“Change your mental diet’
Neville Goddard
Transcribe by Gary Jackman
@00:03
I am really glad you came tonight. For I have a story to tell you. The one who gave it to me is here tonight.
But I will prepare you for it first. For I’ve been teaching this for years and years and years. We can hear it and never apply it. And although I repeat night after night. We are the operant power – it doesn’t operate itself. We still postpone it. Quite often our training is in conflict with it and we can’t quite bring ourselves to apply it.
We are told in the 118th solm. “The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. This is the Lord’s doing. It is marvelous in our sight.”
@1:08
Many years ago sitting in the silence, thinking of nothing in particular, my eyes closed in contemplation but not really think of any one particular thing.
Suddenly a stone appeared before my eyes – about that size, huge quartz.
And here this quartz shattered, fragmented itself into many, many pieces. And then quickly reassembled itself, but this time into the human form, seated in the lotus posture.
@1:45
As I looked at it, I saw it was myself – I am actually looking at myself.
I became so emotionally lifted. As I looked at it, it began to glow and then it reduced the intensity of, well I would say well light of the sun and then it exploded and then I awoke.. in my chair.
The stone that I had rejected was myself. I could not believe that I myself was the cause of the phenomena of my life.
@2:29
I thought he did it, she did it, they did it, the world did it. But certainly I am not responsible. These things happen because others are the causes.
And here I am looking at the stone which the balder rejected. This is marvelous said he is the Lord’s doing and his marvelous in our sight.
@2:54
When we actually see this world as a world of appearance behind which the reality of imagining lay. We find the truth. All those things exist in the human imagination. By that I mean, the individual’s imagination.
@3:20
In your own bosom. You bear your heaven and your earth and all that you will be whole. Though it appears without it is within – in your imagination – of which this world of mortality is but a shadow.
@3:39
Now you and I will call ourselves either Christians or Jews – both are the same really.
The Jew is the foundation stone, it is the tree.
Christianity is its fulfillment, it is the fruit..
but the tree is Judaism. And all that it actually contains will come out eventually in a plan – a wonderful plan and it was there in the beginning of time. And that we call Christianity.
@4:11
Blake said.
“I know of no other Christianity
and no other gospel,
than the liberty,
both of body and mind,
to exercise the divine art of imagination.”
Then he adds,
“the Apostles knew no other gospel”
and their worship of God is using his gift. And then states,
“God becomes as we are,
that we may be as he is.”
@4:55
Now what is the gift? He also mentions that.
The gift – he says,
“Man is all imagination
and God is man
and exist in us, and we in him.
The eternal body of man
is the imagination
and that is God Himself”
The divine body Jesus.
Now as you are seated here. That’s all about you. Your own wonderful human imagination is the God of the universe. That is the one spoken of as the Lord Jesus. That’s the one.
Is it really true?
Well you’re called upon to test it test – test it and see if it’s true.
@5:50
Now have a letter on me tonight. I really should read it but I’m not going to read it, I should read it just as you wrote it, but I’ll tell you the contents of the letter.
This gentleman hasn’t been here in years. The last time I saw him with the Ebell Well you know who had been coming since the Ebell know how long that has been.
He said, I must tell you this story. It may not make sense, but I must tell it. For the first time that I have ever used my training, according to the things that I have heard you say.
@6:35
I am a psychologist and I wasted years trying to talk people out of their mental problems. When I could easily have imagined them whole and unhappy.
@6:50
Now here is the story.
He said:
A friend of mine, this lady, claimed that she was in many ways abnormal.
She and her husband adopted a little baby girl and something very strange went wrong – with the child.
The child was four years old and still could not speak and the few words were muttered, it garbled so it simply not intelligible.
But in the four years talking to her there was progress.
Then one day she said to me, I do not feel any longer that I am abnormal So now I say to myself I am not abnormal.
He tried to explain to her that that’s not quite the approach. and then he broke the thought and he told me this story:
@8:03
For instance in my own case. I find a home that I want. I begin to imagine that I’m living in that home. And then. Doubt sets in.
With the result that that doubt materializes into a person. And that person has more money than I have, and he buys the home, leaving me out in the cold.
@8:38
I know from that experience that every person in my world only reflects a mood in me. Everyone that I meet whether I know them or a stranger who buys a home that I wanted.
When the doubt set in, the doubt materialized into a person. I did know him . But he only reflects that mood of doubt in me. So he has brought money and he buys a home and I am out in the cold.
So I reconstructed a sentence for this lady and I said no longer must you say, I am not abnormal. You must now begin to say, I am perfectly normal.
She said, I do not feel that – he said, I do not care whether you feel it or not. You must begin to persuade yourself that you are perfectly normal by repeating what in yourself. I am perfectly normal.
@9:47
The day she began it the child went into a coma. So profound was the sleep that it was difficult to rouse her – she could not be awakened.
@10:05
She asked me to examine the child. I said, no take her to a medical clinic and have them examine the child.
But as she began from his suggestion to assume I am perfectly normal. Within 24 hours the child awoke. They made the test in the medical center and found her alert and bright.
@10:35
She was only the out pictured statement of that mother who adopted her.
The mother began to feel, ‘I am abnormal’… So she adopts a little child – a girl and a girl of 4 years couldn’t talk.
And when she began, it was all garbled – it made no sense. She only bore witness to that strange peculiar claim of the mother who adopted her.
and when she changed the pattern of speech within her and said I am perfectly normal. The child – by the medical clinic found her not only alert but perfectly healthy and returning to a normal state in this world.
@11:24
The whole vast world is yourself pushed out. All that you behold though appears without, it is within – in your own wonderful human imagination of which this world of mortality is but a shadow.
@11:46
Why?
I found him. I found him of whom the prophet spoke.
They spoke of Jesus and the world is taught to believe is a man who lived 2000 years ago and who was crucified 2000 years ago and I am telling you he is crucified on humanity, and the one crucified on humanity is man’s own wonderful human imagination,
That’s Jesus and there is no other Jesus, that is Jesus. He is buried in man, he is the dreamer in man and he is dreaming this dream of life.
@12:30
What are we feeding him?
Well, I’ll tell you what we feed him, because he is capable of anything in this world.
And listen to these words from Deuteronomy the 32nd chapter, the 39th verse of Deuteronomy. And these are the words of the Lord speaking:
“I kill. And I make alive. I wound and I heal and there is none that can deliver out of my hands. ”
@13:02
There is only one creative power in the world. The one who kills is the one who makes alive. The one who wounds is the one who heals and there is no other power than this ONE power and that one power is your own wonderful human imagination. That is God. There is no other God. He is buried in you and the day will come he will awaken within you.
@13:33
When. I trust it is now.
That I could turn you from this world of seeming reality on the outside to a world of imagination. So you actually live in your own wonderful human imagination.
If you do and you you’re really put into a being who believes in the reality of his own imaginal acts. You are then on the verge of rebirth.
It does not say when. He tells you no one knows not even the sun, only the Father don’t ask me when said he.
But I will tell you the signs of it.
When you actually begin to trust your own wonderful human imagination. When you can sit quietly all alone asking help of no one and really believe that your imaginal act is a creative fact and that in the interval of time necessary it’s good to externalize itself and become a reality in your world. You are on the verge of rebirth
@14:41
As you’re told, “unless you are born again you cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven” Even though the kingdom of heaven is within you.
The kingdom of God is within you and God is in his Kingdom.
Although he is in his kingdom and that kingdom is in you. You can’t enter it.
Unless, you turn from this world of materiality believing it is the cause, believing it is the reality to live in your own wonderful human imagination.
@15:16
When you do you will find yourself on the very verge of being reborn.
So your warned, do not ask me when. I will tell you, not even the Sun knows. Only the Father
But I’ll give you the symptoms of it – when you can trust your own wonderful human imagination, that will be the symptom.
@15:41
Can I stand here tonight and take any requests, it doesn’t cost me anything and it’s a joy. If it’s within what I call the Golden Rule:
” Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Ask nothing of me if you would not ask for yourself.”
Do not ask me to hear any news in this world. That you would not really want done to you. Because first of all I could not do it, I use the Golden Rule.
@16:11
Then if it comes within the framework of the golden rule, it’s so easy. What would the feeling be like if it were true, that you are what you want to be, that they are what they want to be, that they have what they want to be.
Don’t ask me how it’s going to happen, I do not know.
@16:34
The depths of your own being has ways and means that you the conscious surface being no not of. It knows exactly how to do it. So don’t ask how it would be done.
@16:44
So when doubt sets in – as he said in his letter to me. When that doubt set in, that doubt materialized in the form of a person, who also wanted that home and had more money and bought it and left me out in the cold.
@17:02
I can tell from the uprising of moods within me that I’m going to meet certain people and I do.
The mood – you can suppress mood. As Churchill said, “the moods determined the fortunes of people rather than the fortune’s determine the mood”
Don’t ignore that great man. He said that the mood actually determines the fortunes. So I catch a mood or then catch the mood of your wish fulfilled.
What would the feeling be like if it were true? Imagine the wish fulfilled what would it be like? How would I feel if it were true?
In spite of all things round about to deny it. You walk as though it were true and in a way that you do not know and you need not know, it would externalize itself within you world and you will actually receive it.
.
@18:00
Listen to these words, “with God all things are possible” that you will read in the 19 chapter of the book of Matthew.
Now we’ll go to the ninth chapter of the book of Mark: “All things are possible to him who believes” He equates God with the believer in man, “All things are possible to him who believe,” – that Mark.
@18:31
Matthew – “with God all things are possible” – so he equates the believer in man with God. Well, the believe in me is my own wonderful human imagination.
What other thing in man, but is reality which is imagination that believes, is the dreamer in man. I go to bed at night and I dream.
The dreamer and the waking I are one of the same being. Can I believe or am I going to allow certain doubts.
@19:03
Now he is a psychologist. Trained to talk people out of their mental problems, put them on the couch, put them on the chair and talk them out of it and spend years.
When he could easily – as he confessed – have imagined them whole and perfect and happy.
But he said, I believe that I was – through my training – compelled to spend these awkward years as anyone who works at a job. Spends – his time – in an awkward manner.
If you’re not enjoy what you’re doing then it’s simply a job and you’re doing something that is to you awkward.
If you like it, like my brother Victor, who has made a fortune.
The very smell of the ship, the very smell of the boat, the smell of his store, he loves it. He goes in the morning and the odor of his store.
I can’t stand it.
He goes into the grocery store and everything about it – he just loves the odor. All the combinations of the odors of the grocery store.
He goes into his department store, all the things of the department store – likes the odor it affects him – he loves it. Goes to a hotel and the rest is all naturally in service, that affected him and he loves it so loved it
He is the mood of success.
@20:33
So fall in love with something that really excites you and feel that you are already what you want to be.
And I tell you from my own experience and from this man’s experience that it will work.
@20:47
Now here is a man who heard me years ago.
He came home one day – and I thought now here’s a man teaching people how to live correctly – and I had two books, they are completely out of print, you can’t buy them. But I thought – if I could get them to someone doing this kind of work, who is serious – he’s a trained psychologist – I’ll give them to him – so I gave him the books.
I don’t think he’s read them.
First of all they are named after the mountains of Switzerland, Zermatt and Kopelman but it’s all imagination. The man who wrote it – I presume he is gone now, he was 94 when I last heard from him – but I gave him these books.
They weren’t new and completely out of print. You can’t get the books you might find then some – second hand – but they were never popular books because they’re very volumous books, but he wrote them in the form of a dialogue, like a Plato.
He introduced five characters and each one with a scientist one with a philosopher. One was the mystic one was something else.
And they all discussed and he had the central one who was the mystic explaining the phenomena and the cause of the phenomena of life.
@22:14
And so he wrote these volumes and I gave them to him.
I asked him the other night because he is her for the second time – in years.
And he mentioned – the way he told me about them – I don’t really think you really read them with understanding or really read them. Because it’s told like Plato would tell a story – introducing characters because one person is speaking as the scientist as the mystic as the philosopher as the atheist – he had them all present only five characters.
But the books are complete on imagination. And it’s called the Zermatt dialogues and the Overland dialogues.
And I went down to the bookstore in Long Beach called Acres of Books looking for them. And old Mr. Smith, he is gone now, he was then in his 80s .- And I was looking all over – the philosophical Department and the other departments. Oh, he said, ‘you wouldn’t find them there. You’ll find them under Switzerland – the mountain”. He didn’t know the content of the book – “Go over to the place and look under Switzerland” and there they were.
@23:28
So I found my two books and I parted with them and I gave them to him in the hope that because he is a psychologist – a trained one – that these were show him that causation is all imagination, that imagining creates reality.
@23:47
What am I imagining? So they came to him – the embodied of imagination and they said “you haven’t eaten” and they were concerned because he had been left alone and he had not eaten and he said “I have food you know not of.”
And the food is, what are you feeding your imagination. morning noon and night.
You read the morning paper and you react and you don’t know one character there – any of them – and you react even before you get to the end of the page based upon some biased reporter.
But you react. That’s what you fed the Lord for the Lord is your own wonderful human imagination that God and there is no other God.
That is the Jesus of Scripture. That’s the Jehovah of the old testament and he is housed in you. That’s why you are immortal so you can drop right now.
May I tell you it would no difference to your immortality. Chop up your head burn you and turn it into dust. You are an immortal being. You cannot cease to be because God became as you are – that you may be as he is.
And so you’re going through these – with these strange peculiar diets and we simply produce what we feed – what we feed upon..
@25:12
You can learn a lesson from the.. animal world.
When we were children we had ducks, chickens – all kinds of things that you have a farm.
And we were a large family. There were ten children nine boys and one girl and we had a father mother and grandmother all living in our home.
And mother would say to us “take said two or three ducks.. and put them away. Because I want them.. – in two weeks and I want to have a duck dinner.” So you take the three ducks and you put them away.
@25:437
What she meant that you would change their diet because when I was a boy fish was plentiful and cheap you could bring in all kinds of fish. We had no refrigeration. So if it wasn’t sold in the early evening, it rotted. So you simply either use it for strange bait the next day or you feed the.. animals – that is.. the ducks .
So we would take the fish.. while we kept them alive and they fed on ducks. Ohah.. on fish. And they got fat and they were all together healthy.
But you couldn’t eat that bird. Until you took it and isolated it and put it in a cage by itself and stuffed it..
With Mmeal, corn, sour milk. Anything of that nature. And at the end of Ten days that bird having been fed Only on, say milk or corn or anything you had of that nature, The whole system change.
And so when you cook it. It was like a milk fed bird.
If you didn’t do it you couldn’t eat it – It’s all fish.
And I would know I am – I can see it now in my mind’s eye. My mother said “Now Neville get a few ducks and put them away”
and I am playing cricket and playing soccer – I forgot it.
When I remembered it was only about five days before. So I took the ducks and put them away, but five days was not enough to purge it completely of the fish.
Well, you could smell that All Over the neighborhood on sunday afternoon we’re going to have Ducks and we knew we couldn’t have ducks because you couldn’t eat it.
You look at a Duck and you’re eating fish.
So it repulsed everyone – of course we got a good spanking for it because.. we didn’t do what mother commanded us to do the time that she told us.. to do it.
Well that is just like everything else in this world, you FEED as he says, ‘I have food you know not of.” You feed for a few days, A couple of weeks on a changed mental diet.
In this case in 24 hours when she took the diet that he gave her. I am perfectly normal.
The child went into a Deep Deep Sleep from which she could not be awakened without a struggle. And then the clinic say why she is not only bright, but she’s healthy he’s completely right.
She was simply the out pictured at stake with that girl lived with what she said. “I am abnormal in many ways.”
You’ll take a new diet tonight and just like the duck and it may take you a day it may take you two week. It may take you two weeks But if you actually persist in the change diet. You will out picture that diet, change your diet and your whole vast world will change.
@28:40
We are the only beings to whom he gives speech he actually became man. And this inner speech is a marvelous gift. And you can’t stop what you’re doing good morning noon and night.
You go to bed talking to yourself. You wake in the morning talking to yourself
and whether if someone present or not you’re still talking to yourself.
You walk the street.. some are obvious when they do it. But most of us are not that obvious.. But we doing it anyway.
We are carrying on little mental conversations with ourselves.
@29:15
But what are we carrying on, argument? or.. are we boldly affirming and asserting that I AM and then name what I want to be?
In her case he gave her what she should say and she argued with him and she couldn’t say because.. I do not feel that yet.
“Don’t wait to feel it” he said. He said to her,
DO IT NOW. – I am perfectly normal.
Because, if you say: I am not abnormal.
..that’s not a creative thing towards your goal.
In fact.. it may be distructive
You want something positive not something negative – I am not abnormal. I am perfectly normal
Then the child – the out pictured self.
So everyone in your world is yourself pushed out,
blame no one! Don’t even blame yourself. Just change the diet.
They only reflect what you have been doing and maybe still doing.
When you see it you change the diet. And the diet is simply words – all within you.
So you assume that you are now the man or woman that you want to be. Walk in that assumption as though it were true. Living it just as though it is true.
And then who knows – that diet will not take more than 24 hours.
I’m quite sure it will not take more than a few weeks to project itself, in a way that you do not know.
How do you know this little duck and I am speaking from experience. I’m not telling you a story that someone told me. I was the one spanked for not catching those ducks.. The very day the order was given! ..and mother was a kind of a disciplinarian that she always kept her word
.. if she promised you a bicycle and she gave you a bike because you would do something. She kept it.
if she promised you a beating, if you didn’t do something.. She kept that to. She was a great disciplinarian.
@32:15
I came back during the first world war. I went on a schooner.. to what is now called the Virgin Islands.
Then they were owned by Denmark Santa Cruz. What is now St. Thomas and then St. John. We bought them during the war the first world war.
That is we in America bought them.
But then I was a British subject and I went them on a schooner to get cattle because we did raise cattle in Barbados and we needed the meat.
And they had the dairies all Denmark.. Denmark on them so there are dairy people. Bought the cattle put aboard the ship and started back for Barbados
..and we are becalmed off Martin.
The morning has a huge mountainous volcano.
We are out of sight of the others so they couldn’t rescue us and there’s no radio in those days ..no possibility of contacting the mainland
And there we are simply drifting not moving an inch in the course of a day and the cattle are dying. They’re all dying.
@ 32:16
We were eight days late coming into Barbados and all the cattle are gone. from the bilge and the lack of food – the lack of water.
And I thought well? Now when I came home.. there would be so happy to see me ..because I thought I was gone because the submarine.. the German submarines were shooting at everything in the area. Even a little schooner.
So I came in and I came home they all were to me with open arms.
But that very day mother said to me.. “I don’t want you to go out to the sun you’ve had enough sun on that schooner for these many days at sea.”
– I must have been two weeks at sea and no possibility of any shade – burnt to a crisp. – “Don’t go out.”
Well I had guinea pigs and I had rabbit. I had to go and see how my guinea pigs and rabbits were coming on. But she told me not to go.
I think.. it’s my first day home.. certainly mother will not hold it against me. So.. I went out. Disobeying her order.
Well I came back in she said, “did I tell you not to go out?”
Yes mother. I thought.. Well? Now after all.. This is my first day.
She thought I was dead. Here I am.. Resurrected!!
That didn’t pacify her at all!! she took off that shoe. And she wainged me and she let me have it! She was the most marvelous disciplinarian…
She promised you what – You got it. If she promised you anything, you got it, including the wipping.
@ 33:45
So I’m telling you a change of diet and in our case we are the Lord and the Lord feast upon words – he is the word.
And so what are you saying to yourself in the course of 24 hours?
I mean… What I am this, I am that, change it completely, CHANGE IT. And say within yourself, I am happily, blissfully remarried. If that’s my objective life.
Reason denies it, your senses deny it. I am blissfully happy and sleep as though it were true.
I can tell you that story from my own personal experience. It works that way.
And when I told the details of how it happened, people saw the means employed – Which I certainly didn’t manufacture them, not consciously – and judge me harshly for telling the means.
But as you’re told in scripture.. I have ways and means you know not of my ways are past finding out. All you do is simply go on then you die.
@4:53
For when found the girl to whom I’m now married ..and blissfully happy with her since the day I met her back in 1936.
I was completely involved. I wasn’t divorced and in those days – in New York City – our divorce was out.
It only became legal after the very very very wealthy Rockefeller got his outside and then brought pressure bear on the state. to pass a decent modest normal modern law, allowing people who cannot live together to separate and then seek a normal divorce.
Prior to that all divorces were simply collusion. All divorces, you paid someone to find someone and then they signed these things. You went before the judge and they all knew it was collusion anyway.
But here I am completely involved – in marriage ..and I want to marry this girl.
I met her. The very first second I saw..
– she doesn’t know it, but, she is going to be my wife.. She doesn’t know it yet. ..And simply, I slept as though we were blissfully happy. She on that bead and I’m on my bed.
It wasn’t a sect act. It was simply she was there in the room in our lovely home and I was in my bed as she was on her bed so I didn’t make an emotional thing of that nature.
And the girl who was my former wife who refused – she even left the state so as not to be given a summons.
One day I got a call from the court telling me to come on down. They needed my advice.
I went to the court, wondering, what am I doing go to the court in the morning?
– When they brought her in – And I pleaded her case before these three judges,
..and she said to me, after I got her off,
“That was a very decent thing for you to do Neville, and I know you want a divorce. Give me the papers.”
I didn’t have the papers on me. ..And she and I got into a taxi and road to my hotel and I gave her the papers. Now that’s supposed to be illegal.. So I’m told now – you can serve your own papers – Well I didn’t know then.
Give her the papers and I got my divorce – in the city of New York.
So I know it works. It took me one week to do it. That’s all that it took me – one week.
I simply went sound sleep in the assumption that my wife was there.. and it’s the girl to whom I’m now married and who bore us this glorious daughter. And it’s been since 1936.
So hear this heavenly state was denied me because I wasn’t feeding myself the right food. “I have food you know not of” and the food are words. and you’re repeat them within yourself. What am I saying?
As Blake said ” oh what have I said.
What have I done? All, all powerful human words.
What have I said? What have I done?
All, all powerful human words.
@38:14
If men only realize what he is doing what he’s talking seemingly idling
..to our thoughts.
…Who cares,
..who knows?
Who Knows? The only one that cares knows ..and he has your own wonderful human imagination – that is God.
That’s the Jehovah of the Old Testament and the Jesus of the new, and there is no other God, – and he’s buried in you and he’s dreaming in you.. and surly you want to awake.
..but you will awake the day that you actually move in to the life of imagination. But you trust your imagination and live in it. You are not far from the threshold of rebirth
But I can’t tell you the day or the hour. No one is but the Father and the father is your own wonderful human imagination.
I saw it so clearly.
@39:10
This is the stone that the builders rejected.
But what the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone. It was the Lord’s doing and it is marvelous in our site.
So I rejected the fact that I was the cause of the phenomena of my life. I couldn’t believe it. I thought everyone outside of myself caused it.
Then I realized when I saw the vision, here is a stone, a quartz and it fragmented into numberless parts.
As He said, the one who bought the home – that’s a fragmented part of my own being, My doubt brought him into being. He materialized my doubt, a man a person and he brought the home I wanted because he had more money – I materialized that, it came out of me.
So the whole thing fragmented and when it came together and formed itself into a man… seated in the lotus posture.. and I looked at it – I’m looking at myself
Then I realized, I am the cause, he is the dreamer in me.
One day he’s going to awake from this dream and he wakes,
“I am he and he and I are one.”
@40:35
This is the story I’m trying to tell the whole vast world. Because I know it’s true, and the day will come you will know it’s true. There is no other God than your own wonderful human imagination.
I still would invite you, although I have told you to do it yourself. I still invite you, if you feel uneasy about it, to ask of me. For in the end may I tell you we are one.
Now let us go into the silence.