In this lecture Neville Goddard explains that all visible phenomena stem from an invisible divine cause—our own imaginal activity—drawing on Romans 1:20–25 to illustrate how we discover God through the things He has made. He emphasizes that imagination is the creative principle and demonstrates a practical method: assume mentally the desired state, persist in that assumption, and allow it to externalize. Neville warns against double-mindedness, insisting that we must remain faithful to our new imagined position, even in sleep, until results manifest. He offers vivid examples: manifesting a trip to Barbados out of thin air, building a successful restaurant from a small investment, protecting oneself in an assault, and even appearing to his sister across two thousand miles. Throughout, he stresses personal responsibility: nothing happens by accident, and all events are self-created by our assumptions. The lecture concludes by urging listeners to recognize the divine Imagination within them as both Creator and Sustainer of reality, and to apply these principles with sincerity and consistency.
I think you will find this hour a very practical hour and yet a very spiritual hour. We are told in the Book of Romans, Paul’s letter to the Romans, the very first chapter that all the invisible things of God are clearly seen being understood by the things that are made (1:20).So man is called upon to look at the made and then to discover the invisible God.All of the invisible things of him are clearly seen, and how do I know? Well, I look at the things that are made…and I begin to reflect upon what I did. For here I find myself in a world and am I really responsible? I try to find out why. I look at all the things round about me and finally I come upon a certain thought. You know, when there was not a thing in the world to support my belief, I began to believe that one day I would experience this…and then I experienced it. So I relate the things seen to the unseen.
Could that be God? Well now, Paul tells us in the very next verse, “Although they knew God they did not honor him as God.” Oh, I found the relationship between the things seen and the unseen reality, the imaginal act, but I did not honor him as God. And then I turned to images resembling man and I thought man on the outside was the cause, because he seemed to aid me in bringing this to pass. I turn and I exchange the immortal God for images resembling man. Or I might have turned to other images, that of a man, not only a man but that of a reptile, that of an animal, that of a bird, and I turn to these and think that they are the cause of my good fortune or misfortune. And I gave up the truth about God for a lie, and began to worship and serve the thing created instead of the Creator; for I could relate the outer world in which I live to an imaginal activity within myself. Then I knew that that was the cause of it; for if God is the cause of everything in the world and I discover how it happened and then I will not accept the fact, I do not honor him as God.
Read it in the 1st chapter of Romans, from the 20th to the 25th verses, this wonderful revelation to all of us, for he’s addressing us. This is not just for those to whom he sent the letter 2,000 years ago; it’s to everyone who reads the letter.Stop for a moment and see if you can’t relate the things around about you to something in you that caused them, and if you’re perfectly honest you’ll see a cause in yourself. The cause was an imaginal activity.But then you will not…or I hope you will…but I mean he said, “But then they did not honor God as God.” They did not honor him as God. They saw it, but did not in some way accept it…it was too great. And then they turned to man, an image, and turned to the created rather than to the Creator.
Tonight let us see how we bring about these things in our world. The Bible begins on this note, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” (Gen.1:1). He created the within and the without, and God dwells within. You’re told that he created the heavens, well, heaven is within you we are told (Luke17:21). He created the heavens which is within, and then he created the without. Now how did he bring anything on the outside? We are told that “the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” We find that motion was causative, that without motion it is impossible to bring forth anything, so God moved. Well, how does God move? We’ve discovered that he is our own wonderful human Imagination, for I can relate what happens to me to my own imaginal act, so I know where he is. But now how does he move? It’s impossible to detect motion unless you have some fixed frame of reference against which motion moves; because motion can only be detected by a change relative to some other state.
Well, what would I do now to move from not only where I am but what I am to that which I would like to be? Eyes can be open or shut, it doesn’t matter…I’m doing it all in my Imagination. So I imagine now that I am…and I name it…and it differs in what a moment before I thought myself to be. How do I know that I have moved? Well, I look at my world mentally and I must see a change. I must see that which implies that I have moved. I’ll take it spatially first. If you are familiar with San Francisco, and here we are in Los Angeles, I put myself in Union Square in San Francisco. How do I know? Well, my eyes are open and I’m seeing the St. Francis Hotel. If I turn around, my back is to the St. Francis Hotel and I’m looking towards the other side of the Square. I go beyond it in my mind’s eye and I go down to Market Street. I feel that I’m there. Well, how do I know?—now think of Los Angeles. I think of Los Angeles and I see it 500 miles to the south of me. If Los Angeles is 500 miles to the south of me, I must be at least 500 miles north. But now I will locate myself in San Francisco by these familiar objects, and then think of Los Angeles and see it 500 miles to the south. Well, that’s where I am.
But I am told I can’t be double minded. Let not the man think that he will receive anything from the Lord if he’s a double-minded person, for he’s nothing more than simply a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind (James1:8). So when I sleep this night I must sleep as though I were in San Francisco, and as I’m falling off to sleep I must think of the place that I formerly knew which is Los Angeles and see it to the south of me 500 miles away, and fall asleep in that assumption that I actually am in San Francisco. That is a motion and without motion it is impossible to bring forth anything. This is true of everything in the world. In the beginning God created the inner and the outer, and then the Spirit of God moved, and then Creation began. So everything is within us…everything is within us.
But now how do I bring these things forward? Well, by the same simple, simple technique. I found that I did it and it worked.I don’t want to fall into that category spoken of in that first chapter of Romans that although he knew God he did not honor him as God. I found how it worked. I found that if I slept while in New York City as though I were in Barbados…and to prove I was in Barbados I thought of New York City and saw it 2,000 miles to the north of me.Then came a letter from my brother giving reasons justifying why I should come to Barbados, and then making it possible by enclosing a draft. In the letter he stated that if I would go to a certain steamship company that he had already written them and they would give me a ticket for Barbados; that I needed no money, the draft would take care of my normal needs aboard the ship and that I could sign for anything that I wanted. If I used the bar, sign everything that I wanted, and he would meet me on arrival and pay all expenses that I incurred on the trip. I did not write him to ask anything of him. He, at the same time that I was doing what I’m telling you that I did, he had the impulse to write me and give me reasons why I should come to Barbados—that I hadn’t been there in twelve years and the family gathering at Christmas needed me to complete the link of the family. I was the only missing one of all the members. So his letter justified the draft, justified the expense that he would incur. And all that I did, I simply imagined that I was in Barbados. I didn’t have a nickel, literally.
Now, I know exactly what I did and therefore I found God. For all things are made by God and without him not a thing is made that is made (Jn.1:3). So if I’ve found God, am I going to fall into the trap now?That although I knew God, I did not honor him as God, and then turn to an image resembling a human being and say he was the cause of my trip? And give all credit and all praise to my brother who sent me the draft and notified the steamship company to issue me a ticket so that I could come in and present myself and give proof of my identity and then get the ticket? So, did I fall into the trap that he was the cause or did I remember the God that I discovered?That’s what Paul is asking everyone who reads that letter. They found God and then they did not honor him as God. They found him and then they exchanged the truth about God for a lie. For, to turn to see my brother as the cause of it…though he wrote the letter I had set it in motion long before he wrote the letter. The one who set it in motion he was causative…that was causation.
So here, nothing is happening to us that we have not set in motion in our own wonderful human Imagination.I tell you that you can be anything you want to be in this world. But when you voice your request and you say verbally I want to be so and so, it must be a genuine desire and not something that you just flippantly say that I would like so and so. You must so want it that you’re going to remain faithful to that change in position relative to a fixed frame. If you want to be other than what you are, well then, you can’t just assume for one little moment that I am it and then go back to your former state. Let not the double-minded man think for one moment he’ll receive anything from the Lordas we’re told in the Book of James. Don’t for one moment think that I can be double minded and get anything from the Lord.I want to be successful in business? I don’t care what the register told me today that I have and what I sold. I must sleep tonight as though it were all that I expected it to be, even though reason tells me it isn’t and my senses deny it. But I’ve got to actually assume that things are as I would like them to be, and then regardless of all the things round about me denying it, persist in that assumption. If I do it in this way, I cannot fail. This is the law by which we live in this world. So take it to heart.
The God spoken of in scripture is seated right here in everyone who is here and he is your own wonderful human Imagination. When you say “I am” that’s God. Now what are you imagining? If I could be so sensitive and I could feel your motion…that now you dare to assume that you’re other than what reason tells you that you are; and if I said, “Who has moved?” and you answered, I would say, “Tell me who is now moving because I can feel it?” and you would say, “I am.” Well now, you’ve called his name. That’s his only name. I am moving from where I thought I was to where I would like to be. I thought I was behind the eight-ball and now I’m completely clear. Things are rolling just as I want them. I moved from where I was to where I would like to be, and I detected the motion and wondered who is moving and then you replied “I am.” That’s God, and all thing are possible to God.So without the consent of anyone in this world you simply move from where you are to where you would like to be by a change of attitude, a simple change of attitude. But it has to be fixed. You move and then you fix it so that when you walk or when you sleep that attitude is yours. For that state to which you most constantly return constitutes your dwelling place. So that I constantly dwell upon this state and in this state, that’s where I live. And that’s where I will return to no matter where I go in the course of a day. I go back to that state. Then that will externalize itself in your world.
So, all the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen. How?—by the things that are made. So when they come into the world you recognize your own harvest. You’re bringing them in anyway, but man is unaware of it, and he exchanges the truth about God for the lie. He exchanges the immortal God for an image of a mortal man.And because a man was instrumental in aiding you to bring it to pass, you think he was the one who did it, that he was the cause. He’s not the cause at all. If tonight you inherited a fortune, don’t think for a second the one from whom it seemed to have come was the cause of it. No, preceding that you assumed it and he was only the instrument, the actor playing his part in giving it to you. A total stranger could be the one. You don’t need a wealthy uncle, a wealthy aunt, a wealthy grandfather.
I had it in my own family…a brother who…yes he did befriend a friend, but certainly there was no reason for him at the end of his life to leave him the sum of money that he did, a considerable sum of money. He had a wife and he had two sons and a daughter, and in his will he left it so that no one could break it. He said, “I gave them all that I thought was due them” and then he left everything that he had to my brother Victor, and it was a considerable sum of money with all other things attached to it. My brother certainly was in his own mind’s eye assuming that he’s a wealthy man…he kept assuming that “I’m a wealthy man.” That was his consuming desire and there was no divided mindedness in my brother. He wanted that more than anything in the world. He actually wanted it. To this very day money to him is power and he wanted power. He was tired of poverty and he was tired of being shunted around. Then dreaming power, just dreaming wealth, then out of the nowhere people came and opportunities came.
Well now, if he forgets the cause, he turns from the immortal God to an image resembling a man. That’s what you’ll read in that first chapter. And here he turns to a man and thinks that he was the cause of my good fortune, he gave me x-number of hundreds of thousands of dollars…and it wasn’t that at all. He had to or whoever it was. He’s only one of numberless who would have to do it at the very spur of the moment, because someone is dreaming that he is wealthy. Though he has not a thing to support his dream, he is dreaming that he is.
So I say to everyone, you can be what you want to be, but you can’t be double minded. You are told, “Let no one believe that looking into the mirror and turning away forgetting what he is that he will receive anything from the Lord; for the double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.” So I say, well, I want it…and many a person will say to me I want so-and-so, and you meet them a week later and they forgot they even told you. How could you forget that was your request and then ask me, “Where is it?” This is not some little magical thing; this is based upon principle. You want it? You can have it! Are you willing to give up what you are to be what you want to be? That’s the only price you pay for it. You don’t make any sacrifice outside of giving up the state in which you find yourself to move into the state in which you want to be. They’re only states.
So here, without motion it is impossible to bring anything forth, for everything is in the invisible world, but everything.Now, how do I do it? I think of you who would actually congratulate me if you heard good news about me and I bring you into my mind’s eye and allow you to congratulate me. I know what this implies. The power is in the implication. What are you doing? You are congratulating me on my good fortune. I accept that congratulations and I don’t duck it, I accept it as fact. That is my subjective appropriation of my objective hope…because I am hoping that one day you will know of it and therefore you will congratulate me. So I go ahead in time and I go into that state and I allow you to congratulate me now. When you do it in the not distant future then it is only confirmation of my imaginal act. But I will remember what I did, and having done it I will not forget what I did. Then I’ll go about my business. When I think of you, I will let you know in my mind’s eye that you know of my good fortune. The day must come, it must externalize itself. So it externalizes itself, you will know of it, and you will congratulate me on my good fortune.
So he brings things that are not seen into the world that is seen. As you’re told in the same Book of Romans, “And God calls things that are not seen as though they were seen, and the unseen becomes seen.” You’ll read that in the 4th chapter, the 17th verse of Romans (Catholic Bible; KJV). He calls a thing that is not seen just as though it were seen and the unseen becomes seen. So how would I call it? In this simple movement…I move from where I couldn’t see it to where I could get a good look at it. Well, I can’t see on your face any expression other than what I would now see if you knew my present condition. If I don’t like that present condition, I want to see the same face but I see it differently. Now, if I move from what I am into what I would like to be, I would still know you, you would still be my friend. So I bring you into my mind’s eye and I let you see me as you would have to see me if things were as I want them to be. Then I don’t move from that. I mustn’t be double minded and go back and let you see me in my former state. I must persist in this one state where you are seeing me.
Now this is true of everything that you do in this world, I don’t care what it is.If you want to be known, I don’t care what the world will tell you, you may have not a thing in this world to show to the world that would cause anyone to look back at you and point you out as someone that is known. Forget that. You want to be known, you want to be rich, you want to be this, you want to be the other, well then, dare to assume that you are! For these assumptions, though at the moment you assume them, are denied by your senses, if you persist in them they will actually become externalized…they’ll become facts in your life.
A friend of mine who is here tonight, and he’s promised to write it out for me, but here he said to me, “I started with $180 and I had so many debts that’s all that I had not so long ago in a small little restaurant in a small place, Ojai.” Now he’s contemplating an expansion into San Francisco. He said, “Tonight, Neville, the estimated value of my business is over a hundred thousand dollars.” I know him well. I first met him in San Francisco and he heard this. He was born and raised an ardent Catholic. In his mind’s eye he is still a deep, deep Christian, but he does not call it Catholicism or Protestantism or any other ism, but he was raised in the Catholic faith. He heard this from me in San Francisco and he believed it. He began to apply it and things worked. But we forget as he forgot, and then he remembered again, and then he forgot again. But now he has remembered and I hope this time that the memory is permanent.
So he started in this manner and everything fell into line. Yes, men came in to help, all these things happened, but they were not the cause. The cause of everything that happened to him was all in his own wonderful Imagination. He would turn to his wife and say, “What have we forgotten to do? We aren’t applying this principle.” So when things did not go as they should go, he remembered there was a law behind it all: things are not just happening and they’re happening only because he is creating them. Then he got back on the ball. Now here is this wonderful opportunity for expansion in the city of San Francisco, and it all just happened. Today, they’re all about to incorporate and the value is in excess of a hundred thousand dollars…and he started with $180. Now this is not too many years ago.
So I say, everything in this world is possible to everyone if he knows who he is. If I asked the average person in this world, do you know God, and they were brutally honest, they would say, no I don’t. They speak of God, but Paul is not speaking of God. Paul said, “And they knew God, yet they did not honor him as God.” They knew God, for they found that one day they imagined a certain state and something happened that was related to that state. Now, you might have read in yesterday’s paper or the day before yesterday’s paper, that this young lady, twenty-five years old, she read all these papers and read the magazines, she saw the TV, heard the radio, of all these murders of the young girls, and she became frightened. She read of these many nurses in Chicago who were killed, one after the other, because they didn’t cry out. She swore to herself she would cry out if it ever came to her life, and she took a knife and slept with a knife under her pillow for about two months. It was a knife and she toyed with the idea of getting a gun, but she said, no, I wouldn’t want a gun in the house…but she did have a knife. Then she put the knife back where it was in the sink area.
Here, the girl is working undoubtedly in a very nice job, because she pays $160 a month rent, so she must have a nice job. Then she heard a sound coming from the kitchen and she saw a shadow. Next thing she knew a knife was at her throat. This tall blond man with long hair to his shoulders, about 6’2” and estimated weight about 190, and he said to her, “How old are you?” She said, “Twenty-five.” He said, “Take off your pajamas.” And she thought, “This is it, he’s going to kill me.” All these things she had done and imagined in the past, and what she would do if it ever happened to her. So she had a knife, mind you; but she didn’t have the knife this night, he had the knife. Then in some way she got out of the bed by his order to take off her pajamas, she got the knife and began to stab him all over his back. Then he ran leaving a trail of blood for at least a block. So she must really have done quite a job on his back. I don’t see how he can avoid being detected. He has to go to some hospital or some doctor to be repaired. But everything she had imagined having been exposed to TV, exposed to radio, exposed to all the things in the paper, came to pass. She may not relate it, but she did state that as she read it in the paper that all these things she did imagine and put herself as the victim and what she would do even to the point of getting a knife to protect her. And it was a knife; it was not a gun.
So, not a thing happens in this world by accident: this is a world of law. The most horrible things had first to be imagined and the most beautiful things had first to be imagined. So everything is being imagined, good, bad and indifferent, and these things are happening to us from morning to night. We have found God, as Paul said. The average person will say, “No, I haven’t found God. I never saw him. What does he look like?” Well, didn’t you see the phenomena? He tells you how you find him: “All the invisible things of him are clearly seen from the beginning of time.” How? By the things that are made! Well, that was made, that scene was made. Well, how could that be God? “I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal; I do all these things, and none can deliver out of my hands” (Deut.32:39). That’s God speaking…not just some outside being. I kill, I make alive; I heal. I am the Lord and beside me there is no God. Well, do you say “I am”? That’s he. You mean I did all these things? Yes, I did all these things, good, bad or indifferent. But I found him.
So they have found God. Although they knew God, they did not honor him as God. “Oh, I know that I imagined the thing and then it happened, but don’t tell me that is God, because that’s not my concept of God. I have a different concept of God…something up in the sky…but certainly not here in my own Imagination. Because I am capable of all the unlovely acts in the world and that could not be God.” But they don’t read their scripture. If they read the scripture they would hear the same God saying, “I kill, although I make alive; I wound and I heal.” Well, who is stabbing a person? She said, “I am.” Well, that’s God, that’s his name; his name is I AM. Who held the knife? I am! That was a person. And he was imagining all things, too, for he had imagined that “Suppose I’m not successful, what are the consequences of my act?” He had imagined that, too. So the whole vast drama is the unfolding of God within man, and there’s only one God that’s God.
If you really have a desire…but it must be a genuine desire so when you voice the wish it is not just an idle wish. It must be something that is so genuine that you mean it. Then I’ll tell you how to get it: you simply move from where you are mentally, not physically. People do all things on the outside. You don’t do it that way; you do it on the inside. What would the world look like if you were now the person that you want to be? What would it look like? Well, see it that way. If you see it that way, you have moved from where you were to where you would see it as you would see it if it were true. Well now, what would you see? Then move…the motion is all mental, all in your Imagination. But it must be genuine. If it’s genuine, you remain in that state. Don’t go from place to place, just remain there. “Into whatever house you go remain”he said. Just remain in it. So I’ll go into a state and I remain in that state regardless of what the world will do. If I remain in it, I will bring it into visibility. But it is impossible without motion to bring anything from the invisible state into the outer visible state. You can do it…everyone can do it…because you have an Imagination and that is God. That is God in you, and without him not a thing is created. Whatever is created is created by God whether it be good, whether it be indifferent, whether it be an evil thing (Amos 3:6).
So take me at my word. My friend is here tonight and I’ve asked him to write the story up for me in detail which he promised to do. But to start with $180…and that is not $180 clear, as he had debts, all kinds of debts in trying to make a little restaurant go. Then from there to suddenly find it growing and growing, and out of the nowhere someone comes down from San Francisco and said, “You know, this is my third visit here, all the way from San Francisco, because this is what old San Francisco used to be, and now it’s all tourists, all sophisticated. This is the real old San Francisco way of dining.” Then he proposed that he come to San Francisco, he’ll find him the place, and he’ll incorporate, and do all these things. Then the present value of this today is a hundred-odd thousand dollars from an investment of $180…which is not really $180, because he didn’t have any money and he had so many debts. Now he said, “Tonight I have the pink slip of everything in my restaurant. There is not one penny owed on anything in the restaurant, and I have the best material, the finest most modern equipment and everything. I hold the pink slip by simply applying this.”
So, I don’t ask him how you were born? He was born in a very devout Irish-Catholic family in Boston. His father is gone from this world but he went as a devout Catholic. His mother is still here and undoubtedly she’s a devout Catholic. They love him as a son, but undoubtedly before the father left he wondered, and the mother wonders, “What happened to my son?” But he found God. And they’re not yet…they found him, but they don’t believe that he’s God. Because no one can live a full ripe life and not at some time find a thing happening in their world and cannot see the relationship between what they imagined and what has happened. They refuse to believe that they are causative; they can’t believe that this is the cause of the phenomena of life, and so they will ignore it and brush it aside, but they found God. As he said in his own words, “Although they knew God, they did not honor him as God; and exchanged the immortal God for an image resembling man, and exchanged the true knowledge of God, all that they knew about God, for a lie.” Then they worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator. The Creator is your own wonderful human Imagination. That is God.
If you are in control of what you are imagining, not a thing in this world is impossible to you. But you will find that when you find God your values will change: you will not worship things; you will worship God the Creator. You’ll be so thrilled when you can imagine something for a friend and see it work and then give thanks to the one that did it…all within you. So you thank God and you worship God and you serve God. When your friends give you the good news and it confirms what you imagined for them, you are thrilled and you honor God. You thank the friend for bringing the good news, for you knew it had to come some day, for you had imagined it. Therefore, thank him, but the real thanks goes to God for you’ve found him. And now you honor God because he never lets you down. You don’t have to burst a blood vessel to make it so…you let it be so. You knew the request was a genuine request. The man wanted this, the lady wanted that, and these wanted so-and-so, and you simply imagined it and trust him implicitly to do it. It was not based upon your moral code, your ethical code, no just your trust in God that he would do it. So you knew that what you had imagined was God in action and that God is faithful; therefore, it would come to pass in a way you could never devise, so you couldn’t tell them what to do to aid the birth of it. You only knew that you did it and therefore it had to work.
So I ask you who are in business, who have…if you’re not in your own business and you want to transcend what you are, imagine that you have. Don’t ask yourself if you are qualified…you’ll be qualified. All that it takes you will get. All that it takes to fill the better job will come to you; the know-how will come to you. You simply assume that you are the man, the woman that you would like to be. Then in a way that no one knows it is going to take place. Your businesses will grow, your family will grow, and all these things will grow just as you have imagined it.
So when you read that the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the deep, you know who he is. He is your own Imagination, and it moves. You can stand perfectly still and move. And may I tell you, you can so move that you can be seen spatially at the point in space where you’ve imagined that you are. I’ve done it; I’m speaking from experience. Two thousand miles away I appeared to my sister, for I wanted her to see me, and yet physically I was in New York City in my own home. I wanted her to see me, and she came in and she saw me. She could not see what she ought to have seen with her physical eyes. She should have seen her son, but she couldn’t see her son, she could only see her brother Neville, for that’s what I wanted her to see when she looked at her son. Here I am physically in New York City, and yet to my sister in Barbados across water…and how did I move? I simply moved in my Imagination and yet in Barbados she saw me.
Then she sat down and wrote me and said, “Neville, the strangest thing has happened to me. I went into the room to look at Billy and I couldn’t see Billy, I only saw you. I rubbed my eyes, I did everything, and no matter how I looked I couldn’t see Billy. My son was not there, it was you. Will you please explain it to me if you can?” At that very moment I was doing what she said that she saw and witnessed. And when I came out I told my wife and told a friend who was waiting for me to come out of my bedroom exactly what I had done. Eight days later came a letter from my sister asking if I could throw some light on this strange thing that had happened to her. Had I told it eight days before, then they might have believed me afterwards, yes, but there would have been a question. But they could not deny that I told them eight days before what I had done. It came not by air, because in those days you couldn’t get a letter by air, so it came by boat. It took eight days to bring that letter.
I tell you that all things are possible to man because God and man are one. So you’ll find this night a very practical night, and yet you’ll find it a very spiritual night. You take it, but you must be sincere in your wish, so that you’re not moving from place to place.Do you really want…and you name it. You want a glorious home? Don’t say, “Well, I can’t afford it.” Do you really want it? Then sleep in it as you will conceive it. Do you want this, that or the other? Well then, sleep in it as though it were true…and that’s your motion. You move from where you were into where you want to be. But remain there! When you rise in the morning and the world tells you that you’re not there, you simply walk through the door just as though you were. You’re leaving that place. And in that state you remain and then everything happens. If it takes the entire world to aid it, the entire world will aid it.
It took a man to come from San Francisco three times to enjoy a meal, a wonderful meal, but it’s not an extravagant meal, but a tasty meal. The kind of environment that he said old San Francisco used to have. He lived there for thirty years, and he said, “This is the kind of place we always had in old San Francisco, the décor, the atmosphere, the food, everything about it. Now today, all the restaurants have gone into catering to tourists and that old atmosphere has gone, and I would like to rebuild it, at least in one place. I tell you that when we open we’ll turn away everyone outside, because we’ll have so many of the local people coming, and they’ll come only by reservation. You’ll have no extra room for outsiders.” So I asked him to save me a spot anyway, coming from L.A. I know he will.
So take me at my word, it is impossible without motion to bring anything into this world, and the motion is all within you. The motion is a simple motion…all you do …you know exactly what you want.Well, if you had it, how would you see the world? If you see it as you now see it, you haven’t moved. If you see it as you would see it after the result, then you’ve moved.Now continue seeing that, for motion can be detected only by a change of position relative to another object. If I say I am moving now and I see everything as it is now, then I haven’t moved. But if as I move I look at the same frame of reference and I see it from a different angle, then I’ve moved. So I use as a frame of reference my friends, your face, and on your face I let you see me as you would have to see me if you knew of something that you do not now know. You have to see me differently. If you heard news of me that is not now known, when you meet me the next time you would see me differently. If that’s what I want you to know, then let me see on your face the expression that would imply that you know of that news. If you would be one who would congratulate me on that news, then let me accept the reality of your hand and the reality of your voice and the words coming congratulating me. Having done that, let me know that was true and let me have faith in this unseen reality. If I do, no power in the world can stop it, they can’t stop it. If man only knew this, he’d be free, really free. But today he doesn’t know the source of the cause of all the things that happen in this world. He doesn’t know causation, he doesn’t know the cause of phenomena, and he thinks the president is doing it or the army’s doing it or the Pentagon or something on the outside…his competitor is doing it. Not a thing is doing anything but what is taking place within him in his own wonderful human Imagination.
In the deep Depression of 1929 we only hear of the hundreds of thousands who lost everything on paper in the stock market. For in those days you put up ten percent and even then you didn’t have to the way they manipulated it. So if you were wiped out and you say you’re wiped out of a half-million all on paper, you didn’t have it at all. But there were others who made fortunes. So, we read only of those who lost, but we do not read of the tens of thousands of men who became multi-millionaires. Because all stocks…I read in this morning’s paper that RCA dropped from this fantastic height down to eleven dollars and found no buyers, and the boy on the floor just as a joke bid one dollar for a block of stock at one dollar and got it. There were no takers and he got it at one dollar a share. Whether he could raise a few dollars to buy them I don’t know. But it kept on tumbling all the way down and they thought at eleven dollars it couldn’t possibly go lower. Then he put in a bid at one dollar a share and it fell to him because there were no takers. If he held on to it…and it has been split and split several times…what would that little boy who ran errands on the floor be worth today? But he was only one of that kind. There were those who had cash and they took advantage of it all and they simply bought. It tumbled and all stock lost seventy percent of their value. So, there were those who could buy.
But I’m not going into that side of it. I’m just saying, if you remember God…and God is not on the outside; God is on the inside and he’s your own wonderful human Imagination. He brings everything into being by moving. So he moves from one state to another state. He remains faithful to the state into which he goes, and then whatever is there must project itself on the screen of space and bear witness to his creative power. So, all the invisible things of him are clearly seen from the very creation of the world through the things that do appear. So they appear and you know exactly what motion he made. When this appears, that’s the motion that he made or it could not appear. If Depression appears, that’s the motion he made. If the papers begin to suggest to you that things are going to be on the way down, and you accept it, then you’ll move, suggested by a paper, a magazine, or some so-called expert, and then it will appear. It appears because you moved based upon some suggestion by what you thought to be an authority. And it isn’t that at all; it’s all within you. If you ignore the suggestions and do not accept them at all and keep on moving where you want to be, well then, you’ll move, and if you remain in it, it will externalize itself in your world.
Now, you’ll find this the practical night and yet you can’t divorce it from a very spiritual night because you’ve found God! What is more than finding God? And God is your own wonderful human Imagination. The day will come you’ll find him in a more wonderful way by the series that I’ve spoken about night after night, which we’ll pick up again, because that is to me far more important. But nevertheless, one should know who they are while they are here, that you’re not a victim of circumstances, you are not a victim of people on the outside; you are God! And there is no other Creator but God, there is no other Savior but God; and God is one, he’s not another, and he’s you.
Now let us to into the Silence.
* * *
Now are there any questions, please? Well, above all things apply what you heard, and then share the results with me. Don’t give me anything, but tell me the story…that’s gift enough. I don’t mean that you apply it toward a fortune and then share your fortune with me, no, I’m not asking for that. But to tell me the story is enough. That’s a gift! For I love to hear the story, love to hear your dreams and your visions. So, until the next time…thank you.
Neville Goddard roots his argument in biblical exegesis, particularly Paul’s letter to the Romans, suggesting that the invisible aspects of God are made manifest through the created world, which he identifies as the product of human Imagination. By reinterpreting scriptural passages, he reframes theology: Imagination is not merely fanciful but a divine faculty operating as the causative principle in the universe.
He then lays out a clear methodology for using Imagination: the act of moving from one mental state to another, fixing that new state by persistent assumption, and using a stable frame of reference—such as visualizing yourself in a different city while acknowledging your original location at a precise distance. This mental motion, he argues, is the only way to bring about external change, and fidelity to that assumption—even in sleep—is crucial to prevent double-mindedness.
Neville supports his teaching with personal anecdotes and real-life examples: from conjuring a fully funded voyage to Barbados, to advising a restaurant owner whose $180 investment grew into a six-figure business, to a woman defending herself with a knife in a violent attack. These stories demonstrate the universal efficacy of the Law of Assumption, regardless of context, and underline the principle that our beliefs are the true authors of our experiences.
Psychologically, this framework places ultimate responsibility for every event on the individual, challenging conventional notions of fate or external causation. It calls for radical self-awareness: if fear, doubt, or external suggestions sway us, we manifest those very outcomes. Success requires disciplined focus, emotional conviction, and unwavering trust in the unseen reality we choose to create.
Spiritually, Goddard’s lecture elevates Imagination to the status of the divine presence within each person—"I AM"—and insists that honoring this creative power is tantamount to honoring God. By consciously employing Imagination in benevolent and purposeful ways, we not only manifest our desires but also fulfill a deeper spiritual destiny, aligning with the scriptural mandate to serve the Creator rather than the created.
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