Biography
Neville Lancelot Goddard was born on February 19, 1905 in St. Louis. Michael, Barbados , in the West Indies, the son of Joseph Nathaniel Goddard, a merchant, and Wilhelmine Née Hinkinson [2] ; Neville was the fourth child in their family of nine boys and a girl.
He came to the United States to study theatrical art at the age of seventeen (in September 1922 ), and while on tour with his dance troupe across England , he caught the taste for metaphysics after a casual conversation with a Scotland who lent a series of books on “the power of mind.” On his return, he gave up the entertainment industry to devote his whole attention to the study of spiritual and mystical issues.
His interest intensified after meeting Abdullah, who preached esoteric Christianity .
Neville went to hear Abdullah somewhat of the need to have a friend. The Story, “I remember the first night when I met Abdullah. I have been postponing myself to go to any of his meetings because a man in whose judgment I did not trust still insist on attending. At the end of the meeting, Ab approached me and said, “Neville, you’re six months late.” Surprised, I asked him how he knew how he was calling me, and he said, “My brothers told me six months ago that you were coming.” Then he added, “I’ll stay here until you’ve got all I have to give you. Only then will I leave. ‘ And he had longed to leave, but he had to wait for me . ”
After this meeting, Neville studied with Abdullah, teaching Hebrew, the Kabbalah and the hidden meanings of Holy Scripture .
After traveling across the United States, Neville eventually settled in Los Angeles where, since the 1950s, he has lectured on radio and television as well as regular public conferences .
Themes and approaches
His entire work revolves around the mystical interpretations of the passages in the Bible, of bringing the esoteric into exoterics: “Instead of looking at the Bible as a historical record of an ancient civilization or as a biography of the unusual life of Jesus, see it as a great the psychological drama that takes place in the consciousness of man. Assume the drama as yours, and you will suddenly transform your world from the deserted deserts of Egypt into the Promised Land of Canaan. ” (” At Your Command “, an unofficial translation of” At Your Command “in 1939 ).
In the lectures [4] [5] [6] and his early books, Neville mainly addressed what he called the “Law , ” the technique of creating your physical reality through imagination, being correlated with the teachings of the so-called movement “New Thought”.
Describing the Law, Neville evokes personal episodes, telling how he traveled from New York to Barbados [7] during the [Great Economic Crisis] without any ban, how, using the power of imagination, he was honored at the fireplace, and continues the lectures during the Second World War, but also confessions collected from his listeners over time. Speaking to Los Angeles television, he said, “Learn to use your power of imagination with love, for the benefit of others, because Man is heading for a world where everything is an effect of his imagination . ”
One of the repeated suggestions in the preaching of the “Law” is that of “revision.” The review aims to change reality by imagining the events that we would have liked to do otherwise. This type of meditation consists in imagining a scenario based on the circumstances of the undesired event but with a favorable ending.
In 1959 , he began to experience what he later called “Promise” . He wrote later, “I did not know of the Promise until I began to live it, revealing myself in me . ”
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, Neville accentuated the “Promise” rather than “the Law”. You can use your power of imagination to change your circumstances, he said, but it would only be temporary, “… and it will be lost as smoke . ” Continue, explaining that “Promise” prevails over “the Law,” because, “Oh, you can use it (” the Law “) to make fortune, become famous in the world; all this is possible, but your real purpose is to fulfill the Scriptures . ”
In the last years of life he said, [8] “I know my time is short. I ended the work I was sent to do, and now I am anxious to go. I know I will not appear in this three-dimensional world any more, for the ‘Promise’ is fulfilled in me. And where I go, I will know you there as I know you here, because we are all brothers, loving us infinitely with each other . ”
Neville’s theological vision of “Promise” evokes a cosmogony of union with the Father (self-consciousness, the higher self) after death, the respective union being the very purpose of each of us, the purpose of whose path is described in the Bible – a psychological drama is common to every human being. He was saying “Promise” that “It’s not winning; is a gift, it is grace and blessing in its entirety. The divine promise is unconditional; The divine law is conditional ” [9] and comes at the right time.
Neville Goddard died at age 67, on October 1, 1972 , in Los Angeles .
Original Source: https://ro.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neville_Goddard