Neville Goddard Lectures: “The Invisible God Behind The Made”

11 Aug Neville Goddard Lectures: “The Invisible God Behind The Made”

10/27/69

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.