We spend a lot of time digging through metaphysical archives. Most of the time we take an author’s biography with a grain of salt. But, every now and then, the historical record hands over an entertainting piece of information that brings these spiritual figures right back down to earth.

Let’s take a look at Neville Goddard’s “student” Dr. Winifred MacCardell Flood.

Here at Cool Wisdom Books, we featured Dr. Flood’s 1952 book, Revelations on The Book of Revelation. On paper, her metaphysical pedigree was legendary. A newspaper clipping from her era proudly touted her extraordinary resume. She first became interested in divine metaphysics in 1937 through Dr. Emmett Fox. The article claims she knew Unity founder Charles Fillmore and took all their courses.

But the real hook for us? The clipping boldly states that she then “came under the tutelage of Neville, Neville Goddard” and subsequently studied under “the great mystic Abdullah, from Africa”.

The Orlando Sentinel, March 01, 1970

So, we mentioned she was as a student of Neville and Abdullah. How could we not?

Well, it turns out Neville had a totally different recollection of their “teacher-student” dynamic.

The New York Hotel Lobby Ambush

If you read Neville Goddard’s lecture “Simon Lifts the Cross,” (in the Q&A section) you’ll hear him go off on a tangent about a deeply irritating woman who ambushed him in a New York City hotel lobby.

Neville tells his audience about a lady from Florida who had “the crust to rewrite the Book of Revelation.” He calls her work “just trash, nonsense beyond nonsense.”

According to Neville, this woman crashed his Sunday morning. Because his wife Bill wasn’t dressed for company, Neville had to get up early, shave, and go down to the lobby. Instead of a profound spiritual dialogue with his supposed “student,” Neville was subjected to an excruciating hour where this elderly woman bragged extensively about her 80-year-old husband’s physical and sexual prowess.

Neville’s reaction, was quote:

“I am wondering am I in an insane institution or not? She is thinking of the sexual power of a man eighty and she is my senior in years, and you wrote Revelation, that you dare to change the Word of God!… Here is a sheer waste of one beautiful hour; I could be upstairs sitting in a robe.”

She complained to Neville that her husband had died at 84, asking, “Why should this happen to me?”

Cross-referencing Obituaries & Newspaper Clippings

If we cross-reference the obituaries, newspaper clippings and her own self-published claims, the puzzle pieces snap together:

17 Oct 1954, The Orlando Sentinel

The woman who rewrote the Book of Revelation? Winifred MacCardell Flood, author of Revelations on The Book of Revelation.

3 Jan 1969, Orlando Evening Star (Orlando, FL)

Neville noted she had a center in Florida but ambushed him in NYC. Archival records confirm Winifred and her husband ran a speech and drama studio in New York City for 15 years before moving to Winter Park, Florida.

Obituary Paul Thatcher Flood

Neville mentioned the husband was a music teacher. Obits show her husband, Paul Thatcher Flood, was a concert singer and voice department head.

Neville recalled the husband dying at 84. Paul Thatcher Flood’s obits confirm he passed away at 83 (close enough).

It’s interesting to look at Dr. Flood’s polished, self-promotional biography, especially where she aligns herself with Abdullah and Neville, and then find that to Neville himself, she was just the deeply annoying lady who wouldn’t stop talking about her octogenarian husband’s sex drive while he desperately wished he was back upstairs in his bathrobe.

A cool reminder that behind many teachers of the New Thought movement, there were very real, very human interactions. Sometimes a “tutelage” is a profound spiritual awakening and sometimes, it’s just a hijacked Sunday morning in a hotel lobby.

Appendix 1

Full quote from “Simon Lifts the Cross”

A lady wrote me from Florida the other day. She had the crust to rewrite the Book of Revelation. So she gave me a copy of it and it was just trash, nonsense beyond nonsense. Well, her husband died at the age of eighty-four and she wondered, “Why should this happen to me?” Meaning that she rewrote the Book of Revelation and she is a very wise person, a very kind person, a great teacher. Well, what can you say to a person like that? How can you answer her letter without offending? “Why should it happen to me?” Now she’ll turn right around and become an atheist because he died at eighty-four. She told me in New York City only four years ago the man is eighty-four, so he was then eighty, and she was telling me of his physical and sexual power. At the age of eighty, “Just imagine Neville that he is just as though he were forty…” and I am wondering am I in an insane institution or not? She is thinking of the sexual power of a man eighty and she is my senior in years, and you wrote Revelation, that you dare to change the Word of God! And you think of a man eighty who satisfies you at eighty and you are now seventy, what on earth are you two doing? It took place in my lobby in the hotel in New York City. She came on a Sunday morning and she had to see me. I went down stairs to see her—Bill wasn’t dressed for anyone to come upstairs to our room—so I went downstairs and spent an hour. I wondered, really, if I’d come into some insane institution. And she’s teaching “the truth”…she has her own center in Florida. He was teaching music. As she told me all these things, I wondered what am I here for? Here is a sheer waste of one beautiful hour; I could be upstairs sitting in a robe. I had to get up early and shave and come downstairs to hear that nonsense.

If I told her that in heaven that man is above the organization of sex, she’d drop dead! What, no sex in heaven? She wouldn’t want that at all. I said, no there’s no sex in heaven as you understand sex, but there is a creativity that makes sex as we understand it look like nothing. There is an emotion and a thrill that takes anything here that we call sex and makes it look like a little fizz. That’s the thrill of creation in heaven compared to what we think the thrill is here. But if you told her that in the resurrection men are above the organization of sex, she wouldn’t want it, and she would close the book. Then she writes me that he died at eighty-four, so what? So he died…now he finds himself twenty and more virile than ever.

Resources

Winifred MacCardell Flood – Neville/Abdullah Student Newspaper Clippings

“Revelations on The Book of Revelation” – Winifred Maccardell Flood (1952) – Neville Goddard and Abdullah Student