Neville Goddard Lectures: “Imagining Creates Reality” [First 1967]

02 Jun Neville Goddard Lectures: “Imagining Creates Reality” [First 1967]

9/11/67

—(??) a very successful and productive series. I’m going to ask you to share your experiences with me that I, in turn, may share them with others. In this way we are mutually encouraged by each other’s faith.

This principle works. If you are here for the first time, you may hear a certain phrase that may not seem familiar, but I assure you it has biblical support. I may change the word and it may sound unfamiliar, but I assure you, it’s all scripture. When I make the bold claim that imagining creates reality that is only scripture. You will not find it stated in that manner in scripture, but you will find these words, “All things are possible to him who believes.” You’ll find it in the 9th chapter of the Book of Mark. Then you read the 11th chapter, “Whatever you desire when you pray, believe that you have received it, and you will” (Mark 11:2). No limits are put upon the power of belief, none whatsoever. It doesn’t say it’s good for you. You be the judge. It doesn’t say that others will agree with your choice. It leaves it entirely up to you. Whatever you desire, not what others think you ought to desire.

Maybe it is not a wise choice on your part, but that’s not part of the principle. The principle is that all things are possible to him who believes. Therefore, the secret is how to believe. How could I be self-persuaded when reason denies it, when my senses deny it, when everything in the world denies it? Can I really persuade myself in the face of such denial? I must learn the art of such firm self-persuasion. For, if everything is mine if I want it and all depends only on my ability to become self-persuaded that it is true, then I must imagine as if it were true. Man’s progress has come from those who imagined as if it were true. Imagining as if it were true is the way to success.

Well now, how to do it? Blake said that he invited Isaiah and Ezekiel to dine with him, and he asked them concerning this strange power of persuasion. He said to Isaiah, “Does a firm persuasion that a thing is so, make it so?” Isaiah replied, “All poets believe that it does, and in ages of Imagination a firm persuasion removed mountains; but not many are capable of a firm persuasion of any thing” (Mar. Heaven/Hell, Plt.12). So how can we do that? For instance, if I should turn to a friend of mine and say to him, “You know, I saw John this morning, and he looked remarkably well, and I told him so, and he said to me, ‘I’ve never felt better!’ I was so happy for him, because I’ve never seen him look better, and he agreed with me, he’s never felt better.”

Now the one that I addressed knows John, knows him quite well, and then he turns to me and he tells me, “Well, you could not have seen John, for John is not even in the country, and John is very, very ill. In fact he’s in the hospital. Those who see him they despair, so how could you have seen John? Where did you see him?” I replied, “I saw him in my mind’s eye, that’s where I saw him. I saw him right in my Imagination. I was thinking of him, and having thought of him, I brought him before my mind’s eye and saw him as I would like to see him. And he seemed to be there. So, I told him and he agreed with me, that he had never felt better.”