The Inner Image of Worship

Neville's Inner Vision

Imagine the beast's image not as a distant empire but as a persistent picture in your own mind—an image you have given life by attention, emotion, and belief. It 'speaks' as the inner voice of coercive habit, whispering that you must bow to its banner or be ruined. The 'death' it promises is the cessation of a former self-state, the ending of a familiar way of feeling or deciding. In Neville's terms, you are not at the mercy of prophetic symbols; you are the I AM behind all pictures. The ruler here is your imagination, and its power to govern your sense of reality depends on where you place your attention. If you assent to this image, you feed it life; if you refuse to worship, you release the old limitation. The cure is to revise the image, not resist it, by declaring that the I AM is the source of all life and that this image cannot override your true nature. With a conscious assumption of the new reality—the living presence of the I AM—you convert the enslaving image into a sign of your freedom.