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Neville Goddard (1905–1972), recounted dozens of personal stories of his finances in his lectures based on his own and his family’s rags-to-riches story. Neville’s father, for example, Joseph Nathaniel Goddard, started out as a laborer and rum blender in a two-room chattel house in St. John parish and went on to build Goddard Enterprises, a company which included grocery stores, bakeries, hotels and many other businesses. Beginning about 1890 as a store clerk in Bridgetown, Joseph operated a bar and meat stall by 1898, an icehouse partnership in 1900 and established J.N. Goddard & Sons in 1921 with his son Victor. (see How Neville Goddard’s Family Built Their Fortune: Rags to Riches, Rum, and Reinvention)

Neville was born in 1905. In 1900 his father partners with an icehouse on Broad Street (selling imported block ice). Expands reach; ice initially luxury for upper class, but builds business. They were not wealthy. In 1920 ( his father at age 46) goes into a independent in food business.

From The Bajan and South Caribbean No. 296 July 1978. pages 33-44

Although Victor Goddard went to Harrison College and then took a course in Business Administration at Ontario Business College in Belleville, Ontario, the story of “Old Joe” as he became known in the city, reads like a best seller. It is certainly the Barbadian rags to riches tale of the century, and in order to illustrate the contrast between the twenty million dollar enterprise he left functioning when he died and the humble circumstances from which he came, even a brief account of his early life is worth recording.

The company expanded rapidly in the 1930s–1940s with acquisitions of bakeries like Johnson & Redman (1936), entry into department stores and hotels (1943), acquisition of C.F. Harrison (1944) and expansion into airline catering post-WWII with properties like the Crane, Marine, and Windsor Hotels. At the time of Joseph Nathaniel Goddard’s death in 1959, the enterprise was worth around $20 million (USD), which is a staggering accomplishment in the very small economy of Barbados. This “Barbadian rags to riches story” provided each of Joseph’s ten children (including Neville) with their own independence and wealth in 1951 and later 1959 (Joseph’s death). Neville received an equal share of the estate, even though he had never been involved in the operation of the business. From “Order Your Conversations Aright”:

Now, he started behind the 8-ball. He had himself, my mother, my grandmother, and the ten of us to feed, plus a few servants. It was not easy. But when he died in 1959, he could leave his ten children – because my mother preceded him by many years, and he never remarried. She died in ’41, and he said, “No, I’ve been so blissfully happy with your Mother, I could not ever get married again,” so he remained single until he died at the age of 85. But when he died, that poor man could leave a family of ten independently wealthy – each, not just collectively. He gave it to each individually as a block of stock in the company, just to the ten of us. In 1951 it was then equal to an independent income for each of us. It has tripled since he gave it to us when he died in 1959, under the control of my brother Victor, who practices the same thing.

 

*This entire table is an approximation In terms of Neville’s personal finances, he went from low wage jobs in New York to vaudeville fame, spiritual lecturer and eventually an heir. When Neville arrived in NYC in 1922 at age 17, he made $22/week at J.C. Penney (he lost his job after 1.5 years due to an economic downturn) and $18/week at Macy’s (he quit after a year and still had no savings). From “Speaking from Experience” 5/8/64

Rare Moment of Transparency of Early Family Financial Support

While Joseph Nathaniel Goddard was acquiring the Ice House (1924) and Kensington Plantation (1926), Neville was living on a clerk’s wage in New York. It appears the family wealth wasn’t subsidizing Neville’s lifestyle in New York, but was a “custodial safety net” for the family he was no longer supporting: his first wife, Mildred Mary Hughes (March 29, 1901 – November 9, 1979), he married on October 13, 1923, and their son, Joseph Neville Goddard (May 19, 1924 – March 1, 1986).

In a rare moment of transparency in 1965, Neville while trying to illustrate one of his points, reveals the intersection of family money and his personal obligations:

“A rich man need not be rich in dollars and sense. The first Beatitude gives us a very clear picture of what he means by wealth, because he speaks of the poor in spirit, ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of God’ (Matthew 5:3). Well, there are very few people poor in spirit that feel…I got a letter today from my ex-wife pleading with me to go and join the Jehovah’s Witnesses, and sent me all kinds of things. Well, she sends these things every week, sends all these things, and then asks you for an extra twenty dollars. Jehovah is her only supply. But suddenly they call me Jehovah because I’m her supply. So she wants an extra twenty for this or an extra twenty for that, and she only has one supply. One day, my father gave her a very large sum of money. She took it, then she said to him, ‘You know, the only God that I recognize is my Jehovah. He’s the only one that gives me anything.’ My father said—he was very quick on the trigger—‘They’ve called me everything in this world but God, and now they’ll call me God.’ God is my only supply…he’d just given her a very large sum of money when she pulled this line on him.” God’s Law (1965)

The Divergent Timelines (1921–1933)

The $500 a Week Dancing Career

So you take it this night and take a large sum. If anyone had told me when I worked at Macy’s for, what, eighteen dollars a week and did everything in the place for eighteen bucks, if anyone told me then that I would in the not too far future be making five hundred dollars a week, why, I would have laughed at them. But I did. One day I quit Macy’s. I don’t mean fired. I was fired from Penney, J. C. Penney. So I worked for J. C. Penney and they gave me twenty-two dollars a week, and one day they fired me. I asked them why, what have I done that’s wrong? They said, “Nothing wrong, but we have an economy in this country that when things are slow we let people off. You’ve been working here for a year and a half, and so we just simply have to economize, and so you have to go.” I said, “Where I come from you fire a person because he’s done something that is wrong…that if I’ve stolen or if I’ve done something that is wrong causing the company loss, fire me, but don’t fire me because of certain strange trends in this world.” “But that’s how we operate,” they said to me.

In 1925, he had a dance career, making $500/week in the U.S. and £100/week (~$484–$500 USD) in London, touring various venues including Ciro’s (London), Wintergarten (Berlin) and Ambassador (Paris).

From Neville Goddard: A Portrait by Israel Regardie

I want to emphasize that Neville was a success in the dramatic world. He did not retire from the stage to metaphysics because he was a flop. Not at all. His salary from the theatre at times ran to $500 per week—a sum not usually earned by failures. This is important to know. It will help dispel the popular notion that only failures and “life-dyspeptics” go in for metaphysics.

Note: During his early career as a professional dancer with his partner Amerique, Neville Goddard headlined prestigious international and U.S. venues, including Ciro’s in London, the Wintergarten in Berlin, the Ambassador in Paris, and major theaters across the Loew’s, RKO, and Keith-Albee vaudeville circuits, such as the Majestic, Palace, and Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. (See photo gallery)

• Performance Venues (1925–1935)
• Ciro’s Club – London, England
• The Winter Garden (Wintergarten) – Berlin, Germany
• The Ambassador – Paris, France
• Keith State Theatre – New Brunswick, NJ (Jan 1926)
• Aldine Theatre – Wilmington, DE (Aug 1926)
• Sam S. Shubert Theatre – New York, NY (My Princess, Oct 1927)
• Club Lido – Boston, MA (Feb 1928)
• Fox Theatre – Brooklyn, NY (Dec 1928)
• Selwyn Theatre – New York, NY (Keep it Clean, June 1929)
• Majestic Theatre – Brooklyn, NY (Broadway Personalities, Dec 1930)
• Loew’s Metropolitan – Brooklyn, NY (Mar 1931)
• RKO Prospect Theatre – Brooklyn, NY (July 1932)
• The Cascades (Hotel Bradford) – Boston, MA (Sept 1935)

The 1929 Depression brought a slow down and eventual end to his vaudeville career and led to financial struggles in the 1930s, with Neville living in basement apartments with no bank account and providing unpaid mentorship to Abdullah.

The Lecturer NYC: 1,000+ People, No Charge

This quote shows that even at the height of his early New York success, Neville prioritized accessibility over a fixed gate fee.

“It was a very cold September night in New York City and I had brought out my book Your Faith Is Your Fortune (1941), and the usual crowd…usually in excess of a thousand. I gave three lectures a week on Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays, Sunday nights. There was no charge just a voluntary offering, so naturally there was no place big enough. I rented a church just off Time Square that sat about 1,100 and it was always crowded.” “The Wonder Working Power of Attachment” (1969)

Neville began giving lectures, initially with no set fee. He transitioned to paid lectures in the mid 1940s. Some examples for reference:

Example #1 Master Class Let’s break down the most famous example from “God’s Purpose” (1971)

But I told him after the meeting, “I did what you asked me to do as of tonight. I was your guest to address those you graduated as teachers, but beginning tomorrow night, I am on my own. Whether I speak in this place or that place, or any place.” And then he said to me, “Well, you’re not going to give your Bible class outsideof here?” I said, “No, I came to give everything under your auspices. It was my agreement—a verbal agreement between gentlemen. If you want to break it, it’s perfectly all right with me.” He said, “No.” I asked, “Where is the room where I’m going to speak?” He said, “That room there.” I said, “Well, that room seats about forty people, doesn’t it?” He said, “Yes, that’s big enough.” He said, “You’re charging $40 for five talks, and I am the head of the institution and I don’t charge more than $25 for my talk.”

I thought, “Well, we are different people.” I am teaching the Bible as I know it, not as others taught me to believe it, and I am not going to speak in this place that seats forty people. I came three thousand miles under my own steam; and I brought my wife, and my daughter, and I brought my niece at my own expense. And I don’t live in a hubble, I am living in an excellent hotel, paying my own way. As I paid my own way out, I’ll pay my own way back. But I am not speaking here. So he said to me, “If you don’t speak here, you can’t speak for me at any place.” That was perfectly all right.

I said to the lady who met me—one of his students—”Go out and rent me a place. I promised that man I’d give him 40% of every penny that comes in, and I will take 60%. I pay my own personal expenses and he simply furnishes the hall.” That’s all. And for that he gets 40. But I was charging $40 for my five talks to be given in one week, Monday through Friday. So he went out and rented a place. He only paid, I think, $90 for the five nights.

And 208 attended that class. He said to me, “What must I do with the money?” I said, “Throw it in the ash can, give me 60% of that money and that’s all that I want, and I don’t care what you do with it.” He did nothing, for me; he tried to rub me out, he tried to stop me at the bloody door. And so you can take the money, 40%, which was a considerable sum of money. You don’t have to be a great genius to multiply 208 by 40 and then take off 40%. And her investment was $90! So she kept it, and he went through the ceiling. He wanted it, yet he did everything to stop me from doing it and now you want it. “No, we have had our day together, and that’s it.”

And so, from then on, I started coming on my own and not under the auspices of anyone else—just a gentleman’s agreement between Fred and myself for a few years I was with Fred. And that’s the story here. Paul did the same thing. And Paul made the confession that what he is talking about, he did not get from a man. He didn’t hear it; he wasn’t taught it. It came through a revelation. And the revelation was the true meaning of Jesus Christ. Then he understood who Christ really was.

Neville emphasizes that he paid his “own way out” and would pay his “own way back.”

Neville did charge for his public lectures and series, but, the fees evolved from relatively inexpensive to quite expensive as the number of people attending his lectures increased. During the 1948–1954 Wilshire Ebell Theatre (LA) era, Neville charged anywhere from $1.10–$3.30 (~$15–$45) for his lectures. By the 1950s–1960s at Scottish Rite (San Francisco), Neville charged anywhere from $1–$2 (~$12–$24), and in 1968 at Marines’ Memorial Club (SF), he charged the same amount. Weekday audiences averaged 500, and he typically charged $2 for each lecture (with the exception of the free Sunday lectures held at Dr. Bailes’ Theater).

Example #2 -1957 Weekly Finance: The Wilshire-Ebell “Indefinite” Series

Based on the September 9 – December 1957 twice-weekly schedule (Monday & Thursday, 8 p.m.). Using $2 as Placeholder (seats ranged) but close enough) and 500 attendees:

• 1957 4 month Net: $19,200
• 2026 Equivalent: ~$222,000–$225,000 estimate based on assumed consistent attendance (real weekly variation was likely and this was peak before getting KTTV gig.)

1957 — Los Angeles — Wilshire-Ebell — Lectures extended indefinitely. Dec 25 article confirms series has run 4 months and will continue into spring 1958.

The 1959 Awakening: An Open Meeting for a Thousand

This source is historically significant because it connects his “Birth from Above”to a meeting where he did not charge a fee, despite the prestige of the venue. Note though that this occurred on July 20, 1959, over three months before his father’s death on October 31, 1959, which led to his large inheritance. Shows a lot of “free” spiritual work while he was still living primarily on his own professional earnings and initial dividends, prior to the major family windfall.

“And you go to sleep as I did in 1959 in this city across the street at the hotel called the Sir Francis Drake. I spoke in the morning to an audience of maybe a thousand people. It was an open meeting – no charge, a voluntary effort, and a thousand came. The morning of July the 20th 1959, this is what happened.” “Signs of the End” (1968)

Neville Private Sessions (Interviews)

One of the questions most frequently sent to CWB regarding Neville is: How much did Neville charge for privates?

Auditing the New York Interview Grind

There is a mathematical mismatch in Neville’s “work ethic” narrative of the “pushing a thousand” claim in 1966 versus his New York schedule.

In the June 22, 1966 lecture Neville’s Thoughts If Leaving Permanently, he states:

“I know after a day of interviews I used to be completely pooped… I’m pushing a thousand… you can’t get that old and just keep on forever.“

In Keep the Sabbath (1967), he details the New York “Office Hours” (approx. 1943–1955):

• Time: 1:00 PM – 5:30 PM (4.5 hours)
• Slots: 30-minute sessions (9 per day)
• Frequency: 5 days a week (45 sessions per week)

He touts the New York grind as being quite intense (“9 half-hour interviews a day”) while claiming to be “gone” and “completely pooped” by 5:30 pm. If he did indeed work this schedule for the 12 years between his Army discharge (March 1943) and his move to LA (1955), he would have met his goal of interviewing 1000 people before his second year was complete.

The schedule sounds like a full-time clinic, but the lifetime total of “pushing a thousand” appears part-time or the “marathons” were limited to short, intense bursts rather than a decade-long, 40-hour unpaid week.

Either way, he gave those sessions away for free.

In this lecture, Neville recounts his first-ever public talk. He began his speaking career with a borrowed five-dollar bill and relied on voluntary offerings and didn’t charge for interviews.

“May I tell you, I started this work back in 1938 on the second day of February. I had nothing. It was with a borrowed five dollar bill to pay the rent… the rent was three dollars and six people came. I didn’t charge. Either through sympathy or embarrassment they each gave a dollar. Then it grew slowly, week after week, month after month… I kept on talking and talking, never stopped, three times a week in New York City… and not charging. In the interval, while I am only hearing good news for others, I would see them. I didn’t charge for interviews; they came home, took all my time.” “Imparting And Implanting The Word”

He refused large payments.

Neville often dealt with wealthy students who wanted to pay for his time. Here, he recounts a specific instance where he refused a payment that would have been worth thousands of dollars today, simply because he “could not turn her away” but refused to profit from her need.

“Well, this lady used to come home, and my mother, er, my mother-in-law, pardon me, my sweetheart, she’d have a fit calling her my mother—but she would say, “You know, you must stop her coming here. I can’t take it any longer.” I said, “Alright, I’ll tell her not to come. But she must still come. I’m drawing her. For some reason or other she’s coming, so I’ve got to accept her. I can’t turn her away.” She would come and she was willing to pay any price in the world. I didn’t charge anything, but she was quite willing to put down a hundred dollars, a thousand dollars. She had money, lots of money. “Take My Yoke”

He clarifies that he charges for meetings only because the venue costs remain the same regardless of the weather or attendance, but his personal “interviews” remain strictly free.

“So I’m asking everyone here to try it. Try it and then above all things share with me. I’m not asking for money; I charge here and I charge for my books; I do not charge for interviews. I’ve never charged for interviews. I don’t care if others do, let them charge, perfectly alright. Let them do exactly what they want. I simply charge when people come to a meeting, because I’m charged for the hall. When it rains and no one comes, they don’t say, well, last night, just a few…I pay the same thing. And so, that’s what I charge, but I don’t charge for other times that I give.“ “Shared Experiences”

Also from 1966,  “Neville’s Thoughts If Leaving Permanently”

 First of all, Ina, whenever you think of Jesus Christ think of Jesus Christ as your own wonderful being, not a “he” out there, walking like a flesh and blood being. It’s your own being, your own Imagination, that’s Jesus Christ. I will not deny wearing these garments of flesh and blood that we do wear them out, they do tire. And so, I know after a day of interviews I used to be completely pooped. I would give my all…I never took it lightly. So when I would say goodbye to the last one at five thirty in the afternoon, oh, the one thing I wanted was a good double or triple Scotch. I was simply completely gone. I was giving all day, and the body simply is an emotional filter. I would go into the Silence and feel intensely the good that someone asked me to hear for them.

So when I broke the spell and I said goodbye to them, took them to the elevator, that was something going out. At the end of a day of that, if you take it seriously you were tired. That’s why I don’t have any interviews. I’m pushing a thousand…you can’t get that old and just keep on forever.

From God’s Law (1965)

When I was in New York and had interviews five days a week, between the hours of one and five, well, five thirty, because I saw half-hour interviews, I found that I got good results if I took one after the other. One would come into this world, and one would go through the door, and the other one is waiting. She had no sooner gone through the door than I gave my entire attention to the request of the next one. I never thought of that other one, because I did all that I could do while she was present. We always sat in the Silence together. All I would ask of anyone who sat with me is to sit quietly, don’t talk, but mentally tell me you have what you sought. I will sit here in a receptive manner and I will hear your voice just as distinctly as I heard it just one minute ago while we were talking. I know exactly what you sound like, and so when you close your eyes and go into the Silence, and I’ll close my eyes and go into the Silence, and although your voice is inaudible to anyone in this world, it is to me, internally. I can hear it. Now, I will put upon this tone that I am hearing, which is your voice, the words I want to hear. So I will then go into the Silence and listen to her voice or his voice, and then at the very end, when it’s broken, it was done. I planted it. So when I said goodbye, I had no concern whatsoever beyond that door. The next one I gave my entire attention, undivided attention to the next one, and tried in the interval to ferret out what they really wanted. Not what happened to them, not what is happening to them, what they really wanted. Because I wasn’t going to analyze anything about them…just tell me what you want…I’ll plant that now. So we go into the Silence and I plant that. All I asked of anyone was to imagine that they were talking to me, but don’t do it audibly. Just tell me in your own sweet, wonderful way that it’s done. Don’t tell me how it happened, because you don’t know how it’s going to happen.

From the Neville Goddard lecture: Keep the Sabbath

Well, my dear, I have said this time and time again…maybe I haven’t done it recently…but years ago in New York City I would devote five days a week between the hours of one and five to personal interviews. I haven’t done it since I left New York, and I will not resume it, it’s very tiring. And so, no more personal contacts, no more personal inter- views for me, just my social world. But I did it for years. But I would find that I would take someone and then lose myself completely in the fulfillment of their request. Then another would come. I gave the other my undivided attention, completely undivided attention; and the next, my undivided attention; and the next…until the very end. And the success was fantastic, because I completely dropped everyone when they went through that door and took the elevator down. They dropped from my mind as much as they dropped down the elevator, and they all got results because I wasn’t concerned. Either I believe it or I don’t believe it. But I believed it. If I believed it, then what am I concerned about?

And so, if anyone ever called me and said, you know so and so…I put the receiver down, put it right down, slammed it in their face. I would not discuss it with them over the phone. Did we not agree on it? Then what are you doing? I put it down. And that may be the one that just simply stopped for one moment my keeping the sabbath relative to them. But the results came, one after the other because I wasn’t concerned after I did it. If imagining creates reality, what am I doing breaking the sabbath?

So in your own case, instead of taking one and making it a huge problem, take five, take six, and take one after the other where you can drop the others. Have you ever seen a hen bringing out her chickens…or you put a bunch of eggs…maybe she has a bunch…and maybe ten will come out and two are addled, so what? That’s ten. So take more than one and take a bunch of lovely things in this world. You wouldn’t even know that one didn’t come out.

From the Neville Goddard lecture: Ask What I Shall Give You (1963)

Depending upon the request for the evening. I’ve had about five or six interviews before coming on the platform tonight, and I made a composite picture, and just simply assume that they all are telling me the things they would like to tell me.

His closest student, Freedom Barry (who taught in San Francisco at Neville’s encouragement from 1960 onward) stated that Neville charged only $1 for public lectures but never for private instruction.

Some Notes on the ‘Barbados’ Ticket:

It is well known that there was an instance in 1933 when Neville’s brother Victor sent him a steamship ticket for his Christmas trip back to Barbados, along with $50. The famous “You are in Barbados Abdullah Story”. We’re intentionally skipping this because it has been dissected online and on Reddit…into oblivion by just about everyone who has ever written about Neville. We’re here for the other receipts that have historically been ignored.