In this lecture, Neville Goddard shares a personal mystical experience on the morning of July 20 in San Francisco, where he felt a powerful vibration and was symbolically ‘born again’ as he witnessed himself giving birth to a divine child. He connects this dream-vision to Isaiah’s prophecy of the virgin birth, emphasizing that the biblical narrative is not merely historical but a present unfolding of spiritual rebirth. Goddard reiterates his central teaching that ‘Imagination is God,’ and that every individual is both made of divine substance and capable of birthing the Christ within through faith and inner experience. He contrasts the physical body (‘born of woman’) with the higher self (‘born from above’) as described in John’s Gospel, insisting that true spiritual transformation is experiential rather than ritualistic. Throughout, he challenges conventional religious authority, asserting that the Bible’s visions are timeless and continually reveal deeper layers of truth to those who live by faith. The lecture closes with a call to silence and inner listening, reinforcing that no external practice can substitute the unexpected, intimate encounter with one’s own divine nature.
When I left two months ago I asked you to join in testing with me what I have heard and told you, but now I can say as did Job (42:5) “I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eyes seeth thee.” Tonight as I stand here I can say what he said centuries ago. When I left I had heard of this principle and I had proved it but I had not seen it; but now I have seen it so I can stand here and tell you something I could not have told you two months ago.
Here we are in 1959 and we wonder about a book written centuries ago . . the Bible. How can it guide us in an atomic age? We think we are now so wise. There comes one scientific book after another, and each wiser than the previous one, and how can a book written, you might say, by shepherds, be a guide today? Is it true? I know tonight it is more true than anyone knows. The book called the Bible is not what any of the priesthoods of the world think it to be. We say that God is all Imagination and that God and man are one; and we exist in Him and He in us. “The eternal body of man is all Imagination; that is, God Himself.” (Blake) I told you that and I believed it and I heard it and read it and tried to put it into practice, but now I know that you and I are made of the very substance of God and we are one with Him.
I want to share with you an experience I had on the morning of July 20 in San Francisco. But first let me quote from Isaiah 9:5, “and a virgin shall conceive … For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Almighty God, the everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. He shall be called Immanuel. And of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end … and a little child shall lead them. And this shall be the sign…. You shall see a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger …”
The prophecy of Isaiah is true. On the morning of July 20, I was in San Francisco, a city named after a saint, and I was living in a hotel named after a pirate . . the Sir Francis Drake. At four o’clock in the morning, a most wonderful dream was interrupted. I was dreaming of tomorrow’s man, where all the arts flourished, when instead of just hearing music, you could see it forming into beautiful patterns. I was “freezing” this, when it was interrupted by the most terrific vibration within my skull, at the base. This intensity increased and increased, but instead of being catapulted into space, I am being squeezed out of this body inch by inch, and I find myself with my head on the floor, and I literally pulled myself out through this skull, and then I am having a few moments of rest, and I look back at this bed and I see myself there like someone in a recovery room coming out of an anesthetic, my head moving from side to side. I remember my wife doing this after the birth of our child when she was not yet fully conscious . . that sideways movement of the head, over and over. And then I heard the whole vibration again and now it is coming from the corner of the room. I thought it might be the wind and for a moment I contemplated that. And then I looked toward the bed where this body had been. There was no body, but in its place were my three oldest brothers. My brother Cecil was at the head, my brother Victor at the left foot, and my brother who is a doctor at the right foot. They were very disturbed by this vibration, but the most disturbed is my brother the doctor. He went over to the window and then he stood looking down and I saw something on the floor and he said, “It’s Neville’s baby!” and the others said, “How could he have a baby?” But I lifted a baby from the floor, wrapped it in swaddling clothes and I held it in my arms and said, “How is my sweetheart?” and then it smiled at me and I awoke.
I know the story is truer than I ever knew it to be (the story of the birth of Christ Jesus), but it is not something that took place; but it is taking place. I can make no pretense of holiness. I have done everything; I have lived life fully, and I think, richly. Everything I have done I have done to excess; that is the way I am. So I cannot be proud that I gave birth to that son, nor can I be ashamed, but when I see as I have seen, then I know the story is truer than the priesthoods of the world tell us.
In John 3:2, we are told of Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews, who came secretly to Jesus… “We know thou art a teacher come from God, for no man can do these miracles except God be with him.” And Jesus told him, “You must be born again or you cannot see the kingdom of God.” And Nicodemus said, “How is it possible, when a man is old that he can enter his mother’s womb and be born again?” And Jesus told him, “You must be born from above … the wind bloweth where it lists and thou hearest the sound thereof, but cannot tell whence it cometh and whither it goeth; so is everyone that is born of the spirit … we speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen.”
I know today that we are all born of this flesh, which is called Cain, or Ishmael, or Esau or John the Baptist. But the most perfect born of woman is not equal to the least in the kingdom that is born from above. So everyone in the world is going to be born from above.
It has nothing to do with physical virginity (the story of a virgin birth) or a physical Christ. That is blasphemy. Mary is never a physical virgin, but every man or woman in the world is that virgin. And I tell you that which is born is a gift. “To us a child is born. To us a son is given.” I had no concept that on that morning of July 20 I would be carrying the son of God. But those who worship must do it in spirit and in truth. My brothers did not see me; they only saw the offspring. I AM my father who is God. The child was actually my son and actually Jesus Christ, and I gave birth to it. I was self-begotten by me. Isaiah 54:5 . . “For thy Maker is thine husband; the Lord of hosts is his name.” This is not the offspring from beneath. The whole world is beneath, but something comes from us that is immortal and it is from above. And now I know beyond all doubt that the story of the four Gospels is truer than the priesthoods tell us, and the story of Isaiah is truer than any rabbi can tell.
Imagination is God, but it has to be experienced to be known, and no man’s experience is the same to another as his own experience. I have asked you in the past to tell me your experiences, as I have told you mine, but nothing can be a substitute for your own. It does not come by observation, but it comes like a thief in the night when you would least expect it. Let no one tell you that by trying to be holy or generous, or by exercises or fasts or diets, that that is the way. No one could foresee such an experience. I could prophesy things based on the experience of men more than this, but this I could not prophesy, or when it would come.
The Bible is the most modern book in the world. Every year, books come out and the concepts change as more books come out, and change and change, but here is this everlasting vision that is true. It does not matter what you have done in this world; you are here for only one purpose and that is to bring Jacob to the Lord. Isaiah 49: He who formed me from the womb to be his servant, to bring Jacob again to him.” The perfect servant is going to find Jacob, the lost boy, the prodigal son. We are all, “the prodigal son”, we spent everything, every vision, for I cannot wait to tell each of them when they happen. I could not wait for this night to tell you this. My first night in San Francisco I could not wait to tell my audience. Someone, after the meeting, who was an authority on masters, adepts and such, said, “How silly! He talked about having a baby!”
They do not know that the greatest story ever told is told between Genesis and Revelation. Many books of the Bible are commentaries . . they are not visions, but the first five books are true visions. Judges is vision and Joshua, the two books of Samuel; the two books of Kings, all the Psalms, all are perfect visions. Proverbs and Ecclesiastes are commentaries, but not true vision. The others I mentioned and the four Gospels and Revelation are perfect visions, and every man in the world is going to fulfill them. Not one will be lost, because your Father who made you out of his very being is your husband, and he sires you out of His only begotten son. He is making all of us centers of Imagining or centers of Reality. “I have heard it before with the hearing of my ear, but now my eye seeth it.” Ab told me this. When he met me he told me that I had come to do a certain work, and he called me by name, though I had never before met him or he me. He gave me a piece of paper and I put it in an old Bible, and here are the words written in 1933. “The King of Kings, the Eternally-Becoming One, which men call Christ, must ever be remembered as a little child.” He wrote that out for me and I put it away all this time!
I tell you that God made you out of his very being, that we are made from the very soul of God, and then He sires the image of himself, in symbolism. I found this infant in swaddling clothes. I will not fail, for it is God doing it. Science laughs at the Bible and says there is no God that the whole story is a fake, but I tell you that the story is truer than in any book you have ever read.
I know I have done what I was told to do. He formed me from the womb to be his servant and to bring Jacob again to Him. He wants that symbol of all the people in the world, and He wants me to produce it myself . . that symbol that shows I AM the Father of the whole vast world. But my brothers said, “How could Neville have a baby?” These were wise men of the world, but they could not understand. The one who is the doctor understood and said, “It is Neville’s baby.” They could not see me, but I was real and invisible like my Father, for my Father is spirit. I am real, without form. I did not produce this child out of any physical womb, but in a way no man could have conceived. The word is from “pneuma,” meaning a current of wind. I actually felt when I heard this disturbance that the wind caused it. And then comes the infant wrapped in swaddling clothes. I did not know a child was being born when I squeezed myself out of this form, and then looked back at the body on the bed, moving its head from side to side. Blake said, “She does not know what is happening. Either good or evil, she is not to blame.” And in the beginning of the book, Songs of Experience, he drew a picture of a child coming out of his head, forming as it were an egg; they said he was mad. What I have told you tonight is mad, but it is more true than anything I have ever told you.
You are also worthy of this experience because you are made by God. If you live by faith in things not seen you are preparing the way for the appearance of Jesus Christ in you. If your faith is based on things seen you are not preparing the way, for the Child is not born by the passage of time, but by the faith of the one involved. I hope you have not done anything you must feel too sorry about, but no matter, in the eyes of your Father you are pure.
I had no knowledge of what was taking place. It comes like a thief in the night, it has nothing to do with the good and evil people talk about. Blake says, “I do not consider either the Just or the Wicked to be in a Supreme State, but to be every one of them States of the Sleep which the Soul may fall into in its deadly dreams of Good and Evil when it leaves paradise following the Serpent.” (Great Selfhood.)
Now I know. Night after night the whole experience unfolded to me. I would turn back to the Bible the next day and find things I had never seen before. I have taught the Bible for 25 years, yet now the whole thing is greater, yet it does not deny what I told you, that God and man are one, and all Imagination. God is actually seated here as you are seated here. There is only God. Blake said:
“If thou humblest thyself, thou humblest me, Thou also dwellst in Eternity, Thou art a man; God is no more, Thy own Humanity learn to adore.”
Black, red, yellow, there is only God and nothing but God. Man can reach the sun and go into interstellar space and it is nothing to the unfolding of the visions given to us. When you have the experience and you hold your own Christ and know you fathered it. Blake said: “For there the Babe is born in joy that was begotten in dire woe; Just as we reap in joy the fruit which we in bitter tears did sow.” (Mental Traveler) This whole vast world is a furnace and we are tried and then received back by God as background in the imagery of his perfect son. He awakens us as Himself in that moment. For when we awaken, then we are He. He is begetting His son in all of us, forever.
He descends as a weeping babe . . literally . . for you were spanked into your first cry when you were born, but this one born from above is not spanked. The one born from below is the Esau, the Cain, but the one I held in my hands is Jacob or Isaac. If I begot Jacob, am I not Isaac? If I begot Jesus Christ am I not the one men call God? Blasphemy? No. You are made by God for the purpose of bringing forth His only begotten son. It does not matter whether on this plane you seem unwanted, or even if you put yourself in jail, for God has not ignored you. We are all put into the furnace and are being burned by the experiences of life and when we have gone through it all then He awakens within us and takes us to Himself. Whether you happen to give birth to Him tonight or in this three-score-and-ten, death is an illusion and you will be just as alive and you will do it on the other side, for God being the sire cannot fail, and He will make everyone have the experience of producing His only begotten son. A friend in San Francisco, having read Tennyson, said, “Be patient. The playwright may show, in some fifth act, what the play really means.” And He will!
Now, let’s go into the silence.
Question: What is symbolism?
Answer: The symbolism of the vision means that you are born from above. This body is Cain, but the second son does not come from the womb of a woman. The Lord of Heaven is His name. I mean you are God and I mean it in a more literal way than I have before, in spite of the scientists of this atomic age.
Question: How can you teach this to children?
Answer:A child is best taught by example. Living the life of loving man is the best teaching in the world. Fall in love with humanity. Our life and our being are the being of God. Of course, there are some who say I am the son of the devil! But when I held the babe in my hands, I looked into its face and said, “How is my sweetheart?” and it looked into my face and smiled. It descends a weeping babe, but it ascends a smiling one!
Neville Goddard’s narrative blurs the line between dream and waking reality, using a vivid out-of-body experience to illustrate the mystical process of spiritual rebirth. He frames the Bible not as outdated scripture but as a living vision reflecting the potential of human consciousness. By quoting Isaiah and John, he weaves together Old and New Testament prophecies to underscore that the ‘virgin birth’ symbolizes the birth of the divine in every individual, not a unique historical event.
Central to Goddard’s analysis is the doctrine that imagination is the creative force behind all reality. The violent vibration in his skull becomes a metaphor for the shattering of ordinary perception, enabling him to ‘squeeze out’ of his physical form and witness his higher self in action. This experience reinforces his conviction that the material world is secondary to the inner realm of imagination, where God and man are one.
Goddard also critiques religious institutions and scientific materialism, arguing that neither can grasp the true modernity of the Bible’s revelations. He positions his own vision as evidence that spiritual truths transcend time and culture, and that personal experience—rather than doctrine, sacrifice, or moral effort— is the primary means of knowing God. The symbolic birth he describes serves as both proof and prophecy: a demonstration of the Christ principle manifesting in the individual.
He further elaborates on the dynamics of ‘born of flesh’ versus ‘born from above,’ emphasizing that physical lineage or ritual purity has no bearing on spiritual awakening. By reframing Mary’s virginity as a universal symbol, he frees listeners from literalist constraints and invites them to recognize their own capacity to produce the ‘son of God’ within. This soteriology of self-begetting challenges traditional theology by placing the locus of redemption squarely in personal imagination.
Finally, Goddard’s use of poetic quotations—from Blake to Tennyson—reinforces his message that art and scripture are portals to the same visionary reality. He closes with assurance that the divine drama will unfold in every life when faith in the unseen becomes predominant, and he invites his audience into silent expectancy. This call to inner silence and readiness encapsulates his teaching: the Christ is born not by time but by the awakening of one’s own creative awareness.
The Bible Through Neville
Neville Bible Sparks
Neville Lecture Series
