In this lecture Neville Goddard teaches that the true source of all life and divine experience is found within the human imagination. He opens with a story of a boy who, looking into a well, sees his own reflection and is told that this is where God lives. Goddard then equates the opening verses of Genesis and John to argue that it is in the "head"—symbolic of the imagination—that God creates the heavens and the earth. He draws on William Blake and Biblical exegesis to show that everything perceived externally is first formed internally. Through examples such as the Kennedy admirers and a seamstress‐designer’s imaginal exercises, he demonstrates how fervent belief and sensory feeling can manifest concrete reality. Goddard insists that the act of imagining with intensity and conviction is the only true means of creation. He concludes by urging listeners to look inward, assume the feeling of the fulfilled desire, and persist in that state until it externalizes. Ultimately, he affirms that discovering God is a supernatural, first‐person, present‐tense experience that transforms the individual into the source of all life.
Man is seeking the source, the cause, of the phenomena of life. In his search, he grows and outgrows his many concepts of God until he finds the one God he can never outgrow, and therefore can never lose. That is the God which he finds in a first person, present tense experience.
Here is a true story that verges on this truth. While a friend was shaving, his little girl watched, and questioning him, asked: “Where does God really live?” and he absentmindedly answered: “In the well.” Laughing at his silly answer, the little girl ran to tell her mother. At breakfast that morning when his wife asked why he had made such a statement, he could not answer, but later that day he remembered.
When he was a small boy in Poland, a band of gypsies passed by and stopped at the well in his parent’s courtyard. One in particular held his attention. He was a giant of a man, with a short-cropped red beard. As the little boy watched, the man drew the wooden bucket of water from the well. His posture and great hands made the bucket appear as though it weighed no more than a teacup, and as he drank, the water trickled down his beard and onto his chest. When the man was finished, he untied a multicoloured silk scarf and mopping his face, he wiped his beard; and leaning over, he looked deep into the well for what seemed to the child a very long time.
Curious, the little boy tried to climb the well’s side to see what was inside. Seeing him, the man smiled, picked the small boy up, and said: “Do you know where God lives?” Shaking his head no, the man held him over the well, and said: “Look.” In the stillness of that water the boy saw his own reflection and said: “That’s me!” and the man replied: “Ah, now you know where God lives.”
This concept is nearer to the truth of God than ninety-nine percent of the people hold. Here was a so-called ignorant gypsy, traveling from town to town, who knew where God lived and turned to no other. Seeing the well, he knew there would be water. Owned, yes, by the one who lived in the manor, but they would not stop him from using “his” water. Having no desire to accumulate things, this giant of a man taught this little boy a marvelous lesson for all of us to remember. When you see your reflection, whether in a mirror or in the surface of a pool, you are looking into the face of God.
Now, the first verse of Genesis and the first verse of John are equated. Genesis begins: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,” and John tells us: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”
In Hebrew and other Semitic languages, the words for “head” and “beginning” have the same root. Achaia, one of the great scholars of the first century and a friend and close companion of Paul, translated the ancient manuscript of Hebrew into Greek. In his translation he used the word “head” in place of “beginning”. His manuscript reads: “In the head God created the heavens and the earth.” This Hebrew word “rosh” is defined in Strong’s Concordance as “the top; the highest part; the beginning; the head; the chief cornerstone.” So, it is in the head that God created the heavens and the earth.
Blake, claiming that his great poem “Jerusalem” was dictated from on high, stated: “All that you behold, though it appears without, it is within, in your Imagination of which this world of mortality is but a shadow.”
Blake meant us to take that statement literally. All that you are conscious of is within you. Where else could it be? Looking out, and seeing this world as mechanical and not spiritual, causes you to remain lost in your search, for the world is your minor. You are its source. Everything you perceive is within, for it is in the head that God created the heavens and the earth.
I am not speaking of your mortal head. It is only a symbol, a reflection of your immortal one. The day will come when your mortal head will return to dust, but there is a head that survives this one. A head capable of instantly restoring and clothing you in a mortal frame just like your present one – only young – to find yourself in a terrestrial world just like this. That is the head in which God sleeps. It is there that the pattern is buried. And it is in that head that the pattern man unfolds to reveal you as the source.
Man finds it difficult to believe he is the cause of all life, yet I say there is no other. Look into the eye of your friend – or enemy – and you will see only yourself. You will see Jacob, the apple (little man) of God’s eye.
Imagination (God) is forever seeing himself reflected in the world, just as you, looking into the eye of another, see your reflected self. So the little boy looked into the well, and upon seeing his reflection said: “It’s me,” and the wise man replied: “Ah, now you know who God is.”
Man can be told over and over again that he is not going to find God as another, but he cannot believe it until that pattern buried in the head unfolds. Then and only then will he know beyond all doubt who God is.
I know who the Lord is, for I stood in his presence. I saw his form and conversed with him as man to man. His appearance was the likeness and similitude of love, and when we embraced I was incorporated into that one body of love.
If God is the beginning of the universal humanity, and I am one with the body of God, and one with the spirit of God, then I am God; therefore, I saw in advance what I really look like. Divine appearance, wearing the likeness of love, questioned me and I had no other answer than love. What could be greater than what I was looking at? So when he incorporated me into his body of love, he incorporated me into universal humanity.
Having seen the face of radiant love, and being incorporated into the body of love, I cannot lose my God. I have found him to be my own wonderful human imagination, and cannot outgrow him. I cannot go elsewhere and I cannot lose this God. He is my God forever and forever, and he is my very self!
Having revealed himself to me, he and I became one in a first person, singular, present tense experience. Then everything said of the pattern man we call Jesus, unfolded in me; and I now say, without embarrassment or any bowing of the head, I am He. As long as I continue to wear my frail little body of flesh and blood I cannot claim my heavenly inheritance, but I know it will be instantly mine when I leave this body for the last time.
There is conferred upon the Risen Christ, in the experience of men, the divine name of Lord. When Philip said: “O Lord, show us the Father and we will be satisfied,” the Risen Christ replied: “I have been so long with you and yet you do not know me? He who has seen me, has seen the Father.” This experience takes place after the resurrection, for the divine name of Lord is placed upon the Risen Christ.
This story is told as though a man of flesh and blood is speaking, but it is not. Scripture is completely supernatural. The discovery of God is supernatural, for he reveals himself only to the one who has the experience. And when you tell it, those who hear either believe your story or they disbelieve it. If someone has a concept of God as a little physical man, that concept must be outgrown; and man must grow and grow before he can comprehend what you are saying. So maybe those who hear your words can’t take it, but do not despair; continue to tell it and maybe one percent of those present will grasp it. It doesn’t matter how many can hear with understanding, you offer it anyway.
Dwell upon this change in meaning. It is not in the beginning of time and space, but in the head that the word was and is with God, for the word is God. It was in the head that God created the heavens and the earth, so where else would you go to find anything?
In the September 7, 1957 issue of the Saturday Evening Post, Harold H. Martin wrote an article entitled, “The Amazing Kennedys.” In it he said: “Kennedy admirers look forward confidently to the day that they will see Jack in the White House, Bobby in the Cabinet as Attorney General, and Teddy as a senator from Massachusetts.”
Here is a family who dared to break one of the most frightful barriers which ever existed in our country concerning the White House – to be a Catholic! My friend David always used the word, “WASP,” (meaning White Anglo-Saxon Protestant), claiming that if you were not a WASP you could not seek the highest office in our land. Well, Kennedy was white, Anglo-Saxon, and Catholic. His entire family were ardent Catholics, yet they broke that barrier. Why? Because imagining creates reality.
Back in 1957, the imaginal acts of Kennedy admirers were printed for all to see. They did not say that Bobby would have a cabinet post, but specified what post! Or that Teddy would be a senator, but from which state he would represent – and it all came to pass. If it did not last, that is not the point; it came to pass! And because of the assassinations, their imaginal acts will remain indelibly impressed upon the history of our country. Lincoln, as well as those who are not important as presidents, live longer in the minds of men when they are assassinated. So here we find that ardent admirers, determining what they admired, persisted, and it came to pass. Why? Because the whole thing is within!
Can you conceive of a desire and be fervent about it? Can you want the grace of God with the same intensity as the psalmist who said: “As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.” Here is a little deer (for that is what the hart is) knowing that wild beasts prey upon every animal drinking there, desires water with such intensity he is willing to brave anything to get to that little pool. If you could become that thirsty for God, you would find him in yourself, in a first person, present tense experience, for you will never find him in any other way.
When I found him I was thrilled beyond measure. Having been taught God was another, I had formed a mental concept of him that comforted me and allowed me to pray to someone other than myself. But when I found him, I found him in myself, as myself! Then I knew I could not pray to another; I must turn within and appropriate, for everything is contained within my own wonderful human imagination!
Achaia’s translation was really a fantastic gift to man. But – unable to believe it – men chose another definition, and now all translations read: “In the beginning”; yet it could have been; “In the head God created the heavens and the earth, for in the head is the Word, and the Word is with God and the Word is God.”
Now, if by God all things were made, and without him was not anything made that was made, and you are confronted with a frightening problem – did God not make it alive for you? And can he not unmake anything he made? So if, by your admiration for a certain family, you see them exactly as you want to see them, and believe to the degree that you print your projection in an international magazine, and it comes to pass in three years – have you not found the source, the cause of life?
This brings me to a point. A lady recently asked what was wrong with her, because – knowing in the depth of her soul that she was right -when confronted with another opinion, she remains quiet, unable to voice her opposition.
In the Book of John, he tells an incredible story, saying: “I am God the Father. When you see me, you see the Father. Do you not know that I am in the Father and the Father in me?” Making one fantastic statement after the other, he adds: “I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place you will believe that I am he.” For we are told: “Unless you believe that I am he, you die in your sins.” (John 13-14)
John emphasises over and over again that you must believe you are the one you would like to be, or you will never become it. Rather, you will remain what you believe yourself to be right now. Your belief is always externalising itself on the screen of space. It has to, for it is in you and not out there.
When your belief becomes a fact and appears solidly real on the outside, it is because it is supported by you on the inside. The day you cease to believe in it, it will fade, for everything must be built on the foundation of belief. I believe I am a success. I will remain a success only to the extent that I continue to believe I am. The day I stop believing, failure enters and success fades.
You must believe you are in a certain state. You cannot forget it if you want to externalize that state. You may drop it after reaching a certain point, but if you want to keep it alive, you must do it within yourself; for nothing comes into being unsupported by an imaginal act, and nothing remains unless supported by that act. The day imaginal support is withdrawn the thing begins to vanish, and ceases to be in your world. This is true for a marriage, a friendship, or a business.
If you know what you want, give it to yourself, for there is only one source of causation. That source is God. He is the dreamer in you who will awaken from this wonderful dream of life; and when he does, you will realise you have been dreaming all along. Many great poets have tried to tell this, but man cannot comprehend that the poet – in touch with a deeper layer of his own being – was awakened and recorded his experiences, until it happens in the individual.
The dreamer in you is God. It is he who is the source, the cause of your life. Dream fervently! Dream with intensity! Use the recorded techniques such as, “Come close, my son that I may feel you.” You can, by a spiritual sensation, persuade yourself that you are experiencing something physically.
I know a lady in New York City who – as a combination seamstress and designer – was not earning much, and wanted not only to have a better income, but to do more designing than sewing. When she discussed this with me and told me the amount of money she wanted to make, I urged her not to limit herself asking: “Would you like to supervise those who do the sewing, as well as doing the designing?” And when she told me she would love that, I urged her to write down the amount of money she would like to make, deduct her taxes, and determine the balance.
Figuring it out to the penny and believing she would be paid in cash, this lady felt the envelope containing the bills and coins she would receive. Shaking the envelope, she heard the change rattle. Then she tore off the end of the envelope and let the money fall on the table, pulled out the bills and smelled them. (Do you know you can smell money? It has an odor of its very own, like nothing else). Then this lady counted the money, down to the very penny.
The next day, while in her room at a hotel on 34th street, her telephone rang and she was advised that a gentleman was downstairs and wanted to see her. She had never met this man before, but knew his reputation, and certainly never dreamed of him calling her. But she met him in the lobby, where they discussed business on the terms that she would be more and more the designer and less and less the seamstress. She then named the salary that we had discussed, and when he agreed, she promised to start working for him the following Monday. One week later, when she opened her envelope, she counted her money out to the very penny she had imagined only a week before. Now, how can you call that coincidence? She was eager to make a change and – believing – she played the part of Isaac.
Isaac was blind. He could not see, but he could feel. Knowing one son was covered with hair while the other had none, Isaac desired the one he could touch with feeling. When Jacob approached, clothed in hair, Isaac said: “Although your voice sounds like Jacob, you feel like Esau.” Then, basing his conviction upon feeling rather than sound, Isaac gave his son Jacob the right of birth. And when Esau returned to discover that his brother had deceived his father, Isaac said: “I have given him your blessing and I cannot take it back.”
This lady gave her blessing to a better job and more money. Clothing it in tones of reality, she felt its existence and gave it the right to be born. This she did on Friday, and the very next day the new state came into being.
I urge you not to despair. If you have tried and tried to imagine, yet failed, don’t give up, try to be more intense. Try to be more believing concerning the reality of your imaginal act. Man, believing in the mechanism of the universe, finds it difficult to see it as imaginal, but it is. Tell the story of the Kennedys to the average man and he will say: so what? He cannot see that story as confirmation of the fact that imagining creates reality. You could tell him a hundred such stories, but – steeped in believing that this world is mechanical and must be moved on the outside – man finds it difficult to understand that the world will reshuffle itself to reflect any change that takes place in the individual. But the change takes place in the imagination, not in the world!
Dwell upon the fact that it is in the head that God created the heavens and the earth. Knowing where the head is, you will know where the source is. Then you will know where God is, for he is in the head.
Look in the mirror and see God! Look at anything that reflects your face, and you are seeing God. Then one day when you stand in His presence you will know him. Called the Universal Humanity, because He takes one after the other into his one body, when you see that body, you see love! You commune as man to man, embrace, and become one with the risen Christ, even though it will take 30 years for confirmation to appear. But the joy that is in store for you when the time is fulfilled and scripture erupts, is well worth the wait, for you will experience all that is said of Jesus Christ – even to God’s Son calling you father.
Scripture really means what it says, for it is David who claims the Lord called him his son (Psalms 2) and it is you who will declare: “I have found David. He cried to me, ‘Thou art my Father, my God and the Rock of my salvation.’ ” (Psalms 89) David is buried in the head, where God created everything in the heavens and the earth. It is in the head that God is buried and it is from the head that his fatherhood is revealed.
How else would you ever know you were God the Father, unless his son revealed it to you? This experience is in store for everyone. I know, for I am not theorising or speculating, but telling you exactly what I have experienced. It was David who made me conscious of being God the Father. I know you are, too; but only when David reveals himself to you, will you find the God you cannot lose or outgrow.
Where did I awaken? Was it not in my head? From what area of my body did I emerge? Was it not from my head? And how could Christ emerge from one in whom he is not present? If he did not now exist in me, he could not emerge from me. And if he ascended in me, he had to first have descended in me. He descended like a bolt of lightening and ascended in the same manner; for in the beginning God placed himself in the head, and it is in that head that I am dreaming the dream of life.
Everything is contained within the head of man. The explosion took place and my son stood before me in my head. It was my head which became luminous as the heavens became transparent. The dove descended on my finger, but kissed my head. Here was the Holy Spirit smothering my head with affection in confirmation of the work God had done, and of which he was well pleased.
Now I must tell it and tell it and continue to tell it, knowing that some will accept my words while others will not. But they will one day, when they have outgrown the gods of their own making; for we all grow and outgrow, grow and outgrow.
So when you read scripture always bear in mind the completely supernatural characters recorded there. See it as a drama that takes place – not out there, but in the depth of your own soul.
Try to become as fervent of something for yourself as the Kennedy admirers were for him. Become as intense for self or a friend as they were for the family. Nothing was more impossible in our political setup than to be a Catholic and still aspire to the White House; but they did it and he got it and you can, too.
No matter what it is you desire, remember: nothing is impossible. What is now proved was once only imagined, so begin by imagining a state and persuading yourself that you are in it. Blake said: “The ancients believed that if you are self-persuaded, it was so. There was a time in Imagination when a firm persuasion removed mountains.”
You can remove the seemingly mountainous obstacles which confront you by simply ignoring them and assuming the end. And if you have to go over the mountain, you will, or the mountain will be removed. Whatever is necessary to be removed for you to fulfill what you have assumed, will be done for you as long as you remain faithful to yourself, the source of all life.
Now let us go into the silence.
Neville Goddard’s "The Source" reframes classical theological concepts through a psychological and metaphysical lens. By placing the act of creation in the "head," he demystifies scripture and anchors divine power in human imagination rather than distant dogma. This reinterpretation challenges traditional exegesis and invites a personal, experiential spirituality.
The lecture uses vivid storytelling—most notably the well anecdote—to illustrate the immediacy of divine presence. The gypsy’s lesson to the child functions as a metaphor for self‐recognition: when one sees one’s reflection, one is literally observing God. Goddard thereby collapses the distance between the human and the divine, emphasizing immanence over transcendence.
Goddard’s practical examples, such as the Kennedy admirers and the seamstress’s cash‐envelope exercise, bridge mysticism and material outcome. He underscores that the law of assumption operates through sensory feeling: by convincing the five senses of an imaginal act’s reality, one activates its manifestation. This pragmatic mysticism appeals equally to spiritual seekers and success‐oriented audiences.
Finally, the lecture is both an exhortation and a reassurance. Goddard acknowledges that many will resist or misunderstand his message—but he insists on persistence in the inner work. By repeatedly returning to the theme that creation is an imaginal act, he offers a systematic, repeatable method for personal transformation. His vision of the Universal Humanity and the first‐person, present‐tense experience of God remains a hallmark of his teaching.
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