Neville Goddard – Wikipedia and Photo Gallery

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Neville Lancelot Goddard (1905-1972) was a prophet, profoundly influential teacher, and author. He did not associate himself as a metaphysician, with any ‘ism’ or ‘New Thought’ teaching as commonly advertised by these collective groups. Goddard was sent to illustrate the teachings of psychological truth intended in the Biblical teachings, and restore awareness of meaning to what the ancients intended to tell the world. [1]

Contents

1 Biography

1.1 Abdullah

1.2 Lectures

1.3 The Promise and The Law

2 References

3 External links

Biography

Neville Goddard was born on 19 February 1905 in St. Michael, Barbados in the British West Indies, to Joseph Nathaniel Goddard,[2][3] a merchant, and Wilhelmina Nee Hinkinson.[4][5] Neville was the fourth child in a family of nine boys and one girl.

In 1922 he came to the United States on board the S.S. Vasari to study drama at the age of seventeen. He became a dancer, and during this time he married his first wife, and they had a son together,[6] named Joseph Neville Goddard.[7] While touring with his dance company in England he developed an interest in metaphysics after striking up a conversation with a Scotsman who lent him a series of books on the powers of the mind. Upon his return to New York he gave up the entertainment industry to devote his full attention to the study of spiritual and mystical matters.

Neville Goddard’s first marriage was short lived, and he remained single for years until in the 1930s he met his second wife, who was a designer.[6] After they married, they had a daughter named Victoria or “Vicky”.[8] In 1943, he was drafted into the U.S. Army at age 38,[9] which he did not want, especially since he felt he was too old to become a soldier and had a wife and daughter at home to take care of. Through the power of imagination, as Neville told it in his March 24, 1972 lecture,[9] he was honorably discharged after just a few weeks of training. One consequence of his brief Army training was that he received full United States citizenship, having been a British citizen up to this point.[9]

Abdullah

Goddard’s interest in esoteric interpretations of the Bible deepened after he met Abdullah, an Ethopian Jew who lectured on Esoteric Christianity and taught both Goddard and Joseph Murphy. Neville went to hear him somewhat under protest to satisfy the constant urging of a friend, saying “I recall the first night I met Abdullah. I had purposely delayed going to one of his meetings because a man whose judgement I did not trust had insisted on my attendance. At the end of the meeting, Ab approached me and said: ‘Neville, you are six months late.’ Startled, I questioned how he knew my name, when he said: ‘The brothers told me you would be here six months ago.’ Then he added: ‘I will remain until you have received all that I must give you. Then I will depart.’ He, too, may have longed to go, but he had to wait for me.”[10][11] From this introduction, Neville studied with Abdullah learning Hebrew, the Kabbalah, and the hidden symbolic meaning of Scripture.[12]

Lectures

After traveling extensively throughout the United States, Neville eventually made his home in Los Angeles where, in the 1950s, he gave a series of talks on television and radio, and for many years lectured regularly to capacity audiences at the Wilshire Ebell Theater.[13] In the 1960s and early 1970s, he confined most of his lectures to Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco.

In his early lectures and books Neville dealt solely with what he called The Law, the technique of creating one’s physical reality through imagining. It is this portion of his expression that most closely accords with the teachings of the New Thought movement. In describing The Law, Neville related how he made a sea voyage from New York to see his family in Barbados during the Depression, without any money of his own.[14]

He related how, by the use of imaginal power, he was honorably discharged from military service to continue his lectures during World War II.[15] He gave his audiences in San Francisco in the 1950s and 1960s accounts of how others had made use of The Law.[16] He discussed it on television in the Los Angeles area, saying, “Learn how to use your imaginal power, lovingly, on behalf of others, for Man is moving into a world where everything is subject to his imaginal power.”

The Promise and The Law

In the year 1959, he began to experience what he called “The Promise.” He later wrote, “I did not know of The Promise until I began to experience it and have it unfold within me beginning that summer and continuing during the next three-and-one-half years. And this is Scriptural; read it in the Book of Daniel where it is referred to as ‘a time, times, and a half.’ It comes to 1260 days in your experience of it.”

In the latter part of the 1960s and early 1970s Neville gave more emphasis to The Promise than to The Law. One could use imaginal power to change one’s circumstances, he said, but it would be temporary, “…and will vanish like smoke.” He went on to explain that The Promise superseded The Law, claiming “Oh, you can use it [The Law] to make a fortune, to become known in the world, all these things are done, but, your true purpose here is to fulfil Scripture.” After subordinating The Law to The Promise, he became as eager to hear accounts by those who had experienced The Promise, and sharing such accounts, as he had earlier of those with The Law.

Neville’s theological view of The Promise includes both the cosmology of union with the Godhead after death, and future restoration for those who do not accept The Promise during their lives. Of The Promise, he said “You do not earn it; it is a gift, it is all grace. God’s promise is unconditional; God’s law is conditional.”[17] and comes in its own good time. If you do not experience it in this life, he said, “You pass through a door, that’s all that death is, and — you are restored to life instantly in a world like this, just this world” [and] you go on there with the same problems you had here with no loss of identity – not old, not blind, not crippled, if you depart this life that way, but young.” In this restorationist afterlife, he said of people there, “They grow, and they marry, and they die there, too, with all the fear of death that we have here. And if they die there without experiencing The Promise, they are restored to life again and again in a place best suited to the work yet to be done in them. And it continues until ‘Christ be formed in You’ and as ‘Sons of The Resurrection’ you leave this world of death never to enter it again.”

In response to questions about the fear of eternal hell and damnation that many have, Neville replied with a quote from Scripture, “’Not one shall be lost in all my holy mountain.’ You are God and how could God eternally condemn Himself?” Until we awaken and make this discovery, he said, we are privileged to use a Law, given by God, to “cushion the blows of life.”[11] The Law, stated succinctly is this, In Neville’s words: “Imagining creates reality”.[18][19]

In the last years of his life he said, “I know my time is short. I have finished the work I have been sent to do and I am now eager to depart. I know I will not appear in this three-dimensional world again for The Promise has been fulfilled in me. As for where I go, I will know you there as I have known you here, for we are all brothers, infinitely in love with each other.”[20]

Neville Goddard died at the age of 67 on October 1, 1972, in Los Angeles. His work is being preserved on the Internet.

Books

At Your Command (1939)

Your Faith Is Your Fortune (1941)

Free­dom for All: A Practical Applic­a­tion of the Bible (1942)

Feel­ing Is the Secret (1944)

Prayer: The Art of Believ­ing (1945)

The Search (1946)

Five Lessons: A Master Class (1948)

Out of This World: Think­ing Fourth-Dimen­sion­ally (1949)

The Power of Aware­ness (1952)

The Power of Unlimited Imagination/The Creative Use of Imagination (edited by Margaret Ruth Broome) (1952)

Awakened Ima­gination (1954)

Seed­time and Har­vest: A Mys­tical View of the Scrip­tures (1956)

I Know My Father (1960)

The Law and the Prom­ise (1961)

He Breaks the Shell (1964)

Resurrection (1966)

References

  1. ^ Goddard, N. and Vitale, J. (2005) At Your Command. Morgan James Publishing. p. 11.
  2. ^ Neville Lecture I Remember When 04/19/1968
  3. ^ Neville Goddard – I REMEMBER WHEN Archived 19 January 2011 at WebCite
  4. ^ Neville Lecture #62 God’s Wisest Creature 09/20/1968 Archived 19 January 2011 at WebCite
  5. ^ Neville Goddard – GOD’S WISEST CREATURE Archived 19 January 2011 at WebCite
  6. ^ Who is Neville Goddard?
  7. ^ Foundation Stone, Lecture[dead link]
  8. ^ The Law Of Identical Harvest, Lecture[dead link]
  9. ^ Rearrange The Mind, Lecture, March 24, 1972[dead link]
  10. ^ Neville Lecture #66 Power and Wisdom 10/04/1968 Archived 19 January 2011 at WebCite
  11. ^ Neville Goddard POWER AND WISDOM Archived 19 January 2011 at WebCite
  12. ^ Neville Goddard 1953 – Changing The Feeling Of “I” Archived 19 January 2011 at WebCite
  13. ^ Who is Neville? Archived 19 January 2011 at WebCite
  14. ^ Neville Goddard – 1948 Lesson 3 – Thinking Fourth-Dimensionally Archived 19 January 2011 at WebCite
  15. ^ Neville Goddard THE STATE OF VISION Archived 19 January 2011 at WebCite
  16. ^ Neville Lecture The Law 11/20/1959
  17. ^ Neville Goddard GOD’S PROMISE TO MAN Archived 19 January 2011 at WebCite
  18. ^ Neville Goddard IMAGINING CREATES Archived 19 January 2011 at WebCite
  19. ^ Neville Lecture #54 Imagining Creates 06/03/1968
  20. ^ Neville Goddard – NO OTHER GOD Archived 19 January 2011 at WebCite
Neville Goddard
Neville Goddard - Wikipedia and Photo Gallery
Born19 February 1905
St. Michael, Barbados in the British West Indies
Died1 October 1972(1972-10-01) (aged 67)
Los Angeles, California
OccupationAuthor, Lecturer
Known forPsychological truth of Biblical teaching
ChildrenJoseph Neville Goddard (first marriage), Victoria “Vicky” Goddard (second marriage)
ParentsJoseph and Wilhelmina Goddard

1905—Neville Lancelot Goddard is born on February 19 to a British family in St. Michael, Barbados, the fourth child in a family of nine boys and one girl.

1922—At age seventeen Neville relocates to New York City to study theater. He makes a career as an actor and dancer on stage and silent screen, landing roles on Broadway, silent film, and touring Europe as part of a dance troupe.

1923—Neville briefly marries Mildred Mary Hughes, with whom he has a son, Joseph Goddard, born the following year.

1929—Neville marked this as the year that began his mystical journey: “Early in the morning, maybe about three-thirty or four o’clock, I was taken in spirit into the Divine Council where the gods hold converse.” (lecture from Immortal Man, 1977)

1931—After several years of occult study, Neville meets his teacher Abdullah, a turbaned black man of Jewish descent. The pair work together for five years in New York City.

1938—Neville begins his own teaching and speaking.

1939—Neville’s first book, At Your Command, is published.

1940–1941—Neville meets Catherine Willa Van Schumus, who is to become his second wife.

1941—Neville publishes his longer and more ambitious book, Your Faith Is Your Fortune.

1942—Neville marries Catherine, who later that year gives birth to their daughter Victoria. Also that year, Neville publishes Freedom for All: A Practical Application of the Bible.

1942–1943—From November to March, Neville serves in the military before returning home to Greenwich Village in New York City. In 1943, Neville is profiled in The New Yorker.

1944—Neville publishes Feeling Is the Secret.

1945—Neville publishes Prayer: The Art of Believing.

1946—Neville meets mystical philosopher Israel Regardie in New York, who profiles him in his book The Romance of Metaphysics. Neville also publishes his pamphlet The Search.

1948—Neville delivers his classic “Five Lessons” lectures in Los Angeles, which many students find the clearest and most compelling summation of his methodology. It appears posthumously as a book.

1949—Neville publishes Out of This World: Thinking Fourth-Dimensionally.

1952—Neville publishes The Power of Awareness.

1954—Neville publishes Awakened Imagination.

1955—Neville hosts radio and television shows in Los Angeles.

1956—Neville publishes Seedtime and Harvest: A Mystical View of the Scriptures.

1959—Neville undergoes the mystical experience of being reborn from his own skull. Other mystical experiences continue into the following year.

1960—Neville releases a spoken-word album.

1961—Neville publishes The Law and Promise; the final chapter, “The Promise,” details the mystical experience he underwent in 1959, and others that followed.

1964—Neville publishes the pamphlet He Breaks the Shell: A Lesson in Scripture.

1966—Neville publishes his last full-length book, Resurrection, composed of four works from the 1940s and the contemporaneous closing title essay, which outlines the fullness of his mystical vision and of humanity’s realization of its deific nature.

1972—Neville dies in West Hollywood at age 67 on October 1, 1972, from an “apparent heart attack,” reports the Los Angeles Times. He is buried at the family plot in St. Michael, Barbados.

Source: Infinite Potential by Mitch Horowitz

Neville Goddard, better known as just Neville, was one of the quietly dramatic and supremely influential teachers in the New Thought field for many years…In a simple, yet somehow elegant one-hour lecture, Neville was able to clarify the nature of God and God’s relationship to every person. He spoke of God in intimate terms as though he knew God very well, which he did.

Joseph Murphy, a writer and lecturer, who studied with Neville in New York City, said of him: “Neville may eventually be recognized as one of the world’s great mystics,”

Born on Barbados in the British West Indies, Neville was the fourth child in a family of nine boys and one girl. One day some of them were playing near an old wind-swept hut by the sea. A seer lived in the hut and told them their fortunes, The older sons would go into the professions, into medicine, into business. The predictions for them came true. The Goddard family is one of the most prominent and influential families on the island.

“Do not touch the fourth one,” the seer said, pointing to Neville, “he has a special mission to perform in the world – from God.” And to Neville, “You will journey to a distant land and spend your life there.” This prediction also came true. As a young man he went to America and worked in some of the department stores in New York City. Later, he worked in the theatre with the Schubert’s.

Under unusual circumstances, he met a black Jew, named Abdullah, who lectured on Christianity. Neville went to hear him, somewhat under protest, to satisfy the constant urging of a friend, “Whose judgment I did not respect,” Neville said, “because he made such poor financial investments.”

Neville said he was seated in the auditorium waiting for the lecture to begin, when the speaker – who had never met Neville came down the aisle from the rear of the auditorium to the stage.

“You are late, Neville!” Abdullah said, “six months’ late! I have been told to expect you.” From this introduction, Neville studied with Abdullah seven days a week for seven years.

“Abdullah taught me Hebrew, he taught me The Kabbalah, and he taught me more about real Christianity than anyone I ever met,” Neville declared.

Neville originally came to the United States to study drama at the age of seventeen. In 1932 he gave up the theater to devote his attention to his studies in mysticism when he began his lecture career in New York City. After traveling throughout the country, he eventually made his home in Los Angeles where, in the late 1950’s, he gave a series of talks on television, and for many years, lectured regularly to capacity audiences at the Wilshire Ebell Theater. In the 1960’s and early ‘70s, he confined most of his lectures to Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco.

Neville once said that if he was stranded on an island and was allowed one book, he would choose, The Bible, without hesitation. If he could squeeze in more, he would add Charles Fillmore’s Metaphysical Dictionary of Bible names, William Blake, (“… Why stand we here trembling around, Calling on God for help, and not ourselves, in whom God dwells?”) and Nicoll’s Commentaries. These were the books he recommended at his lectures.

In his lectures and books, Neville dealt solely with The Law until the year 1959, “For I did not know of The Promise until I began to experience it and have it unfold within me beginning that summer and continuing during the next three-and-one-half years. And this is Scriptural,” he would say, “read it in the of Book of Daniel where it is referred to as ‘a time, times, and a half.’ It comes to 1260 days in your experience of it.”

In his use of The Law, he related how he made a sea voyage from New York to see his family in Barbados during the Depression, without any money of his own. He related how, by the use of imaginal power, he was honorably discharged from military service to continue his lectures during World War 11. He gave his audiences in San Francisco in the 1950’s and ‘60s accounts of how others had made use of The Law. He discussed it on television in the Los Angeles area, “Learn how to use your imaginal power, lovingly, on behalf of others, for Man is moving into a world where everything is subject to his imaginal power,” he taught.

In the latter part of the 1960’s and early ‘70’s Neville gave more emphasis to The Promise after he had experienced it. The use of imaginal power can change circumstances, but it is all temporary, “– and will vanish like smoke,” he asserted with another sweep of his hand. “Oh. – you can use it to make a fortune, to become known in the world – all these things are done – but your true purpose here is to fulfill Scripture,” so he subordinated it and became as eager to hear accounts by those who had experienced The Promise, and sharing such accounts, as he had of those with The Law.

In the last years of his life he said, “I know my time is short. I have finished the work I have been sent to do and I am now eager to depart. I know I will not appear in this three-dimensional world again for The Promise has been fulfilled in me. As for where I go, I will know you there as I have known you here, for we are all brothers, infinitely in love with each other.”

This discovery Neville called God’s “Promise.” There is nothing any person can do to earn it. It is sheer Grace and comes in its own good time.

If you do not experience it in this life, then what?

“You pass through a door — that’s all that death is,” Neville said, “and — you are restored to life instantly in a world like this — just this world,” he was fond of saying to his audiences with a sweep of his hand, “and you go on there with the same problems you had here with no loss of identity – not old, not blind, not crippled, if you depart this life that way, but young. They grow, and they marry, and they die there, too, with all the fear of death that we have here. And if they die there without experiencing The Promise, they are restored to life again and again in a place best suited to the work yet to be done on them. And it continues until ‘Christ be formed in you’ and as ‘sons of The Resurrection’ you leave this world of death never to enter it gain.”

“You are born once through the womb of woman, once from above,” Neville insists you don’t go through any womb again.

What about the fear many have of eternal hell and damnation? In response to this often asked question, Neville replied with a quote from Scriptures, “’Not one shall be lost in all my holy mountain.’ You are God and how could God eternally condemn Himself?”

Until we awaken and make this discovery, we are privileged to use a Law, given by God, to “cushion the blows of life.” The Law, stated succinctly is this, In Neville’s words: “Imagining creates reality,”

Neville spoke without notes and followed his lectures with questions and answers. When he was asked if he had tapes of his lectures for sale, he replied, “I have no tapes. Others here are making tapes for their own use, Perfectly all right. But I have no tapes.”

There are many tapes of his lectures In Los Angeles and San Francisco circulating, thanks to the loyalty and dedication of many of Neville’s students and friends who have preserved much of What he said. His books are also in print.

Neville departed from the Earth plane on October 1, 1972, in Los Angeles.

Although Neville’s career peaked in the late 1950’s and early 60’s, his message continues to find a place in the hearts of spiritual readers throughout the world today.

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Neville Goddard - Wikipedia
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Neville Goddard - Wikipedia
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Neville Lancelot Goddard</strong> (1905-1972) was a prophet, profoundly influential teacher, and author. He did not associate himself as a metaphysician, with any 'ism' or 'New Thought' teaching as commonly advertised by these collective groups.