In this lecture, Neville Goddard introduces the concept of the Perfect Law of Liberty drawn from the Book of James, emphasizing that true freedom is achieved by rearranging the mind through assumption and perseverance. He illustrates that all minds share the same substance and differ only in their internal arrangements, likening this to magnetized versus demagnetized steel. Quoting James 1:22–25, he urges listeners to be doers of the word by inwardly assuming their desired state as already realized, thereby manifesting external change. Goddard reinforces his teaching with personal anecdotes from his Army service, showing how he secured an unexpected discharge by assuming the feeling of freedom. He concludes that imagination partnered with persistent faith and action will externalize any desired reality, transcending sensory evidence.
The rich man, the poor man, the beggar man, the thief are not different minds, but simply different arrangements of the same mind. There is only God in this world. So, when you say, “I AM,” and I say, “I AM,” it’s the same God, but we have arranged the structure of our mind differently. We have different concepts of Self, . . that’s all. But not one is better because he is richer than the one who is poor; these are only different arrangements of the structure of the mind.
Now Scripture tells us, . . and I am quoting now the Book of James . . the Epistle of James. James is really a letter of Jacob. The words “James” and “Jacob” are identical in Hebrew, Greek and in the Arabic tongue . . the same word. So, when they begin, “James, a servant of God and the Lord Jesus Christ, to the twelve tribes in the dispersion,” you can see at once it’s simply a Christian revision of this Jewish letter. It’s the letter of Jacob; and if you read it carefully, only twice do they insert and say “Jesus Christ, our Lord.” All the others, . . there are eleven other times, . . it is simply “God.” The Lord is God, not Christ. So, here it is really the servant of the Lord speaking; and he is giving us some fantastic instruction and very practical instruction. Now listen to it carefully. I am going to quote from the very first chapter of the Book of James . . “Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, for he who us a hearer and not a doer, is like a man who observes his natural face in the mirror; then goes his way, and at once forgets what he is like. But he who looks into the perfect law, the Law of Liberty, and perseveres, he will be blessed in his doing.”
Now, how do I look into the law . . the perfect law which sets me free, the Law of Liberty? I look into my mind. I am now imprisoned. I have heard the sentence. I know exactly how long I’m supposed to serve. Now I look into the Law of Liberty in my mind, and I assume that I AM free . . I AM set free. How? I am not concerned. Who brought it about? I am not concerned. I simply look into the Perfect Law, the Law of Liberty, and I dare to assume that I AM free.
If I dare to assume that I AM free, I rearrange the structure of my mind . . the same mind that heard the sentence that I accepted when I heard it. Now I do not accept it. I look into the perfect law, the Law or Liberty; and if, as I am told in Scripture, I persevere, then I will actually receive that which I am doing. I must not forget what I have done and sleep this night as though I AM in prison. For if I AM now set free, where would I sleep? Let me know, . . exactly where would I sleep? Well, dare to assume that I am sleeping there now. If I sleep in the assumption that I AM free, I am not in jail; even though the bars are there, I don’t see them. I close my eyes against them. As Blake tells us “Man’s perceptions are not bounded by organs of perception! he perceives more than sense (tho’ ever so acute) can discover. And so Reason, or the ratio of all we have already known, is not the same that it shall be when we know more.” [from “There Is No Natural Religion.”]
If I take this tonight and test it, and it proves itself in the testing, then I have added to my knowledge; and so I know more than before I tested it. So, when I find myself up against something that seems beyond solution, I have found something that can solve it. All I have to do is to rearrange the structure of my mind.
So, I dare to assume that I am the man that I would be, and sleep as though I AM. That is the rearrangement of that structure of the mind. I am the same being; I am Neville. I know exactly those that I knew before, but now I know them differently. I know them, now, as a freed man. But I must not be a hearer of what I heard in Scripture; I must be a doer. I must do it!
So, “he not a hearer only,” Be a doer in the full sense of the word so that actually I do it and persist, . . the word is “persevere” in Scripture.
The first chapter, the 22d through the 25th verses of the Epistle of James. So, I will simply do it; and though tomorrow I am confronted with the obvious facts of life that I am still in prison, it still doesn’t matter. I did it, I am doing it, and I will continue to do it until that which I have done is perfectly externalized within my world. I am telling you this from experience. I know it.
If you go to jail and you stay five to ten years, . . all right, you know five years, and maybe you get off in six for good behavior; but when you are drafted into the Army, there is no date that you are promised where they let you out. You are “in” for the duration.
Well, I was drafted into the Army, seventeen millions of us. Well, I didn’t ask the permission of any one; I only consulted myself. I looked around, and I knew what the world know: it was something that had to be done. But I must be honest with myself. I didn’t want any part of it, but no part of it! Others would tell me, “Is that the act of a coward?” I didn’t care what they said, . . “Is that being a good citizen?” I didn’t care what they said. As I just said earlier, what we now know, which is called “Reason,” . . it’s a reasonable thing to do; we are at war, and we are all Americans. We should be going there because our country has declared war . . go in there and fight. And so, Reason tells us that should be done.
When I was drafted, I did not oppose it. They drafted me. They took me down to Camp Polk, Louisiana, for my basic training; and while I was there, I didn’t want any part of it, and I dared to assume that I’m out of it. I made my normal, natural application as you have to do in the world of Caesar. Within 24 hours it came back, and it was simply rejected. It was signed, “Disapproved,” and signed by my Colonel, a very nice gentleman. His name was Colonel Theodore Bilboe, Jr. His father was Senator from Mississippi. I said nothing.
My Captain said, “For your sake, Goddard, I am very, very sorry. I know exactly how you feel. You want to be with your wife and little girl. Your son is in Guadalcanal with the Marines, and you are now almost 38; and so I know, but I would like to go through this war with a man just like you at my side. So, I can’t say that I am sorry for myself; I am sorry only for you.”
I didn’t say one word to him, or to the Colonel. I didn’t oppose it. That was the decision of “Caesar.” Now I looked into the perfect law, the Law of Liberty, and I persevered in that law; and I “slept” that night as though I slept in my own home in New York City on Washington Square, where I lived on the 7th floor. I lived on that floor; it was a very large apartment . . two bedrooms, a lovely big living room, a dining room, a huge kitchen, and the foyer; and I slept in that place just as though I were there and not in the Army. I fell asleep in that state, having done all the normal things that would make me feel this arrangement is perfect. I rearranged the structure of my mind. Instead of seeing 25 men around me sleeping upstairs and knowing that there were 25 down below in the next area, I “slept” in my own bed with my wife in her bed and my little girl in her crib in the comer. I felt everything in that place just as though it’s taking place, and I rearranged the structure of my mind, and fell sound asleep in that state.
At 4:00 o’clock in the morning, here comes a sheet of paper before my eyes and a hand from here down indicating, with a pen in its hand; and the pen scratched out the word “”disapproved,” and it wrote in, in a bold script, “Approved.” And then I heard the words: “That which I have done, I have done. Do nothing!” And then I awoke.
It was too early to disturb the 25 other fellows sleeping there, and I waited until the very first moment that I could leave that room, and went down to the latrine and shaved and bathed early, and came up filled with a glow that the whole thing was done. I walked in that assumption for the next nine days.
Nine days later, the same Colonel that disapproved my request called me in. He said, “Close the door, Goddard.” So, I closed the door. He said, “Take a seat.” He never asked me to take a seat in his presence before. I was a Private. You always stood in his presence, and never took a seat. Then he gave me all the reasons in the world why I should still be in the Army. He said, “Do you still want to get out?”
I said, “Yes, Sir.”
He gave me another reason. “Do you still want to get out?”
I said, “Yes, Sir.”
Another one; and when he exhausted all the reasons why I should be in the Army, I was still saying, “Yes, Sir.”
He said, “All right, bring me another application and have your Captain sign it,” which I did. And that day I was honorably discharged and out of the Army. I didn’t run away; I was honorably discharged.
“When vision breaks forth into speech, the presence of Deity is assured,” and who can oppose God? He said, “That which I have done, I have done. Do nothing!” So, he thought he initiated the urge to let me go free. I looked into the perfect law, the Law of Liberty, and I persevered in that law; and he played his part, for I rearranged the structure of my mind.
I was convinced I wanted out, and I didn’t ask any one’s permission. I did not discuss it with anyone as to why I should want out when seventeen million are being drafted, plus numberless girls to make a tremendous effort against this monstrous thing that was going on in Europe. I still wanted out. I did not take anyone into my confidence as to why I wanted out. I had my 13 weeks’ basic training, and then when I came out, they gave me my citizenship papers. Back in 1922 I could have been an American, but I just didn’t have the time or the urge to get around to become a citizen; so I drifted on and drifted on and drifted on until after this little episode. That’s why I went into the Army, or I would still be drifting through, being a citizen of Britain. But now I’m an American by adoption. And they gave it to me because I did fulfill a 13-week training course in the American Army.
So, I tell you, I know from experience how true this statement in James is. Read it carefully.
“Be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourself. For he who is a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like one who looks into the mirror and sees his natural face; and then he goes away and at once forgets what he looks like. But he who is a doer, he looks into the perfect law, the Law of Liberty, and perseveres. And when he does that, he is blessed in his doing.”
That is, acting . . making the thing become alive within you. Now, he tells us in the same chapter: “Faith without works is dead; as the body, apart from the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead.” .. . He is not proposing that I substitute works for faith. Works are the evidence whether the faith I profess is alive or dead. I say I believe the story of Scripture. Well then, if I believe It, then do it!
He said, “Whatever you desire, believe you have received, and you shall.”
If I really believe that, . . I can’t say I believe by quoting the Apostle’s Creed. That’s not belief. Going to church and genuflecting before some man-made little cross, . . that’s not Scripture. Do you really believe the doctrines, the teachings, of Scripture? Not the traditions of men, not the rituals, not the outer ceremonies; but the teachings of Scripture, . . “When you pray, believe that you have received, and you will.” And» “All things are possible to him who believes.”
Well, do I believe that? Well then, believe it!
If I really believe that I am out of the Army, what and where would I be? Well, I would be at home, in my place a thousand miles away, on Washington Square. If I looked through the window, I would see the Holly Apartments; if I looked to the left, I would see Washington Square; if I looked to the right, I would see Sixth Avenue, . . it’s now called “the Avenue of the Americas”; but then . . and still is to me, raised as I was there, . . it’s still Sixth Avenue to me. And there I would look at Sixth Avenue. Well, I did that, that night. I saw Sixth Avenue, I saw Washington Square; and then I went through the entire apartment and touched objects with my imaginary hands. Now, was that rational? The world would say that was the most irrational thing that one can do. Now, what is reason? The office of reason is simply to extract conclusions from premises.
Must my premises always be based upon the evidence of my senses? Must they always dictate what is rational to me? Well, having done this, and proved it to be a fact, “reason” doesn’t mean to me what it means to the world. For, they would sleep in the Army; and I wrote a friend of mine who was a Freudian, and he practiced psychiatry in New York City. He was drafted, . . he was an Englishman, too; and he was drafted, and he was off in Florida . . a man my age.
So, when I got out, knowing exactly what I did, I wrote him a detailed letter telling him what I did, and how to do it. No, . . he was a Freudian, and that was something that didn’t make sense to him. To him, the whole thing was centered in sex, not in this use of the imagination. All right, he didn’t answer my letter. I got out in 1943 in the spring, in the month of April . . March or April of 1943* They drafted me November the 19th, 1942, and I got out in March, 1943*
When the war was over and all the other fellows were being discharged, he was discharged; and he said to me afterwards, “You know, Neville, I love to come to your lectures and to hear you because it’s interesting. It’s fairy. You turn my daily bread into the substance of fairy; but while I listen to you, you know what I do? I put my feet right down into the carpet, and I hold onto the sides of the chair to keep my sense of the reality and the profundity of things.”
Well, he kept on holding to his little cot in the Army for another three years because he couldn’t let go and put himself where he wanted to be. So, I am telling you how it’s done. I am telling you how it’s done from my own experience: that my perceptions are not necessarily bounded by organs of perception. I perceive more than sense, no matter how acute they are, could discover. My senses couldn’t discover what I am seeing. Only in my imagination could it be done.I’m seeing the Holly Apartments, I am seeing Sixth Avenue, I am seeing Washington Square; I am seeing the bed, my wife, my child. I hadn’t seen them in three months, but they are all there. I didn’t bring sex into it. No, . . I didn’t go to bed’ with her. There she was . . the girl I loved; she was in her own bed, and I in own bed. We have twin beds. And my little girl was then just over a year . . not quite a year. She was born in June of 1942; this was not yet June of 1943? so she was not yet a year old. Here is my sweet little child, Vicki, in her bed.
And I walked through the entire thing and touched all the objects, and felt them so normal and so natural, and came back to my bed and slept in it.
If anyone was sensitive in that room, they would have seen me sleeping there. I was so natural to myself, they would have seen me . . actually seen me there.
And then the next day, he had a change of mind but he couldn’t act upon it. He was resisting the change, but “That which I have done, I have done. Do nothing. So, he resisted it for nine days, and then called me in and told me to bring a new application, which I did. And that day I was out.
So, I tell you how it works. This is the most practical Law in the world. “He looks into the perfect law, the Law of Liberty.” Doesn’t that liberate you,’ if you look into the Law of Liberty?
Now, what are you now? The man, the woman, you really want to be? Well then, you are in prison, though you are not behind bars. You are imprisoned by your present concept. You are not behind bars you are going to go home tonight and sleep as the man, the woman, you really don’t want to be; so you are in prison. Now, “look into the perfect law, the Law of Liberty, and persevere.” Do not only be a hearer of what to do. Do it, and “you will be blessed in the doing.” That’s what Scripture teaches. Go home and read it. I am not misquoting. I am quoting accurately from the Epistle of James in the New Testament, and this is the story that I am trying to tell everyone in the world.
He said, “I AM not in prison.”
No, you are not in prison, not physically; but you are in prison. You may today need money, and you say, “I’m still not like the fellows who are behind bars in Sing Sing.” All right, you are not behind . . behind in that, behind in this, and in the dunning note from all the places where you charge, . . you are “behind bars.” You can’t seem to find the necessary sum to pay them. All right, look into the perfect law of liberty. That’s the “perfect law.”
How do I do it? Rearrange the structure of your mind. The demagnetized piece of steel does not differ from the magnetized, only the arrangement of its molecules. And then one lifts up enormous weights when it is completely one-pointed. When all these molecules face in one direction, it’s a power house. The other is scattered. So, “let not the double-minded man think that he will in any way receive from the Lord,” you are told in the same first chapter.
“If the double-minded man comes, who is unstable in all his ways, let him not think he will receive anything from the Lord.”
What can you give a man who doesn’t know what he wants? I’ve gone into a restaurant just to prove this principle, sat down, said to the waiter, “What would you like for a tip?” and he is embarrassed.
I said to my friend, “I’ll give him what he wants within reason. I’m not going to give him any hundred-dollar bill, but I will give him, if he says a $5 bill,” I didn’t order that which warranted a $5 bill, and he was embarrassed and embarrassed and embarrassed. All he expected was exactly what he got. He just didn’t know. He just had no concept of putting something . . of course, he didn’t know it; so how could he put it to the test?
So, I am telling you, you rearrange the structure of your mind. That is all you do. It doesn’t differ from Einstein’s mind. There is only one Mind. There is only one God. There is only one Lord. Listen to it;
“One body, one spirit, one hope, one lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of us all, Who is above all, through all, and in all.”
If He is in you, that’s the same One with the one body, the one spirit; so I am not using a different mind. It’s the same mind, but differently arranged?
Go into one room, and you see that someone doesn’t know what to do with their furniture. Bring someone in who knows how to set a room, come back an hour later after she is through with it, and you will think you are in an entirely different home. My wife used to “pull” that on me all the time! I’d come home and think I had stepped into an entirely strange apartment and wonder if I’m really at home. She was hiding some other place. She had completely rearranged the structure of the furniture. It looked like an entirely different home. But she has that sense, how to do it, and so she did it.
So, with what you have, . . all you need is exactly what you have, for you have the Mind of God! It’s not a different mind . . the same mind. And you simply rearrange the mind by a mere assumption. What would the feeling be like, were it true that I am now the man I want to be, now the woman that I want to be? And it is added: “but persevere.” You must persevere in it.
If I call you now and you answer, that’s one thing. Would you respond an hour later to the same call? If you persevere, you will. If now, an hour later, you think of yourself as you now . . when you dare to assume that you are now the man that you want to be; an hour later, are you still assuming that state? If you’re not, you are not persevering. You are “the hearer who looked into the mirror, whose natural face” . . he saw it; “then he went his way, and at once forgot what he looked like.”
So, if one hour from now you are not still assuming that you are the. man that you want to be, you have forgotten. You are the hearer and not the doer. And he warns us of the vast difference between being a hearer and being a doer. The doer acts.
“God only acts and is in existing beings or man.” [Blake, from “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell”]
So, bear in mind that your wonderful world is not bounded by your senses. You perceive far, far more than your senses, no matter how acute they are, could discover. Your senses can’t discover what now you are capable of assuming that you are. Your senses dictate what reason will allow; and your reason and your senses are bound together. Go beyond it for what you now know from experience. What you know from the past will not be what you will know when you know more than you now know. Having’ done it, and proved it, I know more than I did when I was bounded by my senses.
When I couldn’t get out of a certain island on time to meet a commitment in Milwaukee, I knew what I did in the Army. I simply applied the identical thing, and I got out. There was a long, long waiting list . . thousands waiting from all the islands, and only two little ships . . not big ships, two little ships, one carrying not more than 60-odd passengers, one carrying 120, and thousand waiting, and they only came once a month into the island. One every 32 days, and one every three and a half weeks. How long would it take to get them all out?
I didn’t ask anyone a favor. I didn’t ask my brother, who was a powerful businessman in that island. He criticized me for not arranging passage back to America when I left America. He said, “That’s the place where you should have done it. That’s the power house of the world . . New York City, where all these things are done. And you dared to leave New York City when you could have arranged a round trip, and you came here on a one-way ticket?”
Well, I didn’t ask any favors of him or any favors of any member of the family. I simply did exactly what I did in the Army* and in 2k hours I was called by the Alcoa Company and given my passage, over thousands who were waiting. It isn’t my concern why she did it, or why someone else didn’t get it in preference to me when my name was down at the very bottom. I wasn’t at the top; I was at the bottom of the list. It isn’t my concern. I looked into the perfect law, the Law of Liberty, and I persevered.
I sat in a chair in my hotel room, and there I sat in the chair and assumed I am next to the boat. I am climbing up the gangplank. That’s before we had a deep-water harbor; so we had to go out to sea about maybe a half-mile or a mile out to sea on a little tender, and then take the gangplank and go up to the ship. I felt myself bobbing, as you would, on the ocean, and then moving up the gangplank. I smelled the rawness of the sea; got up to the top, . . my mind wandered. I brought it back again and did it all over again. If it wandered again, I brought it back again. I kept on doing it over and over until finally I did it, and fell sound asleep sitting in the chair in the act of doing it. The next day Alcoa calls me and gives me my passage for my wife and my little girl and myself
So, I am telling you from experience, it doesn’t fail; but we must not simply “be hearers of the word; we must be doers of the word, for if you are a hearer and not a doer, you deceive yourself,” he tells you, for we are the operant power. This Law doesn’t operate itself. It doesn’t care if you are good, bad or indifferent.
Look around the world. Who would think that tonight someone serving a life sentence in our “jail, . . it’s the same Mind that sits in the White House; who would think that the one who sits now in the Vatican, . . that mind of the Pope is the same Mind as the one who is groveling on his belly trying to kiss his hand? . . So, on Sunday, . . it will be Palm Sunday, and they do all these things on Palm Sunday, . . the holy palms; and then comes Good Friday; then comes Sunday, and all this will go on and have all the show . . a real show. He who is now being borne on the backs of strong, strapping men does not differ from those who are his slaves bearing him . . the same Mind; but they have rearranged their mind to be slaves, and he has arranged his mind to be the Father, to be Pope, the great Pope. It’s the same Mind!
There is only one Mind in the world. There aren’t two minds. That’s why I can tell you I know that when He stands before you, He will know you as His Father, and you will know Him as your Son. And because I know Him as my Son, are we not one Mind? Are we not one Being, when the same Being who called me “Father” will one day call you “Father”? Are we not the same Father, the same Mind, the same Spirit, the same body, . . without loss of identity?
So, when you go home tonight, try it. Try it every moment of time. You know tonight what you want to be? I don’t care what you want to be. It’s simply a rearrangement of the mind; and you rearrange the mind, not through any study or any effort. It’s simply a mere assumption. What do I want to be?’ Get it clear in my mind’s eye. Well then, assume that I AM it.
Listen to the words in the Book of Joel: “Let the weak man say, I AM strong.” “Let the weak man say, I AM strong.” That’s in the Book of Joel. Jehovah-God, . . that’s what the word would mean . . “Joel.”
You are called upon, when you are down, to assume that you are exactly what you want to be; not down, because you don’t want to be that. You want to be as free as the wind. Well, assume that you are. And may I tell you? in a way that no one knows, you’ll become it, but you must persevere. And the word “perseverance” is true. If I don*t believe it, well then one second later I’ve turned back to my former state and become once more Lot’s wife, the pillar of salt. “Salt” is a preservative.
In the old days, the only way to preserve something was to salt it. Not so long ago, when I was a little boy, we caught fish . . an enormous quantity of fish, because we didn’t have these enormous fleets catching our fish. We had “fish to bum,” . . literally bum. If they didn’t get in before, say, 3:00 o’clock in the afternoon, what did they have,? They could either put it in the dungheap and make dung out of it, or clean it up and salt it. So they cleaned it up and salted it. It would Keep indefinitely, for we had no refrigeration. So, you salted the fish. Now, we could have salt flying fish, if you wanted it that day; but fish that were not consumed by sundown was discarded, use it for bait the next day or-use-it in the dungheap and fertilize the fields with it.
So, salt is a preservative. So when Lot’s wife was turned to salt, she turned back, and went back to her former state; and that is all that it means. She looked back and became a pillar of salt. You turn back to the state that you said you would leave behind you; and looking back, you were salted, you were preserved in it. So, if you turn away to what you really want to be» turn back, you are going to be “salted” in it.
So, I ask you to leave what you are, unless you like what you are. Just portions of what you are today that you like . . all right, wonderful.
There are other portions that you do not like. Well, you don’t have to give up everything in your living room when you rearrange the structure of it. There are certain pieces that you will keep. You say change its location, but you will keep it. The same is true with the structure of the mind: you keep certain things, and you let other things go.
Take friends in your world who are not doing well, and rearrange them in your mind’s eye. Where they are doing well, put that part of the structure in your mind’s eye. Rearrange the entire structure, and dare to assume that it’s true, and walk in that assumption; and that assumption, though at the moment it is denied by reason and denied by your senses, if you persevere in it, it will harden into fact. This is the Law of Scripture.
He said, “I came not to abolish, but to fulfill the Jewish law and the Jewish prophets.” For there was no other Scripture in the First Century but the Jewish scriptures. So, the word “Jew” is not placed before it to qualify it, but it was the only scripture that he knew. He came to fulfill the Jewish law. He reinterpreted the law psychologically, and showed them exactly how it’s done.
So, go out, and do not abolish anything. Simply fulfill it. Fulfill the Law, and fulfill the Prophets. The Prophets, when they are fulfilled, that is done by sheer Grace. That comes by Promise, and no one’s going to stop it, may I tell you. But you can go on living in a state that you do not wish in this world* but in spite of that, you will still receive the Promise, because it isn’t given to the one who is rich and denied the one who is poor. But why remain poor and bat your head off morning, noon and night against the inevitable blows in this world?
I hope you do not wish money for the sake of money; but if you need money, then apply this Law. What would the feeling be like if it were true that I was now free of this pressure . . free of it? Dare to assume that you are, and then persist in that assumption; and that assumption will harden into reality. So, this is my lesson tonight. I think you have found it a very practical one, but I must remind you, you can either be the hearer of what you’ve heard tonight and not the doer. It is my hope that you will be the doer of what you’ve heard tonight, so that when you leave here, you leave here in the assumption . . not wait until you get home; leave here in the assumption that you are already the man . . the woman . . that you want to be. And then, between here and home, think of the man that you have assumed that you are, and let that assumption spring in your mind constantly. You are that man! Go to bed in that assumption.
Maybe this night, as it did with me in the Army, something will come, and a voice will speak.
“When vision breaks forth into speech, the presence of Deity is assured”; and maybe you will have confirmation that what you have dared to assume is. I know in my case it came that way. But it will come whether it breaks forth into speech or not, if you persist in the assumption.
Q: To “persevere,” isn’t that persevering to do it over?
N: To persevere? No. Pat, if I said to you in China, . . Suppose you are running away from something that you did here, and I met you in China and I know that’s the girl that I know, and you were ahead of me, and I said, “Oh, Pat,” wouldn’t you turn around? Well, if you didn’t turn around because you are still running, a cold streak would go right down your spine, because you are still aware that you are Pat.
You must get so aware that you are the being that you want to be that you don’t respond to “Pat,” if you want to get away from Pat. In other words, you are just simply an entirely different being. A rearrangement of the structure of the mind is the rearrangement of the life that you live.
You take anyone in this world . . what can they really claim? I mean the so called physical descent. It’s all nonsense. But you walk the earth. All right. What are you conscious of being? In your case, I would say, be conscious of being really wanted in this world . . really loved by one person who, when he comes home and you aren’t home, the house is empty. When he comes home at night and you aren’t there, the house is empty. That is what I would feel that every woman in this world would want.
I know in my own case, if my Bill isn’t home and I had a party of twenty scheduled, I would wonder, Where is everybody? because without her it isn’t to me a home. It has always been that way since I met her; and she fills my house. I don’t have to have a third party in it. My daughter doesn’t live with us; she lives in her own place. The door is always open to her, and she has her own key; and we always speak of her bedroom still as her bedroom and her bathroom as her bathroom, and her closet where she still has her overflow of clothes . . that’s hers. So, she comes and goes when she feels like it; but the house, as far as I am concerned, . . when Bill is there, the house is full. When Bill is not there, . . she hasn’t been there for quite a long while, on and off for the last year, . . I go home to an empty house . . really a completely empty house when she isn’t there. So, I take her to the hospital and leave her sometimes . . the last one six weeks. I can’t tell anyone how empty that house was, because no one can take the place of one that you truly love. As Shakespeare said it so beautifully in his ll6th Sonnet*
” . . . . Love is not love Which alters when it alteration finds.”
Now let us go into the Silence.
In the first paragraph, Goddard reinterprets the Epistle of James to reveal a psychological application: the Law of Liberty. He argues that Scripture does not merely prescribe moral codes but provides a practical method for mental transformation by assuming and living in the state one desires.
The second paragraph examines his magnetized steel metaphor, underscoring the metaphysical axiom that substance remains constant and only the arrangement of thought determines experience. This sets the foundation for creative visualization, where altering mental structures unleashes latent potential.
Personal anecdotes in the third paragraph serve as empirical validation. Goddard recounts his own Army discharge and later passage off an island, demonstrating that a sustained assumption—regardless of physical circumstances—can override institutional denials and manifest results.
In the fourth paragraph, he emphasizes the unity of Mind, asserting that there is only one divine consciousness in which every form of life participates. This monistic view dissolves distinctions between rich and poor, prisoner and ruler, showing that all partake of the same creative power.
Finally, Goddard delivers a call to action: listeners must not remain passive “hearers” but active “doers” of the word. By closing mental doors on limiting beliefs and persevering in assumed states—be they freedom, abundance, or harmony—one harnesses the Perfect Law of Liberty to reshape personal reality.
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