Neville Goddard Lectures: “Your Creative Power”
28 Feb Neville Goddard Lectures: “Your Creative Power”
10/29/65
Tonight’s subject is “Your Creative Power.” I say that imagining has been, it is, and it always will be the prime source of everything that comes into our world; that the roots of our being are in Divine Imagining, and Divine Imagining unfolds itself creatively in us. So every so-called natural effect in this world has an imaginal cause and not a natural. A natural cause only seems; it is a delusion of our fading memory. Our memory is so very, very short we can’t connect the imaginal act to the effect that we observe and we deny parenthood. We can’t recognize our own harvest. We deny that we ever at any moment planted the thing that we are reaping in this world. But my claim is every natural effect in this world has an imaginal cause and not a natural.
Now I will tell you a simple story this night to show you how true this thing is. Cost you nothing. You can try it tonight, and may you have a memory long enough to connect it between the imaginal act and the effect when it takes place. It is very, very simple and I take it from the greatest book in the world, the Bible. The Bible is on levels; we have three definite levels. The first level is the story, simple story; and then below that is its psychological meaning; and then below that, in depth, is the same story; and it’s literally true in depth. We’ll forget the depth tonight and just take it in its psychological level. I’ll tell you a simple story that you will read in the 27th chapter of the Book of Genesis—Genesis is the seed-plot of the entire Bible. It’s a simple story, but when you read it you wonder what is it all about it seems so stupid. But I’ll tell it if you are not familiar with it. Here is a man and he’s blind, his name is Isaac. Isaac has two sons. The first son is Esau and he’s covered in hair all over; the second son is Jacob and he’s smooth skinned all over. Isaac senses the moment in time when he must depart from this world…he’s about to die. Tradition has it that the father must give a blessing to his child. Tradition also has it that you give it to the oldest in the family, the boy, the oldest. Yet strangely enough, all through scripture there’s a peculiar reversal of order where the first is second and the second is first. In a peculiar manner it all goes that way; that the first doesn’t get it although he should; it’s always the second. But in this case the first is covered in hair and his name is Esau. And the father requests venison, nicely prepared, and after he has feasted upon the venison he’ll pronounce the blessing upon his son…and then he will die.
The mother, Rebecca, overhears the father’s request. She loves Jacob and so she tells Jacob of the father’s request. She said, I will kill a kid, and I will skin the kid, and I will clothe you that you may have the feeling of your brother. You go and deceive your father and you tell him that you are Esau and receive the blessing. But he said, Suppose he discovers me, that I am not really Esau, I am Jacob? Then says she, The curse be upon me, but you do it. I will kill the kid, skin the kid, and clothe you in the skins of the kid so when he feels you he will feel your hand and it will be just like your brother Esau.