This lecture emphasizes Neville Goddard’s teaching that human imagination is the true Christ within each person. Drawing on William Blake’s interpretation of Christianity in “Jerusalem,” Goddard argues that imagination is the real and eternal world, superseding physical reality. He illustrates how persistence in inner senses and imaginative practice can manifest desires into physical form. Through anecdotes of a friend’s experiences, he demonstrates the power of mental imagery, dreaming, and spiritual visualization. The lecture continually points toward experiencing scripture from within, rather than intellectual study. It concludes with an invitation to test one’s imagination experimentally, promising that true awakening to divine life occurs through conscious practice.
The last chapter of William Blake’s poem, “Jerusalem,” (Plate 77), is addressed to the Christians. In it he says: “Devils are false religions. I know of no other Christianity and no other gospel, than the liberty both of body and mind to exercise the divine arts of Imagination. Imagination, the real and eternal world of which this vegetable universe is but a faint shadow, and in which we shall live in our eternal or imaginative bodies when these vegetable, mortal bodies are no more. The apostles knew of no other gospel. What is that talent which is a curse to hide? What are the treasures of heaven which we are to lay up for ourselves? Are they any other than mental studies and performances?”
This is the only Christianity Blake could affirm. He never knew any other gospel, or Christ, other than his own wonderful human imagination! If you will accept your human imagination as Christ, and practice the divine art of imagining, called repentance, Christ will rise in you and you will experience scripture. When you repent, a radical change of thinking must occur. If life is bad, and you practice this divine art of imagining, you will think that life is good.
Imagination can see, touch, hear, taste and feel things other than what your senses are experiencing right now. If you persist in acknowledging what your inner senses are telling you until you are persuaded of their reality, you will see their evidence. Then you will know from experience who Christ really is. Imagination is the only Christ Blake ever heard of. The apostles knew of no other, and any other belief was a false religion Blake called the devil. When you believe in someone on the outside, you have put him in conflict with the Second Commandment. You have made a graven image, yet [you were] told to “Make no graven image unto me.” And when you think that someone other than yourself is Christ, your religion is false and you have a devil.
Now let me share this perfectly marvelous experience with you. A friend writes: “At the office, I was confronted with a problem; so – believing that imagination creates reality – I took two words that would be written by a certain person if the problem was solved, and formed them in my imagination. During the day, however, these words would rearrange themselves into a negative thought and I would have to correct them time after time.
“That night I fell asleep seeing these words, and in my dream they once again rearranged themselves to indicate the continuity of the problem. As I tried to correct them, a white-robed arm appeared and wrote the two words in the identical handwriting of the one who would write the script – were it true. “Seeing it, I fell into a deep sleep and when I awoke, remembering the experience, I moved through the day like a sleepwalker. That night upon retiring, as I thought of these words, I felt an energy build within me so fierce I could not return to the state of doubt. I took this feeling as a wonderful answer, and dropped all desire to review the words once more.
I do not know whether the event has come to pass or not, but I do know that it will, for imagining creates reality. The human imagination – buried in all – is Christ Jesus, and there is no other. Christ must awaken in you; and when he does, you – individually – will experience Christ.
Everyone suffers! You may live in a healthy state and not know physical suffering, but you will suffer at the loss of a friend. The shortest verse in scripture is, “Jesus wept.” Here is God shedding a tear. When someone leaves your life and you can no longer touch him physically, you suffer in your imagination; therefore Christ suffers. Like Blake, I know of no other Christianity, or other gospel. If you believe in any other, you have a false religion which is a devil.
Now let me share another experience of my friend. He said: “I found myself in the Near East, in a primitive, yet commercial and intellectual, community of its time. I was there for the sole purpose of listening to you speak to the crowd from a grain store. Wanting to hear every word you said, even the chance involuntary remarks, I asked the villagers to quote anything they had ever heard you say. It seemed to take me weeks to listen to you and the villagers’ reports. Then my earthly parents came, troubled about my dwelling place, and I was completely indifferent to them. But as my father sat on a bag of grain and listened to you, I realised that he, too, was beginning to understand. “Then I encountered you on a side street. You were wearing a long, white robe. As I told you of my experiences, I felt great joy as you assured me that I had done them all.”
He saw correctly. Now let me show you where he is in scripture. In the Book of Luke, Jesus – at the age of twelve – was taken to the Passover in Jerusalem. (Now, twelve is the age of puberty, when a man can create.) When his parents returned to Galilee, they discovered that Jesus was missing and searched for him three days. Finding him in the temple, questioning the teachers, his mother said: “Son, how can you do this to us? Do you not know that your father and I have sought you anxiously?” Then Jesus replied: “Why do you seek me? Do you not know I must be in my Father’s house?”
The King James Version translates this phrase as “about my Father’s business,” but the question asked implies space or location. If Jesus is being sought, it must be some place; so the Revised Standard Version translates it as a place, calling it “my Father’s house”. But do not dismiss the King James Version, for I have come to do the will of him who sent me and that is to accomplish his work. Speaking of something entirely different now, Jesus ignored any physical parentage and said: “I must be about my Father’s business.” Then it is said: “They did not understand the saying which he spoke to them.”
My friend has reached his journey’s end. He did not conjure up this experience, it just happened. And when scripture unfolds from within, it cannot be denied. We are here to fulfill scripture – the word of God, not to build monuments to ourselves or have books written about us; for what is not recorded in scripture is nonexistent. In the spirit, I told him he was playing the part of Christ at the age of twelve. He is now moving towards the inevitable end, when he knows the truth that all he beholds: though it appears without it is within his imagination, of which this world of mortality is but a shadow.
This morning I awoke too early to rise, so I remained in bed and eventually drifted off into a certain state of sleep where I was with my wife, my brothers, friends, and many of you. While there, I told you it was a dream, and that if I awoke I would vanish and you would cease to be – to me. Then I awoke, and as far as I was concerned, you were gone and I had vanished from your sight.
At this moment my body is elsewhere. If I awoke right now, I would vanish from your sight and awaken there. And if I awoke from the greater depth where I am talking now, I would vanish there, also. You see, the whole vast world is man pushed out, as there is nothing but God – who is your own wonderful human imagination!
Take me at my word and test yourself. Take a sentence as my friend did, or a picture that would imply the fulfillment of your desire. Hold it in your mind’s eye. Don’t tell anyone, but persuade yourself of its truth and drop into a deep sleep. If you do this, no power on earth can stop your desire from objectifying itself.
Now, Amos tells us: “I will send a famine upon man. It will not be a hunger for bread or a thirst for water, but for the hearing of the word of God.” When this hunger comes, it is so intense that nothing will satisfy you but an experience of God. And when nothing else enters your mind, you have reached the end of the road.
We are told: “He read from the book, the law of God with interpretation, so that those who heard it understood the reading.” On the surface the Bible is a closed book, read with the eyes veiled. But when one comes whose eyes have been opened by experiencing scripture, he shares the book’s deeper meaning and interprets its reading from revelation. In the Book of John, the question is asked: “How did this man receive such learning when he has not studied?” Scripture cannot be intellectually discerned. It is understood only through revelation. Only when the drama of Jesus Christ unfolded within me, did I understand the Christian mystery.
Now, with Blake I know from experience that the human imagination is Christ, the Father of all life. Man is forever looking for the cause of the phenomena of life, called “God” in the Old Testament and “Father” in the New. But man will only find its cause at his journey’s end, when David reveals him as the one and only God. It is said that Jesus opened the eyes of the blind, but who are they? Are they not those who cannot see the truth of scripture? If I tell you that your human imagination is God, the Father of all life, and [if] you do not believe me to the point of testing your imagination – you are the blind. But if you try it, your eyes will be opened to the cause of all life.
My friend saw me teaching in a grain house, sowing my grain (the word of God) on four different types of soil. Some fell upon the busy highway of life, some among rocks, others, among thorns, as well as soil that had been prepared to receive it. Although my friend traveled half way around the world to find me, and see his earthly father beginning to understand, his interest now is in finding his heavenly Father as his human imagination. He is now putting his imagination to the test and proving it beyond measure. He knows that every moment of time he must plant and harvest, plant and harvest.
He conjured me, from himself, as a teacher he trusts. Although I stand before you as another, if I am not in you, this drama would not be true. If everything in my world is in me, then everything in your world is in you. And if I am in your world, then I am in you.
Every dream is egocentric. When he saw me in the grain house, he was looking at a projection of himself. Everything is coming out of Christ, the core of your being. My friend pulled me out of himself to tell him he is at the end of his journey. He and I are not two, but one. I am in you and you are in me, mutual in love divine. Although there seems to be many of us – each imagining – the word “Elohim” is a compound unity of one made up of others; therefore I am in everyone and everyone is in me.
Everyone will fulfill scripture, for life is not finished until this happens. No man is going to come from outer space, or from some holy womb, and save you! Christ comes to you from within you, because that is where he is buried. Your body is his sepulcher, from which he rises and unfolds. And only when this happens will you know the truth and be set free.
Now, you either believe me, and use your imagination – consciously, or you do not. If you do not act now, you will eventually, as no one will be lost. If you die tonight your belief will not be transformed, but you will be restored to life in a world just as real as this one. You will know the same limitations as you know here. You will suffer, be deceived, betray and be betrayed, until you believe to the point of action. Then scripture will unfold within you, and you will depart this age of death to enter the age of life by controlling your own wonderful human imagination.
My friend so believed the two words he heard as he fell asleep, that he carried them into a dream and saw the hand write them in script. This is what I am asking everyone to do.
You sent yourself into the world for a purpose and you will not return until you have accomplished the work you came to do. Death does not finish the work God began in you, for the world does not terminate at the point where your senses cease to register it. You may no longer hear, touch, or see, the one you love; but when you leave this body you are instantly restored to one which is as solid and real as the one you now wear. You will be about twenty years old, in an environment best suited to the work yet to be done in you. While there, you will hear these words and you may still refuse them; but God is not mocked, he will try again and again until you hear them with understanding. Then you will begin to live by God’s word and awaken to discover that you are He. That you are the one spoken of in scripture, and all the promises of God find their Yes in you.
The promises made to Abraham, David, and the prophets, are fulfilled in Christ, as your imagination is your hope of glory. “He has made known unto me the mystery of his will, according to his purpose which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in heaven and in earth.” Everything is brought back, and redeemed in you, and in the end we are all one.
The Cosmic Christ is not someone who was born two thousand years ago, but a pattern of salvation which is buried in every child born of woman. His story is laid out in scripture as a pattern to spiritually follow.
My friend was taken in spirit half way across the world – not to hear a person called Neville, but to hear the Father within him. Turning his back upon his earthly father, he has found the heavenly Father he trusts. He has now reached the point of realising that he is the Father, projecting and instructing himself. But the only way he will ever know this is through God’s only begotten son David, the David of Biblical fame.
When David stood before me there was no uncertainty as to the relationship. I knew he was my son and he knew I was his father. You may be uncertain as to someone you pass on the street, but when David stands before you, there is no uncertainty whatsoever. You will know David, your son who was lost because you fell asleep to dream the dream of life. He was dead and is alive again. David never lost a battle, because the Lord was with him. And when the whole of life is over and you are at the end of the journey, David – a man after your heart who does all of your will – will appear and call you Father. Then you will leave this world, no longer to be restored to life; for you will be aware of being its life-giving force.
Scripture must be experienced to be understood. It is not secular history, but the history of salvation. It is the story of God, who died and buried himself in humanity. The story of how He rises, individually, from the state of death, to become the one Father of the one and only son. If I know I am the father of David and you know you are his father, are we not one father? As impossible as it seems to be, without loss of identity, we will have the same son and know we are the same father.
Would it make any difference to you if you owned the world – but did not know it? You created the world and all that is in it, but have fallen asleep and are dreaming you are limited, poor, sick, and hungry. And you will continue your dream in the world of time, until you hear me in the grain store and believe me to the point of action!
Now let us go into the silence.
In 'The Core of Man,' Goddard reframes Christian theology by equating the divine Christ with human imagination, thus challenging conventional religious doctrines. He invokes William Blake’s critique of institutionalized Christianity and his elevation of imagination as the sole gospel. By situating imagination as the real and eternal world, Goddard bridges the poetic symbolism of Blake with his own metaphysical framework.
The lecture unfolds through a blend of exegesis, personal anecdotes, and scriptural reflections. Goddard recounts his friend’s experiences visualizing two words and witnessing their manifestation, illustrating how inner conviction and persistent mental rehearsal precipitate real-world outcomes. Similarly, he interprets biblical narratives—such as the twelve-year-old Jesus in the temple—as allegories for stages of imaginative awakening rather than historical events.
A key analytical thrust lies in Goddard’s insistence that scripture must be lived from within. He contrasts the ‘closed book’ read with veiled eyes to a revelatory text interpreted through direct imaginative experience. This perspective aligns with esoteric traditions that value gnosis and inner vision, positioning Goddard within a lineage of mystical interpreters while also making his teachings accessible through practical exercises.
Finally, the lecture serves as a manual for experimental spirituality. Goddard provides a clear methodology: select a desired sentence or image, affirm its truth privately, and allow it to sink into the subconscious during sleep. This process, he claims, is unstoppable—no external circumstance can obstruct reality once imagination has firmly laid its claim. The lecture thus transcends mere theory and becomes an actionable blueprint for personal transformation.
The Bible Through Neville
Neville Bible Sparks
Neville Lecture Series
