Read also: Neville Goddard: Marriages, Children and Family Tree: Research Notes

Reconciling Public Record, Personal Testimony

A reader of Cool Wisdom Books asked:

“In his lecture he clearly mentions that he slept as if he was sleeping with his wife and daughter. Also it was mentioned that his son was also serving with the marines. How come his military records say separated and no dependents. he was enlisted after marriage.”

Possible answer.

By the time Neville enlisted on November 12, 1942, he had:

• Divorced his first wife, Mildred Mary Hughes, in February 25, 1942 (see marriage certificate)
• Fathered a son, Joseph Neville Goddard, born May 19, 1924 in New York City
• Married his second wife, Catherine Van Schmus, on February 27, 1942
• Daughter, Victoria Goddard, born June 28, 1942 (four months later)

So why would the U.S. Army record him as separated with no dependents?

Bureaucracy vs. Reality

Military classifications during WWII were often imprecise. The code “7 – Separated, no dependents” was used broadly.

It could refer to men who were divorced, widowed, estranged or simply appeared unmarried on paper.

In Neville’s case, several factors probably played a role:

• His daughter had just been born four months prior.
• His marriage certificate, though dated February 27, 1942, wasn’t filed by the City Clerk until October 21, 1943
• His son Joseph had just turned 18 in May 1942 and was likely serving with the Marines in Guadalcanal, no longer a minor dependent. But there is no draft record until 1946.

Neville’s Own Words

In one of Neville’s lectures, he recounts a moment with his commanding officer:

 “For your sake, Goddard, I am very, very sorry. I know exactly how you feel. You want to be with your wife and your little girl. Your son is in Guadalcanal with the Marines and you are now almost thirty-eight. And so, I know, but I would like to go through this war with a man just like you at the side. So, I can’t say that I am sorry for myself. I’m sorry only for you.” I didn’t say one word to him, to the colonel. I didn’t oppose it. That was the decision of Caesar. Now, I looked into the perfect law, the Law of Liberty, and I persevered in that law. And I slept that night as though I slept in my own home in New York City on Washington Square, where I lived on the 7th floor. I lived on that floor and it was a very large apartment, with two bedrooms, a lovely, big living room, a dining room, a huge kitchen, and a foyer.

And I slept in that place just as though I were there, not in the army. I fell asleep in that state, having done all the normal things that would make me feel this arrangement is perfect. I rearranged the structure of my mind. Instead of seeing twenty-five men around me, sleeping upstairs and knowing that twenty- five were down below in the next area, I slept in my own bed with my wife in her bed and my little girl in her crib in the corner.” Reference lecture: Neville Goddard Lectures: “Rearrange the Mind”

This quote, spoken by a superior officer, confirms:

• Neville had a wife and young daughter at the time
• His son was actively serving in WWII
• He was 37 years old aligns with his enlistment age

It was most likely a contradiction in paperwork. Marriage certificate was filed in 1943 almost 20 months later.

Guadalcanal was a major campaign from August 1942 to February 1943. Joseph, born in May 1924, would have been 18 years old when the campaign began, making him eligible for service. But the only draft card we can find at the moment is in 1946 when he was 21. This is record in 1946 with alt name Lineville for SS #

As for the adultery:

“In New York City, because of the archaic law that is now past, you couldn’t get a divorce unless she was insane for seven years or for adultery, and that’s all. The orthodox Christian churches had sewed the whole thing up so that it made life miserable and made everything simply a burden to all. When I met her, I had just such an entangled background. And here it’s New York City, the most archaic city in the world concerning such laws.” From “Proof, The Law Works” (1971)

What is interesting is that his son was a witness at his wedding. His son was 17 years old and 9 months.

Catherine in 1938 and First Lecture

Also to correct the timeline Neville was with Catherine from 1938 at least:

Neville Goddard Lectures: “Neville’s Thoughts If Leaving Permanently” 

I started on my wife’s birthday, the second day of February, 1938. (Catherine Willa Van Schmus was born February 02, 1907) I started on a borrowed five dollar bill to pay the rent. The War was not on and in spite of what you might read in the papers we were still in the Depression, and there was not a job in sight. I rented the place at Steinway Hall for five dollars which sat about seventy. And that’s how I started. I didn’t charge…didn’t have the courage to charge. They either gave it because they loved me or they were embarrassed, and they paid the rent that night. Think six came. So it started from that little, little.

Freedom Barry Possible Misrepresentation

Freedom Barry creates a date issue that Neville was “divorced legally” earlier (not Neville) and also Joseph is Joseph Neville in legal records, not Neville Joseph:

Freedom Barry mentions in Transcript Of “Freedom On The Beach” Lecture Presented By Freedom Barry Held At Cambria, Ca On Sept. 14-15, 1996

“So after Abdullah had decided that Neville had enough, and this was seven full years, he just closed his doors to everybody. He didn’t take in the newspapers, he didn’t take in the milk when it was delivered, and this was his way of telling Neville “you’re out of the nest, you have to go, you have to do it.” So Neville borrowed $5.00 from the woman who became his wife, he hired a room in which to speak, and he went out to give the first lecture he had ever given, and just as he was ready to leave, there came a knock at the door.

He opened it and here’s this little boy that looked like the picture of any run away child you’ve ever seen with a little bandanna with his worldly belongings carried over his shoulder and a note from his mother, who was Neville’s divorced wife. She had divorced him because she couldn’t take his interest in the esoteric, and he had done everything and used every persuasion he could to get custody of that son. Nothing would persuade her. Here of his own accord he comes and there is reenacted the scene that he had done in his mind’s eye when he was working that system to get the custody of his child. He used to imagine that he was standing behind his dining chair, with his hand cupped over the child’s head.

So, he said, “Here was this boy with his bundle of goods and a note from his mother saying, ‘ there is someone else in my life, I haven’t room for the three of us.’” She had sent him home to his father. He brought him in, gave him supper and took him with him to the first lecture he ever gave.”

“Yes, Vicki… she was born in 1942. She lives in Los Angeles. We’re in touch. She’s not interested in this at all. She is the executor of his estate, and has charge of the publishing of his books. His son, by the first marriage, lives in Barbados. His name is Neville Joseph, Jr., but he has always gone by the name of Joe. He didn’t want any of this Neville stuff.”

Certificate Summary

Marriage Details

Divorce Info (From Affidavit)

See also: Neville Goddard: Marriages, Children and Family Tree: Research Notes

1. He married Mildrid Mary Hughes (1923)

Mildrid Mary Hughes was born March 29, 1901 in Lancaster & Blackburn, England, and died November 09, 1979 in New York City.

Groom: Neville L. Goddard
Age: 20
Residence: 1926 E. 1st St., Brooklyn, NY
Occupation: Clerk
Father: Joseph Goddard
Mother: Eliza (or Elisa) Goddard
Bride: Mary Hughes
Age: 20
Residence: 144 Waverly Pl., NYC
Birthplace: England
Father: Thomas Hughes
Mother: Mary Magdala (or Magdala Hughes)
Date of Marriage: October 13, 1923
Location: Manhattan
Certificate Number: 35968
Witnesses: E.M. Hackett, F.C. Waterman
Filed: October 18, 1923
Officiant: McCormick, Deputy City Clerk

Children of Neville Lancelot Goddard and Mildrid Mary Hughes are:
Joseph Neville Goddard, b. May 19, 1924, New York City, d. March 01, 1986, New York City.

Adultery

From “Proof, The Law Works” (1971)

I told the story, and I was severely criticized for it by a lady at a dinner party one night when Fred Bailes, who is now gone from this world, gave a party at the Ambassador Hotel. And I had told this story about two weeks before to one of his great – I would say –contributors who would come and always write a huge big check at the end of a year or the end of a month to keep that going. And she was most critical that night. I didn’t feel well that night at all. And she said, “You know, I can’t quite understand how you could take the platform before an audience of twenty-six hundred, a thousand who could not get in – they were all overflowing at the Fox Wilshire, and tell what you told about your wife” – this was my first wife.

I told a simple story to explain that everything in this world must be forgiven, no matter what it is. When I met the girl who now bears my name and who is the mother of my daughter – the very first time I met her, I knew she was going to be my wife. She didn’t know it, but I knew it. I said to myself, “She doesn’t know it, but she is going to be my wife.” We sailed for Barbados six months later, and she met my mother and met my family – met them all. They all loved her. That was back in 1936.

In New York City, because of the archaic law that is now past, you couldn’t get a divorce unless she was insane for seven years or for adultery, and that’s all. The orthodox Christian churches had sewed the whole thing up so that it made life miserable and made everything simply a burden to all. When I met her, I had just such an entangled background. And here it’s New York City, the most archaic city in the world concerning such laws.

I went to bed and slept as though I was happily married to the girl who now bears my name. I did not have any physical emotion with her: just that she was sleeping there, and I am here, and it’s blissful. I did that for one solid week. Then comes a telephone call from the court one morning, telling me that I must come down to this federal court on Tuesday morning. Well, I was groggy, it was early in the morning, and in those days I didn’t rise as early as I do now. And so, I just said, “All right,” and I hung up.

Well, on Tuesday morning that I am supposed to be there, I made no effort to go there. And about 9:30 the phone rang. It’s the court, and they said to me, “You are supposed to be here in court this morning. We meet at 10:00.”

And I said, “What on earth am I supposed to be in court for?”

They said, “Well, it happens that your wife is arrested, and we thought maybe you could throw some light on the reason for her arrest. That’s why we are asking you to come down.”

Well, I wasn’t shaved. I simply threw myself into some clothes, and off I went in a taxi down to the court. I got there just as they were bringing her in. A man whispered into – there were three judges – into one judge’s ear that I was in the audience. The judge asked me to take the stand. “You don’t have to swear, but will you please take the stand and throw some light on the behavior of your wife? She tells me you have been separated now for almost fourteen years.”

I said, “Yes.”

“Is it a religious reason why you have been separated?”

I said, “No, none whatsoever. We knew we were wrong the very first day we got married. We knew it was completely a failure right away.”

Then he read the case. She was picked up for shoplifting. They went to her home and found other things in her home.

He said, “What can you say for this?”

I said, “As far as I am concerned, I don’t think that really she is a shoplifter. As far as I am concerned, she just moved under compulsion. Take into consideration her age. She is eight years my senior, and she is passing through a certain emotional state. And do be lenient. We have a son who lives with me, and I don’t want anything to happen to his mother that would cast any shadow on his life. He is a wonderful boy. He is in my charge by law. He is in my home, lives with me, and I don’t want anything to happen to her that in any way would reflect upon my son.”

The judge said, “You know, in all my years on the bench, I have heard no plea by one for another who has every reason in this world to get her committed, because that in any other state would be enough for a divorce, and yet he pleads for her.”

He sentenced her to six months, and then, on my plea, he suspended it. She met me on the outside, and said, “Neville, that was a very decent thing to do. Give me my papers.” She knew I was looking for her. My dancing partner had told her I was looking for her to serve the papers and therefore to be scarce and move out of New York City. So, she did.

But she had to commit the act, and they had to call me and ask me to throw light upon that. How could I condemn her? Who was the actual cause of her shoplifting? I! I slept as though I were blissfully married to the girl who now bears my name, and I had to get the evidence. I had to get some reason to bring the action. And here, my wife actually gave me the papers.

I said, “I don’t have the papers with me.”

She said, “I am driving home to your place right now, and you can give me the papers.”

That is illegal to serve your own papers, but she drove up to my hotel where I was living. I went to my room and came down to the lobby and gave her the papers – did my own serving! Now that is an illegal thing in this world. Then I got my divorce in the City of New York, then I could marry the girl who now bears my name.

When I told that, I told it only to tell people of that one word, the first word on the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” They are all moving under compulsion, and the unseen causation is hidden from the world. They do not know who is “treading in the winepress.” And I was “treading in the winepress” to be happily married to a girl who was not then engaged to me. I couldn’t be engaged to her under the circumstances. And then my wife behaved in such a manner that it made it real and natural for me to do what I did. How could I blame her?