have done. Do nothing!” And I did nothing after that. I had done it and then the whole thing unfolded within my world. So when I tell you these things, I’m telling you what I know from experience, I am not speculating, not theorizing. But we are the operant power, it doesn’t operate itself. To know it is one thing, to do it is another. So are we doing it?
Now, as far as the other ___(??) comes, that is altogether different. That’s grace, grace, grace, grace. And not a thing we do can earn it. It comes suddenly, unexpectedly…so dramatically that you haven’t time to think. In fact, you didn’t even know it unless you heard it, say, from someone who experienced it. I know that as far as I am concerned I never heard it from anyone. And although I read the Bible I never saw it…I never thought it was related to me. Not for one moment did I believe that the Bible was all about me. Any more than the average person reading it thinks it’s about himself or about herself. And so, in my case I can say with Paul, I never got it from a man, I was never taught it; it came through revelation. Now, revelation to Paul is what it is to me: It’s simply an act of God in self-revealing. That’s what revelation is. Well, God is hidden in man and he simply unveils himself in man. So he unveils and unveils and unveils. Then as he unveils, at the very end man knows he is the being who is now unveiled. They are one, they aren’t two. The partition is broken down and the unveiled one is man himself and he is God (Eph. 2:14). So it’s an act of God in self-revealing.
So here tonight, if you have any desire, keep this in mind and try it. Try it with hearing. I have found from those that I have discussed it with that this is the easiest of the five. I have found the sense of touch very easy. And if you can’t find out, well, what could I touch that would imply the fulfillment of the dream? Well, a letter. Could you imagine that someone would be gracious enough having asked help of you, and receiving that help, that they would write you a letter? Not giving you anything…the gift would be in telling you that it has worked, that they received it. Well, could you imagine receiving such a letter? Although scripture does warn you that only one in ten will do it—that there were ten lepers and all asked for help, and he granted the help that they requested. They went their way and all were cured as they walked; but one, the Samaritan, the stranger, returned to say “Thank you, Lord.” He said, “Were there not ten?” So nine, which means ninety percent did not return to say thank you.
So, maybe the same percentage holds good in this world and that ninety percent will not write you the letter. But nevertheless, you can use that as the medium to impregnate yourself with the good fortune that they are seeking and they ask you to help. They may never really write it, but it doesn’t matter as far as you are concerned, that’s their concern. They could be numbered among the ninety percent of those who were ungrateful and did not return to the Lord to say, “Thank you, Lord.” If one returns, alright, be grateful that at least one brought confirmation of the truth of what you’ve done, knowing that the Bible teaches that ninety percent will not do it. Don’t be concerned, grant it any way.Because, as you do it, it’s like Job, your own captivity is being lifted as you in turn pray for your friends. So you pray for your friends even if they don’t know it or they aren’t grateful. You yourself are lifted up by the good you brought to others.
So tonight, you take something for yourself, something for a friend, something for a relative, without their knowledge or their consent, and exercise your talent. It’s a talent given you. You have your five senses, well then, exercise them in this manner:Bring them into the surface and objectifying Jacob, clothing Jacob in external reality. Let your Esau vanish from the world: Esau…at the moment whatever you would like to replace. So it is Jacob who replaces or supplants Esau. So what would you like to put in the place of what you have?
What you would “like in the place of” is your Jacob, and what you have that you dislike or would change is your Esau. These are the two of scripture and you are the father. And you’ll see the whole thing unfolding in your wonderful, wonderful world. So you try it. May I tell you, you will not fail! But you are the operant power.
Now let us go into the Silence.
Q: (inaudible)
A: Alright, my dear. The lady went to bed with happy thoughts. She had happy thoughts only as she fell into the deep and was awakened about three in the morning with a horrible dream. It seemed something that happened a long time ago or something that she might have been afraid of a long time ago. Well, I would not be disturbed over a thing of that nature. It shows you that he who is always watching, the Father within you which is your redeemer, the core of your being, is presenting in dramatic form, in the form of a ___(??) and now is brought to the surface of your mind for solution. And the solution you heard tonight. He’s not scaring you just to scare you, but he has to teach you that you have not overcome it. The fear is still there, face it. And it’s brought to the surface in the most dramatic way and then you simply face it. As you face something, it dissolves. You don’t suppress it, don’t bury it, just face it and resolve it in your mind’s eye. Take the whole thing and resolve it. Suppose now this were true and not that; and then believe in the reality of the substituted state and resolve it, rather than not resolve it and it’s buried, for it will come up for recognition.
A friend who is here tonight, in her dream someone wanted food and so she intended feeding him even though there was apprehension on her part because it was late in the evening and her husband was just about to return from work and what would he think of finding her entertaining a strange man in her apartment, her home? And so at that moment when she still had resolved to give him something, regardless of the husband’s reaction to feeding him, then the baby called for her attention. She has a little boy. So in responding to that she woke to discover that she had not, in her dream, fed the man. So what did she do? Right in her Imagination she gave him something. She fed him in her Imagination and resolved it. He came to her door seeking help and she did not turn her back upon him. So even in her Imagination after she was fully awake, she gives him something, and so she did not turn him away. As you are told in scripture, “I was hungry and you gave me nothing.” When?—“When you did not do it to the least of one of these.” Well, that was a moment and she did it. She so believed in the reality that Imagination creates reality that she did it and she fed him.
Any other questions, please?
When you think of what we really have been given…for God became us so that we may become God. Just dwelling upon it, alone that thought alone, what a gift! Just dwell upon it…you’ll feel “how could such an infinite gift be given to me,” one who is capable of so many unlovely things in this world? Not only capable but with a memory of having done so many unlovely things, and possibly if confronted with similar states you will repeat them…and yet to be given God in whom there is no unloveliness! He who is perfect gave me himself. If he is perfect I must be perfect as he is perfect…and to give me such perfection when I am so imperfect! Just to dwell upon it…what a marvelous thing it is!
Well, if there aren’t any others…it’s almost time…I will say thank you.
Until Monday.
In the opening segment, Goddard deciphers Blake’s use of the word “vision” by tracing its biblical usage in prophetic texts. He shows that vision in Scripture is not limited to sight but includes auditory, tactile, olfactory, and gustatory senses, thereby expanding the scope of spiritual sensation. This contextualization lays the foundation for his method of sensory imagination as a creative force.
The core of the lecture is the allegory of Jacob and Esau, repurposed to illustrate the dynamics of inner versus outer reality. Here, Esau symbolizes the world known by external senses, and Jacob represents the subjective desire seeking objective expression. Goddard explains how, like Jacob donning Esau’s garments, imagination can be clothed in sensory detail to supplant unwanted circumstances.
Goddard reinforces his teaching with vivid case studies. The story of the destitute artist who imagines a fully prepared meal, only to receive it in reality, demonstrates the power of tactile and visual imagination. Similarly, the man who heals his skin cancer by hearing voices of friends congratulating him exemplifies how sound can be used as an imagination medium. These anecdotes serve as tangible proof of the principle.
Further personal narrative strengthens Goddard’s authority: his own miraculous discharge from military service emerges from a detailed nightly journey in imagination. This autobiographical testimony underscores that one’s own consciousness is the operative power; external events merely unfold to confirm the inner conviction. His use of mystical interpretation of Scriptures also elevates the lecture from mere technique to a spiritual practice.
Finally, Goddard challenges listeners to apply this method, choosing whichever sense is most vivid to them, and to practice “raising imagination to the state of vision.” By blending scriptural exegesis, psychological insight, and experiential proof, he delivers a comprehensive blueprint for self-realization and the manifestation of desires, affirming that true power resides in subjective sensory conviction.
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