08 Sep Which Abdullah? Sorting Evidence from Myth in Neville Goddard Research
A Quick Note for Visual Learners
If the thought of reading through dense historical research feels a little exhausting, start here for an easy visual guide comparing the original documents and photographs:
Foundation & Context
The Early Years (1905–1910)
Atlantic City (1919–1923)
Which Abdullah? Sorting Evidence from Myth in Neville Goddard Research
Neville Goddard Research: Abdullah published “Science of Applied Mind Control and Wealth of Abdoullahistic Metaphysiology” (1923)
Neville Goddard’s Abdullah: When ‘Modeste Guillaume’ Became G. Mahmud-Ahmad: The 1923 Pivot
NYC & The Music (1924–1935)
The Abdullah Investigation: The Hidden Teacher of Neville Goddard – Part 4: Abdullah Identified – The Baritone Mystic of Atlantic City and 30 West 72nd Street
The Final Link to 30 West 72nd: This Is Neville Goddard’s Real Teacher, Abdullah
The Music of “The Law”: How Abdullah Encoded Neville Goddard’s Teaching in Nine Lost Songs of 1935
Archives & Lectures
Historical Photographs of Dr. Modeste Abda’llah Guillaume (Abdullah): Neville Goddard’s Teacher
Neville Goddard Lectures: “Abdullah How We Got Together Q&A”
The Neville Goddard & Abdullah Library: Books From the Language of Abdullah’s Advertisements (1919–1928)
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This article is still undergoing minor edits and building reference section.
A commenter recently asked why we think the Atlantic City/New York figure could be Neville’s Abdullah. It is not because of turbans, common names, or Ethiopianism. It is because of what Neville himself directly said. In the lecture I AM in You (1968), Neville recalled:
“My friend Abdullah once said to me that this elderly lady…he was an old, old gentleman and he was in Atlantic City… and someone told her that he could do something to a man in her neighborhood and destroy him. So she came and offered Ab $300. Ab said, ‘My dear, whoever advised you this way is silly. God is love, just love.’”
That single remark anchors Abdullah in Atlantic City. And it is in Atlantic City between 1920 and 1923 that we find documented advertisements for Modeste Guillaume Abda’llah, a Lamperti-trained baritone with a vocal school who publicly offered later instruction in the “mystery books of Moses,” prosperity, healing, and higher psychology.
The thread continues in New York. By the early 1930s, Neville remembered studying with Abdullah at 30 West 72nd Street. Records show the house belonged not to Morgenthau, as Neville misremembered, but to Henri W. Zay, another Lamperti-trained baritone Anthroposophist with a vocal school. After Zay’s death, his widow hosted esoteric and Anthroposophical meetings in the house.
So in both Atlantic City and New York, Abdullah appears within the same Lamperti-trained baritone milieu: first as an advertiser teaching metaphysics, later situated in Zay’s house at 30 W. 72nd. This convergence of location, training, and teaching content is why this figure is closer than any other candidate we have examined.
There are several apparent contradictions. Neville at times described Abdullah as “born in Ethiopia,” at other times as “born in North Africa.” He once claimed Abdullah was already “in his 80s” when they met
In Five Lessons Neville remembered a “turbaned head”. And beyond these details, there is this argument that the name “Abdullah” is simply too common in the Middle East and North Africa to serve as a reliable identifier.
These are valid questions but they do not end the inquiry. Over the course of this series we have examined more than 20+ candidates and we have checked thousands of immigration and naturalization records in the US, Ethiopia and London. Most dissolve after verifying dates, geography, or documents. Some, like Mitch Horowitz’s proposal of Arnold Josiah Ford, can be excluded as Ford died in 1935, while Neville was still studying with Abdullah in New York. What remains useful is this gradual elimination of misdirections, and the recovery of verifiable contexts. Not just a final conclusion.
What follows addresses three of the most persistent myths: the Morgenthau house, the Ethiopia vs. North Africa issue, and the turban image before turning to the strongest positive lead so far: the Lamperti connection that places Abdullah within the cultural setting of singers and esotericists at 30 West 72nd Street. That besides the fact that Neville mentioned Abdullah was in Atlantic City.
So, let’s take a look at some of the most obvious errors and myth makers that send Neville researchers on a wild goose chase and to partially, for now, answer some of these questions.
Neville’s Error at 30 West 72nd Street
“I didn’t have a job, I had no money, and I was living in a basement on 75th Street and he (Abdullah) lived on 72nd Street, in a very lovely home that was owned by Morgenthau, whose son (Henry Morgenthau Jr) was then the treasury (sic) of our country, a cabinet member (US Secretary of the Treasury under President Franklin D. Roosevelt), but his father owned this house, but he didn’t live there, and he rented the first floor to my friend Abdullah.”
Neville later remembered the house as Morgenthau-owned, rented to Abdullah by Henry Morgenthau Jr. himself. This is incorrect. The record shows:
- Henry Morgenthau Sr. (U.S. ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, 1913–16) built the house.
- In 1923, it was sold to the French baritone and vocal teacher Henri W. Zay.
- After Zay’s sudden death, his widow Eileen Thornburgh Zay retained the property.
- By the time Neville met Abdullah there in the early 1930s, 30 West 72nd Street was functioning as a mixed-use spiritualist, medium, psychic and Anthroposophical center associated with New York’s small singer-heavy Anthroposophy circles.
Neville misremembered or never knew the actual Morgenthau detail. But to Neville, Abdullah was teaching from 30 West 72nd Street, a house already associated with vocal training, esoteric study, and spiritualist groups but owned by Zay.
The house on West 72nd was not a Morgenthau residence rented to his friend; it was Zay’s house, already tied to voice culture, esoteric study, and small spiritualist/Anthroposophical gatherings.
Ethiopia vs. North Africa: Geography and Usage
Neville Quote 1 — “Ethiopia”
“When I first heard it years and years ago from my old friend Abdullah, he said, “Neville, never think of Christ save you think of him as a child”—people paint pictures of a matured man—-“Always think of Christ as the Christ child, always.” I couldn’t quite grasp it, didn’t quite understand it. These words have been told me by a Negro Jew, born in Ethiopia, of the Jewish faith. He knew more of Christianity than all the priests of the world. Just like Paul he was born a Jew, born of the tribe of Benjamin. “I’m a son of Abraham after the faith, but if you took it even physically” said he “I would still be after the flesh, but now I know the spirit.” And he said to me, The Christ child is always the child.”
Source: Neville lecture, For Hatching (1964)
Neville Quote 2 — “North Africa”
“Because he taught me real Christianity. And he was born in North Africa, of Jewish parents, and raised in a strict Orthodox Jewish home. But he knew more Christianity than anyone I’ve ever met, because he spoke the Hebrew tongue perfectly. He spoke other tongues. And Rabbis would come to study with him.”
Source: Neville, Abdullah How We Got Together Q&A
Geographically, Ethiopia is not North Africa.
- North Africa refers to the Mediterranean-facing countries: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt.
- Ethiopia lies in the Horn of Africa in the East, bordered by Sudan, Eritrea, Djibouti, Somalia, and Kenya.
- A geographer or historian using strict regional categories would never call Ethiopia part of North Africa.
In biblical language and early modern English usage, “Ethiopia” often meant Africa as a whole.
- The King James Bible translates the Hebrew Cush as “Ethiopia”
- Psalm 68:31, “Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God,” became a rallying verse for African and African-descended Christians.
- In Pan-African and Black religious discourse of the 19th and 20th centuries, “Ethiopia” was synonymous with the entire African race.
This dual usage explains the apparent contradiction in Neville Goddard’s descriptions of Abdullah.
- In one lecture, Neville says Abdullah was a “Negro Jew, born in Ethiopia.”
- In another, he calls him “born in North Africa, of Jewish parents.”
- Taken geographically, the two statements are inconsistent.
- Taken in the biblical and popular sense of “Ethiopia” = Africa
Neville first described Abdullah as “born in Ethiopia,” then later as “born in North Africa.” Taken literally, the two are inconsistent, but read in context they reflect Ethiopia as a biblical synonym for Africa as a whole, and North Africa as the precise geographic origin.
Some resources more in original article
Duncan, Graham A.. (2015). Ethiopianism in Pan-African perspective, 1880-1920. Studia Historiae Ecclesiasticae, 41(2), 198-218
Ayele Bekerie, “The Intellectual Project of Global Ethiopia (Part Two),” Ethiopia Observer, August 10, 2018.
While readers frequently quote Neville’s 1964 lecture “The Hatching” where he called Abdullah a “Negro Jew, born in Ethiopia,” they often miss a vital geographic correction Neville shared in a Q&A session from that very same year. In his late-1964 address (historically linked to his Friday lectures and presently called “The Pure of Heart,” Neville stated:
“Because he taught me real Christianity. And he was born in North Africa, of Jewish parents, and raised in a strict Orthodox Jewish home…”
Geographically, Ethiopia is in East Africa, whereas Modeste Guillaume’s federal census records consistently list his birthplace as Algiers which is squarely in North Africa. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, “Ethiopia” was widely used as a biblical and Pan-African synonym for the entire African continent and the Black race. Inspired by Psalm 68:31 (“Ethiopia shall soon stretch out her hands unto God”), the term became a rallying cry for racial pride. Historians Graham A. Duncan (2015) and Ayele Bekerie (2018) note that “Ethiopian” was a spiritual and cultural identity embraced by the global African diaspora. Neville’s use of “Ethiopian” reflected this proud, era-specific cultural heritage, while his “North African” statement represents the actual physical geography of Modeste’s Algiers origins.
The Lamperti Connection
The most significant corroboration comes from music. Before his turn to metaphysics, Abdullah advertised in Atlantic City (1920–23) as a baritone trained in the Lamperti school of bel canto. The house on 72nd Street where Neville later visited him had been owned by Henri W. Zay, another Lamperti pupil, whose widow continued to host musical, Anthroposophical gatherings and rented rooms to spiritualists there after his death. Neville remembered Abdullah teaching from that house. Two Lamperti-trained baritones, the same address, the same cultural circle of singers and esotericists.
- Zay (owner) = Lamperti-trained baritone.
- Abdullah (Atlantic City, 1920–23) advertised himself as a Lamperti-trained baritone before publicly offering instruction in “mystery books of Moses,” prosperity, healing, “higher psychology,” etc.
- Neville situates his teacher at Zay’s house on West 72nd.
This specific overlap (Lamperti -baritone -West 72nd – esoteric/singer milieu) narrows the field.
It doesn’t by itself prove that the Atlantic City advertiser, Modeste Guillaume Abda’llah, and Neville’s teacher were the same person, but it does show why this candidate is closer than most and why chasing unrelated “Morgenthau mansion” myths or debating “Ethiopian” terminology is unhelpful in finding an historical candidate. Some of our most viable Ethiopian candidates in the US are in Part 2 and 3.
When this post was first written, we were piecing together Abdullah’s presence at 30 West 72nd Street using Neville’s lectures and adjacent property records. Since then, the physical U.S. Copyright Office cards have arrived, providing the definitive legal bridge between his Atlantic City and New York lives. In late 1923, he filed copyrights in Atlantic City for his books—including The Science of Applied Mind Control and Wealth of Abdoullahistic Metaphysiology and The New Covenant of Peace—under the name “G. Modeste Abdoullah” while listing the author as “G. Mahmud Ahmad Abdoullah” of Algiers. A decade later in 1935, during the exact years Neville studied under him in Manhattan, he registered a suite of nine songs—including That That Is Me and Manuka (Rest)—explicitly listing his home address as 30 West 72nd Street, New York. This federal paper trail legally ties the Algiers-born classical baritone from Arctic Avenue directly to the exact building, name variations, and timeframe Neville recalled. You can view the original copyright cards and scans here: Neville Goddard’s Teacher Abdullah: Original Copyright Cards for Abdullah’s Books.
Turban vs. Hat
Neville (Five Lessons, 1948):
“You know what he did. He was as black as the ace of spades, my old friend Abdullah, with his turbaned head. As I sat in his living room he rose from his chair and went towards his study and slammed the door, which was not an invitation to follow him. As he went through the door he said to me, “I have said all that I have to say.”
The photos of Atlantic City Abdullah show him in suits and hats, not turbans. But those photos are from 1911- 1920 when he was a bel canto baritone professor of music. Black mystics of the period like Noble Drew Ali, Arnold Josiah Ford, even Father Divine’s circle alternated between Oriental garb for ritual or publicity and ordinary Western dress in daily life. As for the man with a turban photos on the internet representing Abdullah, they are of Arnold Ford and that assumption was drawn from Mitch Horowitz research about “Abdullah” possibly being a metaphorical composite of Arnold Ford.
The photos come from Abdullah’s earlier career as a bel canto teacher. Neville’s description reflects his later mystical persona.
This section was written when our only photographic records of Modeste were his 1911–1914 concert advertisements.
Here in The 1909 Turban Photo Portraits and Historical Timeline Recap are since found 1909 studio portraits from Columbus, Ohio, showing him dressed in full, magnificent Ethiopian/Abyssinian robes and a massive turban. Neville’s memory of a “turbaned head” was correct, and we now know exactly where those garments came from: his stage days in the massive Broadway hit opera, “Abyssinia”.
This discovery bridges his theatrical career with his real-life mystical identity.
Abdullah Name Common as John in the Middle East and North Africa
It is true that “Abdullah” is a common name in the Middle East and North Africa, but in the U.S. census and naturalization records between the 1860s and 1930 the name appears far less frequently. We have checked most of them. The pool of candidates is small, and that makes the Atlantic City/New York figure stand out even more clearly against the background. As there are census and marriage records and newspaper clippings.
In 1934, Abdullah or Abdoullah including the main variants Abdallah, Abdalla, and Abdulla was exceptionally uncommon as an American given name. In the Social Security Administration’s 1930-1934 national birth-name file, which includes spellings recorded at least five times in a given year. Although these sources may exclude foreign-born residents, unlisted subscribers, or occurrences below the SSA threshold, they show that Abdullah was not a measurable American birth name in the 1930s.
The name’s first measurable appearance in the SSA series occurs in 1972, when nineteen boys were recorded with the name which is consistent with the expansion of Middle Eastern and North African immigration after the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965.
The few publicly visible American examples from roughly 1920–1940 were concentrated in immigrant, literary, theatrical, or adopted professional identities like:
- Achmed Abdullah (c. 1881–1945), (born Achmed Abdullah Nadir Khan el-Durani el-Iddrissyeh”or as “Alexander Nicholayevitch Romanoff”) was a novelist, playwright, short-story writer, and screenwriter associated with The Lives of a Bengal Lancer, used Achmed Abdullah as a literary identity.
- “Prof. Abdullah,” identified in an 1899 New York newspaper as the German-Jewish astrologer Barin L. Behrendi or Behrendt, used the name professionally and belonged to an earlier generation.
- Abdullah Abbas (1906–1986), a Syrian-born character actor, received American film credits during the mid-1930s.
These cases were exceptions not evidence of broad usage. In interwar America, the name remained associated primarily with a small number of immigrants and with literary, theatrical, or esoteric personas. Its wider demographic growth belongs to the post-1965 immigration era, not the immediate postwar period.
Abdullah’s Age
Are we supposed to believe a 113-year-old man was hopping on a plane to Ethiopia in 1957?
By Neville’s own math, when he last saw Abdullah in 1956 he was standing in front of a 113 year old man.
But here. Let’s do the math to put this to rest.
(1929–1931) – (88–90) = 1839–1843 (birth year)
1956 – (1839–1843) = 113–117
1957 – (1839–1843) = 114–118
Neville’s wording (and Freedom Barry):
Meeting year stated as 1929 (some lectures stare 1930–1931).
Age at first meeting: “late eighties” / “about ninety” so we need to test 88, 89, 90.
Last in-person contact: 1956 (Neville, 1964 Q&A).
Secretary report of return to Ethiopia: 1957.
If Neville met Abdullah in 1929–1931 and he was 88–90 years old, the math is:
- Birth year range implied by Neville’s age-at-meeting: 1839–1843.
- Age in 1956 across all cases: 113–117.
- Age in 1957 across all cases: 114–118.
Consistency check vs. Neville’s “over 100”:
- Neville (1964): “Lived to be over a hundred.”
- Understatement relative to the math above: +14 to +18 years (i.e., the math implies 114–118 in 1957, not merely “over 100”).
Note: This is 18 years over which our Ab baritone is closer to.
Single-quote spot checks (math only):
- “Met him in ’29… late eighties/about ninety” : birth 1841–1839 in 1957 age 116–118.
- “Last time I met him about eight years ago” (from 1964) in 1956 at 113–117, given the meeting-age claim.
Bottom line:
Taking Neville’s meeting year (1929–1931) and stated age at meeting (88–90) at face value gets Abdullah at 113–118 years old by 1956–1957. This is far beyond the vague “over 100” description and is the mathematically consistent consequence of Neville’s own numbers.
Sources:
The One Greater Than John: “(I met him in ’29)… An old, old man, he was then in his late eighties when I met him.”
Who Are the Condemned: “Ab was an old man when I met him, he was then about ninety… ‘I picked up this garment ninety-odd years ago in Ethiopia.’”
Q&A, 1964-03-10: “Lived to be over a hundred… The last time I met Abdullah was about eight years ago… About seven years ago I met his secretary… he was planning to return to Ethiopia.
This part of the series sheds some light on obvious errors like the Morgenthau house, the “Ethiopia vs. North Africa” contradiction as a false lead, the turban ideas and places Abdullah back into a somewhat verifiable cultural setting of singers, Anthroposophy, the spiritualists and mediums at 30 W. 72nd and metaphysical advertising. After examining more than twenty candidates and over 2000+ naturalization and immigration records for that period, the Atlantic City/New York figure remains the closest fit so far, not just because of a name but because of the convergence of dates, training, addresses, and documented teaching. The work ahead is to continue just testing claims against the record.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the actual basis for connecting the Atlantic City/New York figure to Neville's Abdullah?
Not turbans, common names, or Ethiopian imagery but a specific remembered detail. In the 1968 lecture I AM in You, Neville recalled Abdullah as an elderly man living in Atlantic City who turned down a large sum of money offered by a woman seeking to harm a neighbor. That remark anchors Abdullah in Atlantic City, and it's in Atlantic City between 1920 and 1923 that documented advertisements exist for Modeste Guillaume Abda'llah, a Lamperti-trained baritone with a vocal school who later publicly taught the "mystery books of Moses," prosperity, healing, and higher psychology. The thread continues in New York, where Neville recalled studying with Abdullah at 30 West 72nd Street.
What was wrong with the "Morgenthau house" detail Neville remembered?
Neville recalled the West 72nd Street house as owned by the Morgenthau family, with the son later becoming U.S. Treasury Secretary. Property records tell a more layered story: Henry Morgenthau Sr. did build the house, but it was sold in 1923 to Henri W. Zay, a French baritone and vocal teacher, and after Zay's sudden death his widow, Eileen Thornburgh Zay, kept the property running as a mixed-use spiritualist, mediumship, and Anthroposophical center through the years Neville would have studied there. Neville's memory of the address and the teaching that happened there was accurate; the ownership detail he attached to it wasn't. Chasing the Morgenthau name specifically is treated as a myth that distracts from the more useful, verifiable fact: it was Zay's house, already tied to voice culture and esoteric study, when Abdullah taught from it.
Did Neville really contradict himself on Abdullah being from Ethiopia vs. North Africa?
He used both descriptions, in two different lectures, but the article traces this to more than a simple slip. The "Negro Jew, born in Ethiopia" line comes from the 1964 lecture The Hatching; the "born in North Africa, of Jewish parents" line comes from a separate, later-1964 address. Geographically the two aren't the same place — Ethiopia sits in the Horn of Africa, while North Africa covers the Mediterranean-facing countries including Algeria, where Modeste Guillaume's own federal census records consistently list his birthplace as Algiers. But in 19th- and early-20th-century Pan-African and biblical usage (rooted in Psalm 68:31), "Ethiopia" commonly functioned as a synonym for the entire African continent and the Black race, not a specific country. Read that way, Neville's two descriptions may be doing different jobs: one cultural and symbolic, one geographically literal and consistent with Modeste's actual Algiers origin.
What is the "Lamperti connection," and why is it treated as evidence?
Before turning to metaphysics, the Atlantic City Abdullah advertised himself as a baritone trained in the Lamperti school of bel canto. The West 72nd Street house Neville later visited had been owned by Henri W. Zay who was also a Lamperti-trained baritone and whose widow kept hosting musical and Anthroposophical gatherings there after his death. That gives two Lamperti-trained baritones, tied to the same address, inside the same circle of singers and esotericists. It's an important point to consider this candidate is closer to the evidence than any other proposed so far.
Is there anything more concrete than the Lamperti overlap connecting the two cities?
Yes, a more recent update to this research adds a direct documentary bridge. Physical U.S. Copyright Office cards show that in late 1923 he filed copyrights in Atlantic City for books including The Science of Applied Mind Control and Wealth of Abdoullahistic Metaphysiology and The New Covenant of Peace, under the name "G. Modeste Abdoullah," listing the author as "G. Mahmud Ahmad Abdoullah" of Algiers. In 1935, during the exact years Neville was studying with him in Manhattan, a suite of nine songs was registered under the same name, listing his home address as 30 West 72nd Street. That's a federal paper trail putting the Algiers-born baritone from Arctic Avenue at the same New York building Neville named, in the same years Neville named is a legal record rather than an inferred pattern.
Does the turban Neville described match the historical photos of this man?
It does, once the right photos are used. Neville's lecture descriptions of Abdullah's "turbaned head" didn't match the earlier-known Atlantic City photos from 1911–1920, which show him in ordinary suits and hats as a bel canto professor. Those are simply from before his mystical-teacher years. Since found, 1909 studio portraits from Columbus, Ohio, show him in full Ethiopian/Abyssinian stage robes and a large turban, worn during his run in the Broadway hit "Abyssinia." That resolves the apparent mismatch: Neville's memory of the turban was accurate. Separately, the turban photos that circulate online as "Abdullah" are actually of Arnold Josiah Ford, misattributed based on a composite-identity theory rather than a documented match to Neville's teacher; Ford himself is excluded elsewhere in this research on chronological grounds.
Isn't "Abdullah" too common a name to identify anyone specific?
It's a common name in the Middle East and North Africa generally, but the research finds it was unusually rare as a recorded American name in this exact period. Social Security Administration birth-name data from 1930–1934 shows no measurable use of "Abdullah" or its main variants as an American birth name; the name's first measurable appearance in that dataset is 1972, consistent with immigration patterns after 1965. The handful of publicly visible American men using the name in the 1920s–40s were concentrated in immigrant, literary, theatrical, or adopted professional identities, examples include the novelist Achmed Abdullah and the Syrian-born actor Abdullah Abbas which narrows rather than widens the pool of plausible candidates from this period.
Does Abdullah's age, as Neville described it, actually work out?
Not cleanly, and this is treated as a genuine open problem rather than something resolved. Working from Neville's own numbers of meeting Abdullah around 1929–1931 at an age he described as late eighties to about ninety, last seeing him in person in 1956, and hearing via his secretary of a planned return to Ethiopia around 1957, the math implies a birth year of roughly 1839–1843, which would make Abdullah about 113 to 118 years old by 1956–1957. That's well beyond Neville's own looser description of him as simply "over a hundred." The research doesn't try to explain this gap away at this point; it's presented plainly as a place where Neville's numbers, taken literally, strain credulity.
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