In 1948, Neville Goddard gave a series of five lectures in Los Angeles that many consider to be his clearest and most direct explanation of his teachings. These Five Lessons form a complete master class in the power of consciousness, imagination, and assumption.
Each lesson builds upon the last. Together they give you everything you need to understand — and apply — the Law of Assumption in your daily life.
This is going to be a very practical course. Therefore, I hope that everyone in this class has a very clear picture of what he desires, for I am convinced that you can realize your desires by the technique you will receive here this week in these five lessons.
That you may receive the full benefit of these instructions, let me state now that the Bible has no reference at all to any persons who ever existed or to any event that ever occurred upon earth. The ancient story tellers were not writing history but an allegorical picture lesson of certain basic principles which they clothed in the garb of history, and they adapted these stories to the limited capacity of a most uncritical and credulous people.
Throughout the centuries we have mistakenly taken personifications for persons, allegory for history, the vehicle that conveyed the instruction for the instruction, and the gross first sense for the ultimate sense intended.
The difference between the form of the Bible and its substance is as great as the difference between a grain of corn and the life germ within that grain. As our assimilative organs discriminate between food that can be built into our system and food that must be discarded, so do our awakened intuitive faculties discover beneath allegory and parable, the psychological life-germ of the Bible; and feeding on this, we too cast off the form which conveyed the message.
Before we come to the first of the psychological dramas, let me state the two outstanding names of the Bible: the one you and I translate as GOD or JEHOVAH, and the one we call his son, which we have as JESUS.
They said that God's name was spelled, JOD HE VAU HE. The first letter, JOD, is your I AMness, your awareness. You are aware of being aware — that is the first letter. Out of this awareness all states of awareness come.
The second letter, HE, called an eye, is your imagination, your ability to perceive. You imagine or perceive something which seems to be other than Self. As though you were lost in reverie and contemplated mental states in a detached manner, making the thinker and his thoughts separate entities.
The third letter, VAU, is your ability to feel you are that which you desire to be. As you feel you are it, you become aware of being it. To walk as though you were what you want to be is to take your desire out of the imaginary world and put the VAU upon it. You have completed the drama of creation.
The fourth and last letter in the name of God is another HE, another eye, meaning the visible objective world which constantly bears witness of that which I am conscious of being. You do nothing about the objective world; it always molds itself in harmony with that which you are conscious of being.
You are told this is the name by which all things are made, and without it there is nothing made that is made. You are conscious of being, aren't you? Certainly you are. You are also conscious of something that is other than yourself: the room, the furniture, the people. But you have the capacity to feel what it would be like were you now other than what you are. As you assume that you are that which you want to be, you have completed the name of God — the JOD HE VAU HE.
Now let us turn to the Son's name, for he gives the Son dominion over the world. You are that Son — you are the great Joshua, or Jesus, of the Bible.
The Son's name adds a SHIN and an AYIN to the Father's name. A SHIN is symbolized as a tooth — that which consumes, that which devours. I must have within me the power to consume that which I now dislike. Were there not within me the flames that would consume it, I would be condemned forever to live in a world of all my mistakes.
These are the two names which give you dominion. You have dominion if, as you walk the earth, you know that your consciousness is God, the one and only reality. You become aware of something you would like to express or possess. You have the ability to feel that you are and possess that which but a moment before was imaginary. The final result, the embodying of your assumption, is completely outside of the offices of a three-dimensional mind. It comes to birth in a way that no man knows.
Our next story is in the 38th chapter of Genesis. Here is a King whose name is Judah. Tamar is his daughter-in-law. The word Tamar means a palm tree — the most beautiful, the most comely. Whatever it is that you and I want, what we truly desire, is personified in the story as Tamar the beautiful.
Man has one gift that is truly his to give — and that is himself. You are the great King Judah. Before you can know your Tamar and make her bear your likeness in the world, you must go in unto her and give of self. Suppose I want security. I cannot get it by knowing people who have it. I must become conscious of being secure. Let us say I want to be healthy. Pills will not do it. I must become conscious of being healthy by assuming the feeling of being healthy.
When I walk in that light I give of myself to the image that haunted my mind, and in time she bears me a child — which means I objectify a world in harmony with that which I am conscious of being. You are King Judah and you are also Tamar. When you become conscious of being that which you want to be, you are Tamar. Then you crystallize your desire within the world round about you.
Our third interpretation is the story of Isaac and his two sons: Esau and Jacob. The picture is drawn of a blind man being deceived by his second son into giving him the blessing which belonged to his first son. The story stresses the point that the deception was accomplished through the sense of touch.
And Isaac said unto Jacob, Come near, I pray thee that I may feel thee, my son, whether thou be my very son Esau or not. — Gen. 27:21
As you sit here you too are Isaac. This room in which you are seated is your present Esau — the rough or sensibly known world. What you would like in place of what you have is your smooth skinned state — Jacob, the supplanter.
You do not send your visible world hunting by denial. Instead, you simply remove your attention from the region of sensation which at this moment is the room round about you, and you concentrate your attention on that which you want to make real. The secret is to bring it here. You must make elsewhere HERE and then now. Bring it so close that you can feel it. When this is done and you lose yourself in its reality, you have given it the blessing — and you cannot retract.
The fourth story is from the 34th chapter of Deuteronomy. Moses went up to the mountain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah. Moses means to draw out — the personification of the power in man that can draw out of man that which he seeks. Nebo is your wish, your desire — called a mountain because it appears difficult to ascend. Pisgah means to contemplate. Jericho is a fragrant odor — the feeling of satisfaction. And Gilead means the hills of witnesses — the outer world that comes bearing testimony to your inner state.
I must contemplate my objective until I get the feeling of satisfaction — personified as Jericho. When I feel that I am what I want to be, I cannot suppress the joy that comes with that feeling. Then I do nothing to make it visible in my world; for the hills of Gilead — men, women, children, the whole vast world round about me — come bearing witness. They come to testify that I am what I have assumed myself to be.
The first step in changing the future is Desire — define your objective, know definitely what you want. Second: construct an event which you believe you would encounter following the fulfillment of your desire. The third step is to immobilize the physical body and induce a state akin to sleep. Then mentally feel yourself right into the proposed action, imagine all the while that you are actually performing the action HERE AND NOW.
The difference between FEELING yourself in action, here and now, and visualizing yourself in action as though you were on a motion-picture screen, is the difference between success and failure.
Let no man tell you that you should not have it. What you feel that you have, you will have. Do not discuss it. Do not look to someone for encouragement. It has come. Go about your Father's business doing everything normally and let these things happen in your world.
Tonight, in our second lesson, we shall consider more carefully the technique of changing the future — the art of making your assumptions harden into fact.
Man, by assuming the feeling of his wish fulfilled, alters his future in harmony with his assumption. For assumptions, though false, if sustained, will harden into fact.
The undisciplined mind finds it difficult to assume a state which is denied by the senses. But the ancient teachers discovered that sleep, or a state akin to sleep, aided man in making his assumption. Therefore, they dramatized the first creative act of man as one in which man was in a profound sleep. This not only sets the pattern for all future creative acts, but shows us that man has but one substance that is truly his to use in creating his world — and that is himself.
The sensation which dominates the mind of man as he falls asleep, though false, will harden into fact. Assuming the feeling of the wish fulfilled as we fall asleep is the command to this embodying process, saying to our mood: "Be thou actual."
In this way we become through a natural process what we desire to be. Drowsiness facilitates change because it favors attention without effort. The state between wakefulness and sleep — the hypnagogic state — is the most powerful time to impress the subconscious mind.
I can tell you dozens of personal experiences where it seemed impossible to go elsewhere, but by placing myself elsewhere mentally as I was about to go to sleep, circumstances changed quickly which compelled me to make the journey. I have done it across water by placing myself at night on my bed as though I slept where I wanted to be.
The best way to do this is to concentrate your attention upon the idea of identifying yourself with your ideal. Assume you are already that which you seek, and your assumption, though false, if sustained, will harden into fact.
You will know when you have succeeded by simply looking mentally at the people you know. If you see them as you formerly saw them, you have not changed your concept of self — for all changes of concepts of self result in a changed relationship to your world. We always seem to others an embodiment of the ideal we inspire. Therefore, in meditation, we must imagine that others see us as they would see us were we what we desire to be.
You can satisfy self by appropriating the feeling that you are what you want to be. And this assumption, though false, if persisted in will harden into fact. By actually embodying that which you have assumed you are, you have the capacity to become completely satisfied.
You are told in the story of Rahab that when she went into the city to conquer it, the command given to her was to enter the heart of the city, the heart of the matter, the very center of it, and there remain. Do not go from house to house, do not leave the upper room of the house into which you enter.
Enter the feeling of your fulfilled desire and stay there. Do not waver between the old state and the new. Remain in the upper room — the elevated state of consciousness — and let it harden into your outer world.
Your imaginal act is as much a creative act as a physical one. If you do not reach the point of satisfaction, repeat the action over and over again until you feel as though you touched it and virtue went out of you.
Walk in that assumption and it will harden into fact. Assumptions though false — if sustained — will harden into fact. This is the law. This is the great secret of the ages. Know what you want. Assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled. Sleep in that assumption. And watch your world conform to your inner state.
There are two actual outlooks on the world possessed by every man, and the ancient story tellers were fully conscious of these two outlooks. They dramatized them in the Bible as two distinct, individual men — the natural man and the spiritual man.
The natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. — 1 Cor. 2:14
The spiritual man knows all things. He thinks fourth-dimensionally — from within, not from without. Tonight I will show you how to dwell in that fourth-dimensional consciousness, where past, present, and future exist simultaneously, and where you can choose which future becomes your present.
The fourth dimension is not a place but a state of consciousness. It is the awareness of being, beyond time and space. In the fourth dimension, you do not move toward your desire — you move from your desire, as though it is already accomplished.
When you think fourth-dimensionally, you ask not "How will this happen?" but "How does it feel now that it has happened?" This shift in perspective — from hoping to having — is the entire secret of creation.
During sleep and meditation, the cloud of consciousness ascends into this fourth-dimensional realm and we can influence reality. By assuming the feeling of the wish fulfilled and going to sleep in that mood, the sensation will harden into fact. You are essentially entering a state where you are the actor, and the mental experience will later play out in your objective reality.
In the Bible we read of Jacob's ladder reaching from earth to heaven, with angels ascending and descending upon it. This ladder is the scale of consciousness — from the lowest state to the highest. To ascend the ladder is to lift your consciousness from where you are to where you want to be. It is not movement in space — it is movement in awareness.
The fourth-dimensional thinker lives from the end. He does not wish for health — he is healthy in consciousness. He does not work toward abundance — he is abundant in awareness. The outer world then catches up with the inner state.
Stop trying to get there. Be there. Make it here and now by the simple act of feeling that it is already so. When you truly feel it — not hope it, not wish it, but feel it as a present fact — you have entered the fourth dimension. This is thinking fourth-dimensionally: living in the end, moving from fulfillment, being the embodiment of your desire right now.
You are greater than you know. You are not a man seeking God — you are God expressed as man. You are the dreamer who has forgotten he is dreaming. And now you are beginning to remember.
Think from the end. Feel the reality of your desire. Sleep in the certainty of its fulfillment. And watch how this three-dimensional world conforms to your fourth-dimensional state of being.
There is no one to change but Self. The whole vast world is yourself pushed out. Every person, every circumstance, every condition in your life is a reflection of your own consciousness. When you understand this fully, you stop trying to change the world and start changing yourself — and the world naturally conforms.
This is not a teaching about blame. It is a teaching about power. You are not a victim of your circumstances; you are their author.
If you see others as unkind, it is because you are carrying unkindness in your own consciousness. If you see others as generous, it is because you are moving in the state of generosity yourself. The outer world is always bearing witness to the inner world.
To change another person, you must first change the concept you hold of them in your imagination. Close your eyes and see the person who troubles you as you wish them to be. Hold that image in love and certainty. Your imaginal act — firmly maintained — will transform your relationship with that person, for the world is yourself pushed out.
One day a costume designer described to me her difficulties in working with a prominent theatrical producer. She was convinced that he unjustly criticized her work. Upon hearing her story, I explained that if she found the other rude and unfair, it was a sure sign that she herself was wanting — and that it was not the producer, but herself that was in need of a new attitude. It was quite probable that she was carrying on conversations with him in her mind which were filled with criticism and recrimination.
The story of the prodigal son is perhaps the most beautiful illustration of this principle. A son takes his inheritance and squanders it in a far country. When he comes to himself, he returns to his father — and the father sees him from afar and runs to meet him.
The father in this story is your own higher consciousness — your I AM. The far country is the state of separation and forgetting. Coming to yourself means returning to the awareness of who you really are: the dreamer, not the dream.
When you come to yourself — when you return to the awareness that your consciousness creates your reality — the whole world changes. The robe, the ring, the feast: all that was lost is restored. Not because the outer world changed first, but because you changed first.
If someone in your life is causing you pain, do not try to change them through argument, manipulation, or force. Instead, sit quietly and construct an imaginary scene in which they are acting toward you exactly as you wish them to act. Feel the reality of it. Sleep in that feeling.
Do not visualize from the outside. Step into the scene. Feel what you would feel if the relationship were healed, if the situation were resolved. Be there fully, in imagination, here and now.
You will discover, to your amazement, that the person changes — without a word being spoken, without a plan being made. The outer world always mirrors the inner world. Change the cause and the effect must follow.
There is no one to change but Self. This is not a limitation — it is your greatest freedom. You are not at the mercy of the world; the world is at the mercy of your consciousness.
Tonight we have the fifth and last lesson in this course. First I shall give you a sort of summary of what has gone before. Then I will leave you with the final, most essential instruction: remain faithful to your idea.
We have learned that consciousness is the only reality. We have learned that assumptions, though false, if sustained, will harden into fact. We have learned to think fourth-dimensionally — from the end, not toward it. We have learned that there is no one to change but self.
Now I will show you the one practice that ties all of this together: persistence, faithfulness, unwavering loyalty to your inner vision.
With the door of my senses closed, what do I take into that disciplined state? I take no one into that state but the parents of the child and my disciples. I close the door against the mocking, laughing crowd. I no longer look for confirmation. I completely deny the evidence of my senses, which mock my assumption, and do not discuss with others whether my assumption is possible or not.
This is faithfulness: refusing to abandon your inner vision just because the outer world has not yet confirmed it. The outer world always lags behind the inner world. It must. The cause must precede the effect. Remain faithful to the cause — your assumption — and the effect must follow.
You will be tested. When you assume that you are wealthy and the bills arrive, you will be tempted to abandon your assumption. When you assume that you are healthy and the pain persists, you will be tempted to go back to the old story. When you assume that love is yours and no one appears, you will be tempted to doubt.
Do not discuss it. Do not look to someone for encouragement because the thing might not come. It has come. Go about your Father's business doing everything normally and let these things happen in your world. Remain faithful. Not with gritted teeth and anxious effort, but with the calm certainty of one who knows the law. You planted the seed. Trust the harvest.
I will share with you one personal example. There was a time in my life when I had no money to leave New York for the winter. I assumed, every night as I drifted into sleep, that I was lying in my bed in Barbados — feeling the warm Caribbean air, hearing the sounds of home. I remained faithful to that assumption night after night.
Within weeks, seemingly miraculous circumstances unfolded that put me on a ship, first class, with money in my pocket. I had not forced it. I had not manipulated it. I had simply remained faithful to my inner assumption, and the whole vast world had conspired to confirm it.
As we close these five lessons, I want to leave you with this: you are not waiting for God to act. You ARE God acting. You are the consciousness that creates. You are the dreamer dreaming this world into being.
Know what you want. Define it clearly. Assume the feeling of its fulfillment — here and now. Sleep in that assumption. Remain faithful to it, no matter what your senses report. And let the world conform to your consciousness.
This is the law. It never fails. The only question is whether you will remain faithful long enough to see it work. I promise you: it works. The whole of creation is conspiring to give you exactly what you are conscious of being.
God bless you. Until we meet again. — Neville Goddard, 1948