Neville Goddard: The Law of Imagining = Story Telling Picture Taking ┋One of His Greatest Lectures

what we have here is one of Neville's greatest lectures titled the law storytelling and picture taking in this lecture Neville reveals how he uses the law giving exact and precise examples of creating a scene using imagination to take a picture and exploding that scene with every cell of the body this is a fascinating and revealing lecture and make sure you listen all the way to the end of the video because at the end there is a question and answer session with Neville where he answers some questions that I've never heard him talk about before I've

narrated it for you for now please enjoy the law picture-taking and storytelling a lecture by Neville Godard read by Josiah Brandt it is my pleasure to present to you one of Neville's greatest lectures titled the law storytelling and picture taking by Neville Gard February 16th 1965 tonight as I told you recently is for my friend who is taking flight and she wants the law so this will be on the law all things exist in the human imagination and by all things I mean it literally all things all that we behold though it appears without it

is within in your imagination of which this world of mortality is but a shadow that's Blake Jerusalem plate 71 if you could now think of your imagination as the most sensitive instrument in the world and compare it say to a piano you cannot conceive of a tone or combination of tones that it could not express and so you can imagine so you own the instrument it is your very self but if you owned the most wonderful piano in the world it wouldn't mean that you could play it not play it really intelligently you would have

to find out some wonderful method and then practice so here is this wonderful instrument which is your imagination and so you you own it and that instrument is God God actually became man that man may become God so we can't think of God as even near for nearness implies separation there is no difference between Divine imagining and human imagining save in the degree of intensity of the two when you and I are born a new it means an expansion of the same power which is imagining and we rise to higher and higher and higher levels

on this level it is the same power but it's keyed low so here when I speak of God I'm speaking of your own wonderful human imagination now we can put it to the test actually test it come test me and see that's what we're invited to do in scripture 2 Corinthians 135 so I say that the actual source of all phenomena is one with imagining that is active in you and me there is no other origin for phenomena in this world now let me share with you one story that was given me this week or

rather a couple of weeks ago this friend who is here tonight he said I've known this man I'll call him Pat I've known him for about six months months he's general manager of an auto supply firm I also know his boss I've known him for about four years a very difficult man so let us call him say Mike one day in fact that day was the 5th of December of last year I stopped into this firm and chatted with my friend Pat talking with him I discovered that he would like to buy the firm but

he had no money so I explained this principle of imagining to him I said forget the means forget the money and if you really want to own your own firm this is what I would do were I you tonight when I go to sleep I would make a certain drama take people who sincerely love you your wife your children and I Think I Love You So in include me if you want to use me but make a scene which if true would imply the Fulfillment of your desire that you own this auto supply company now

this is how it works but you must above all things when you carry on this inner conversation with those who will be sincerely thrilled because of your successful transaction in closing the deal to own the thing but also in the the successful running of it the operation of it you must capture the feeling feeling truly is the secret you must feel the reality of what you are doing and this was December the 5th on January the 5th one month later I received in my mail an advertising letter announcing the new owner of this firm it

was not that particular Auto Supply Company it was another and he was the owner of this auto supply company so I stopped and to see him as a friend to congratulate him and this is what he told me a man came in who owned an auto supply company and in the course of conversation he let it be known that he would like to dispose of some of his properties he has many parcels and one was an auto supply company well then because of my interest I simply perked up and told him of my interest in

owning my own company but that I had no money he said that you don't need money you can just take possession of this company we'll sign the papers and you can pay me out of profits you be the owner and you will pay me out of profits we received the announcement in the mail of the new ownership of this company a man who heard on December 5th how to operate God's law and by January the 5th one month later he has successfully closed the deal for his own company by the sheer operation of the law

so I say imagining contains the whole all things are contained in the human imagination now how could I do it well try it this way bring before your mind's eye anyone in this world or any combination and then listen to them tell you a story a wonderful story you listen carefully and as they unfold the story and you become excited just as though you're hearing the most wonderful story and when you reach a certain point which is the climax of the story take a deep inhalation and feel thrilled all over it doesn't really matter after

that it's like taking a picture life develops it then life has a strange way of developing that picture and you will see a negative in the solution it's an acid solution and it burns it it has to be burnt and then you take it out and you dry it and you have your picture so life actually is just like that as we are told he whom he hurts and afflicts for secret ends he Comforts and heals and calls them friends learn how to play this wonderful role all things are contained in the human imagination but

all things not a thing outside of your imagination try this very moment to think of something in this world of ours that is part of the Affairs of man that was not first imagined you may say well a tree was isn't well now on a higher level it was on our level automobiles clothes chairs buildings on our level then he said go to another level the animals then we go to another level the Plant World another level the mineral world but may I tell you on higher levels they too were first imagined on our level

we are learning and trying to experiment and so this building first had to Be Imagined the flag had to Be Imagined the suit that I wear everything in this world that is related to man had to First Be Imagined by man before it could be brought into this visible world of ours and so all the other kingdoms the plant kingdom the animal kingdom the mineral Kingdom They too had to be first imagined on a higher level you are that being you are moving towards that being to be one with it because you are one with

it now anyway but you are key low for educative purposes and so just as this chap in one simple moment had no money he only had a desire God who is your own wonderful human imagination speaks to yourself through the medium of desire he desired to own his own automobile Supply area he wanted his own auto supply shop but no money now the man who we worked for and my friend knows both of them and he tells me the owner of that shop was the most difficult person to deal with he had meetings with both

of them but he didn't talk to the owner he talked to the one who wanted to own it what he really wanted was to own his own shop he knew these Auto Supply things so he wanted it well he got it a man comes in and in the conversation reveals he would like to unload this parcel he had so many pieces of property and this he would like to unload and made it possible by saying to him it's yours we'll sign the papers and you simply pay out of profits I can multiply this kind of

a story by the thousands if you will actually believe it and the day will come that you will simply find that everything in scripture is true the law is all there but man doesn't see it our ministers are not telling it as Lord Lindsay who is the master of the College of Oxford he said to a group of ministers one day he said you ministers are making a mistake in your pulpits you are arguing for Christianity no one wants your arguments you ought to be witnessing does this thing work then share it with the rest

of us don't give us all this business of the arguments for Christ share it with us does it work well then share it with us let us prove it in performance my wife here recently gave me as a little joke on Valentine's Day a little book called The Gospel According to peanuts well in this little paperback book penuts is making the statement and you listen to it carefully the church is the greatest nonprofit organization in the world but spells profit p r o p h t there is no voice of God from the pulpits of

the world none whatsoever they will take one little passage of scripture and never refer to it quote a little passage and then talk about the president or Vietnam about some other thing on this level not a thing to do with interpreting the word of God now we go back to the word of God the book of Nehemiah the 8th chapter the 8th verse and they read from the book from the law of God clearly with understanding they gave the sense so that the people understood the reading Nehemiah 88 so they take the law and explain

it that is the purpose of the book if God is sent into this world he's sent only to teach the law of God that's all he sent to do he's told to go and tell them of the law of God and the promise of God and to repeat it forever and forever tell them of the promise what is the promise that God is going to give you his son not as a companion he's going to give you his son as your son if he gives you his son as your son he just gave you himself

for if you are the father of the Son of God then you are God it is God's purpose to give himself to man and to give it so thoroughly that there is no other in this world just you and God and because he gave himself to you just you and you are he that is the story that is his promise let them wait in Hope but now to comfort them while they wait tell them of God's law and explain all about the law it is a simple law based purely unbelief whatever you desire in this

world believe you have received and you will mark 11:24 now I have found this simple technique honestly it's so simple I feel I am taking pictures because that's all that I do you ask something of me I don't know a thing in this world about the human body if you brought me a bone I couldn't tell you if it came from the foot or the hand I wouldn't know I know nothing of the human body I don't know how it operates I know nothing of diet I try to satisfy a hunger one day I might

want fish I want fish don't tell me about meat next day I want meat whether it's good Friday or not and so I satisfy hungers that way well now you have a hunger so you come to me to ask me I think I know the law to satisfy you or to Aid you in the satisfaction of your hunger so you name something you want just like my friend he went into this shop and he found a man who had a hunger to own his own business that is a hunger now all you do is this

you meet someone don't wait until tomorrow to do it right at that very moment as they depart from you let them go on their way and if they ask you what must I do do nothing they're not taking the picture I'm taking the picture of them all things exist in my imagination so I cannot ask them to cooperate if I ask them to cooperate with me I'm sort of Shifting the weight and preparing a little cushion in the event of failure then I could say you didn't do your part I don't need them let them

get out of my sight I know what they look like I know what they sound like and then I bring them into my mind's eye and I animate them having them all animated if I need another one to come with them if I need six more or some other thing another person all right bring it all in and set it up just as you would set it up in a studio you're going to take a picture and then let the whole thing become animated just as you get it all animated they're all telling me this

wonderful story concerning the Fulfillment of the desire this is the end you all always go to the end then as you become more and more excited one deep inhalation and may I tell you every atom of the body explodes you can try it right now or try it when you go into the silence you can't stop it you get excited and suddenly everything explodes it's really a creative act it doesn't have the physical effect here there is no physical evidence there was a creative act but it is the same sensation only every atom of your

body explodes the whole thing explodes then as he said to this man in the store as he was teaching him how to operate this wonderful sensitive instrument he said should you tomorrow or in the interval between now this night and you do it and the Fulfillment of it should one little doubt enter your mind do this just remember but I experienced it I experienced ownership so I don't care if at this very moment something denies it I experienced it and therefore that little doubt will go to sleep if some little thing comes in the interval

to disturb you remember you have experienced it you took the picture well then life develops it life is the acid and life develops it then the whole thing becomes externalized in no way that you could ever have devised how could he have devised the means that a man an honest man a decent man who was a businessman would say to him well pay me out of profits what sort of business is that pay me out of profits and yet that is exactly how it was consummated he bought it only on faith only on his own

honesty so this is the simple simple law that I am trying to get over to all but to my friend who departs a week from today on this very long Tour London Russia Tokyo Formosa and other areas let her tell this story to everyone who will listen to it that imagining creates reality that is basic but you've got to know how to do it I could own the most glorious the most sensitive violin in the world give it to me I could take it to a dealer and he'd say you know what you have here

and he could give me some name that I don't even understand and say to me you you know what well that's worth $500,000 so I have it all I have is $500,000 and I can't get one note out of it and so you have something far more sensitive you have God the world's greatest in the world creative instrument so because it's it's you he became you your own wonderful human imagination but you have got to learn to play it and you make unnumbered mistakes just as a child playing a violin and you put your fingers

in your ears to stop the sound coming from it but he is learning how to play well you and I make mistakes we become violent we become thieves we become this become the other all by imagining the terror that confronts man today is simply man it isn't Russia it's his own conception of himself that is the terror my conception of myself is the thing that terrifies me what is it I'm a little man unwanted unschooled is that my concept of myself well it terrifies me because if it is my concept of myself everything in this

world reflects it and runs at me to Bear witness to my own concept of myself but if I know that all things are within me and I could by changing my conception of myself change the world in which I live well let me try it William James one of our great Educators at Harvard University he made the statement that the greatest revolution in my generation was the discovery that man by changing the inner attitudes of his mind could change the outer aspects of his life well that was told us in scripture in a very simple

manner but William James This brilliant philosopher great great man great educator and he took all these things you might have read one of his books a variety of religious experiences it's really worthwhile rereading because he took all these cases these strange experiences it was he who said that the mother seed and the great function of all True Religions begin in the mystical experiences of the individual that all ideologies all ecclesiasticism are secondary growths superimposed that these great experiences that give birth to True Religions come from the depths of the Soul belong to a region that

is deeper and far more real and vital than that which the intellect inhabits because of this they remain forever secure from all intellectual arguments and criticisms this is the great William James well when he made the statement that here the greatest revolution in his generation was a discovery that man by changing the inner attitudes of his mind could change the outer aspects of his life comes right back to that simple verse whatever you desire When you pray believe that you have received it and you will mark 11:24 well do you know the word to pray

both in Hebrew and in Greek if you look it up in your Biblical concordance it's defined as motion towards excession to nearness at or in the vicinity of that's what it is so I stand here and now it's motion towards motion towards ownership of that auto supply well if I could really get near enough so that I could get accession to I would sleep this night in the consciousness of ownership wouldn't I as I get nearer and nearer and nearer to it it's like aemotion within one's being if this night I would go to New

York City and time would not allow it my commitments would not allow it oh thousands of things could stand in the way but I still want to go what should I do I should this night assume as I go to bed assume that I'm sleeping and my hotel room in in New York City and then view the world from New York City just see the world as I would see it were it true when I think of Los Angeles I can't see it around me here as I would tonight when I sleep I must see

it 3,000 miles to the west of me well if I fall asleep in that state I have prayed for prayer to pray is to move towards excession to nearness at or in the vicinity of if I want to go to New York City let me get as close as I can until finally I can get right into it as I get into it then think of the world for confirmation motion cannot be determined except by a change of position relative to some other state if I move from here to the end of the room without

some fixed frame of reference against which I move I wouldn't know I've moved I would have no way of knowing that I move at all there must be some frame of reference well this is a frame the world is a frame it remains fixed relative to me the pilgrim who moves so I move from poverty to security or from illness to health and so there's a frame of reference and my world will reflect the motion that I make and this is praying so everyone in this World contains within himself all that it takes to become

what he wants to be in this world for all things are contained in the human imagination and that is God so God actually became man that man may become God don't think of him on the outside he can't even be near if God actually became me he cannot be near for nearness implies separation can't even be near so listen to these words from The Book of John you will die in your sins unless you believe that I am he John 8:24 this is not a man talking to others this dream takes place in the individual

I am saying to myself you don't believe in Neville well then stay and stew you will stew in your limitations and therefore miss your mark in life which is sinning for to sin is to miss the mark you miss the mark and go on forever missing the mark unless you believe that I am he he what he am that which I would be I desire to be other than what I am I've got to believe I am it and unless you do then you sin but you will know the truth and the truth will make

you free well what is truth we say a true judgment must conform to the external facts to which it relates I say that isn't true at all truth depends upon the intensity of imagining not upon facts the man had no external fact to support his imaginal claim that he owned a shop none but he actually believed he owned it and slept in that assumption so truth does not confine itself to the external reality to which my judgment relates It Isn't So at all you can simply know what you want don't ask how you're going to

get it assume that you are it and if you can become self- persuaded that you are that which you've assumed that you are in a way that no one knows it becomes externalized in your world this is God's law and it is God in operation because your own wonderful imagination is God so an imaginal act is God in action but God creates not only by the imaginal ACT he mixes it with faith imagination and Faith are the stuff out of which man creates his world so it has to be blended with faith I must believe

in the reality of my imaginal act and remain faithful loyal to that unseen reality just as though it were true now if you really believe that your imagination is God and believe implicitly in God you can go from here to goal after goal after goal just try it and may I tell you share with me your experiences just as my friend shared with me this experience so that I in turn may tell it from this platform and encourage everyone to go on wherever they are to where they want to be I could tell you unnumbered

stories and repeat the Thousand I've already told you but why bring in new ones by taking this simple simple technique and trying it as you try it it will work it will prove itself in performance no power can stop it so here this is God's simple simple wonderful law so so when you read scripture most of it will be on the law great promises are made but most of it is simply law it is all conditioned it's called in one book repentance that simply conditioned States repentance is a radical change of attitude towards life and

God repented that he promised the good and then God repented that he promised the evil as they change he had to change it is the same being he's only reflecting himself as told us in the 18th chapter of the book of Jeremiah and the word of the Lord came to me and said go down to The Potter's House and there I will let you hear my word so I went down to The Potter's House and there he was working at his wheel the vessel that he held in his hand was spoiled but he reworked it

into another vessel as it seemed good to the Potter to do Jeremiah 18:1 well the word translated Potter in Hebrew is Imagination so I went down to imagination's house well what imagination's house I turned my attention inwardly and thought on self and found what I was imagining but I was thinking of a friend of mine he wasn't well well that's the M vessel I am fashioning a vessel of a friend that's not a nice picture do not discard it take that same vessel and reshape it into another vessel as it seemed good to you to

do never discard anyone you do not have to so just as you think of someone and you feel sorry for him well why feel sorry for him take the same one and so reshape it that you feel happy for him I know in our language we have so few words to express rejoicing with those who have great joy in the world and so many words to feel sorry for those who are in pain passion sympathy pain if I use the word empathy there isn't one person in a million Who would know what I'm talking about

it's a word it's in the dictionary but have you ever heard of anyone actually saying save in literature yes you can put it in a book and the average person reading it runs to the dictionary for the very simple reason he doesn't practice it so you empathize and they say he does what he empathizes and so he goes to the dictionary to find out what he is doing but we don't really empathize we don't Rejoice with those who Rejoice but let something be wrong with someone oh I'll run right over and meet with them because

it's happened to him not to me that's the attitude towards life so we have to start start taking something entirely different out of life and rejoice with people who find something wonderful smiling upon them they come into a fortune are you envious why envious Rejoice with them but he lost a fortune run right over and sympathize he's down to my level now well that's not the picture because all things exist in the human imagination and because they do look upon it as the most sensitive instrument in the world because it is learn to play it

you can buy the most expensive instrument but you've got to learn to play it a friend of mine he is here tonight he has a music shop a little while ago someone came in and wanted a machine a guitar he said to him can you play it he said no he took the guitar from him and he made a few chords on it and he said it will take you a year to do what I've just done so casually you shouldn't buy this he could have made money on it by selling it to him but

he wouldn't sell it to him this boy whoever he was thought that by owning a machine you could go right out and simply become a beetle well that was not it so he did not sell it it you have the greatest instrument in the world and that is your own wonderful human imagination look upon it as the most sensitive instrument in the world and learn to play it because it is an art a great art you must first of all acquire a nice method there must be a method and then constant practice constant practice so

every moment of time you have the opportunity to practice somebody needs something and you can play that tune for them whatever they need you can play it for them and bring about a Harmony in their world bring them before your mind's eye and rearrange the chord the chord is made up now of things you assemble things which if true would imply the Fulfillment of your desire for them so you are going to assemble the notes that would make the perfect chord you do not a thing beyond that that is all that you do this is

the simple simple technique of the working of God's wonderful law tomorrow when you rise to higher and higher levels which you will the whole vast world will respond instantly to your imaginative act for man as God Rises within him and expands within him he finds himself in a world completely subject to his imaginal acts they spring out of nowhere it will not not take an interval of time between the imaginal Act and the fact instantly it's right there you create your own world and we're all moving towards that direction because we're all one there's only

one God God became man that man may become God and that is literally true now let us go into the silence may I call your attention to the Book Table you'll find my books and books that I recommend I mentioned a book about two weeks ago written by a friend of mine who is here tonight Mr White Law life is only a journey as I told you then he goes to many speakers this is his own I would say the essence of what he has gathered from the many he's been coming here over the years

he's gone to others my old friend Dr Bales and all the speakers and from all of us he has gathered what is his and he has written this book and he has titled it life is only a journey are there any questions question from the audience inaudible Neville my dear I'd do anything revise it because you're going to change the past anyway you will but if you go on living fully in the joy of others live always for others as job did job revised his past by praying for his friends because his present was an

awful mess he lost everything and then job prayed for his friends and then his captivity was lifted all that he had lost came back multiplied 300 fold as you are told in scripture even those who were dead because all were dead they all came back so nothing was dead not just the Lambs came back and the cattle came back but his son and his beautiful daughters and all these were dead so nothing dies it is returned as he prayed for his friends so lose yourself in praying for others and you'll be amazed how the lovely

things of this world will fall upon you out of the nowhere because really in the end there is no other not really question from the audience inaudible Neville well it may be difficult but it has to be done and can be done because if you will follow this concept that Blake told us and his vision of the last judgment he said from this you will see that I do not consider the just or the wicked to be in a supreme state but to be every one of them States of the sleep that the soul may

fall into in its deadly dreams of Good and Evil we ate the fruit of Good and Evil that conscience may be born but we're still in it passing judgment morning noon and night he claims that man is free the very moment he rejects error and Embraces truth but he defines truth as anything possible to be believed can you believe this lovely thing that you brought before your mind's eye then you reject what would deny it that you denied or that which was denied it is to you error he calls that Satan to him Satan is

only the personification of Doubt question from the audience inaudible Neville well in the 41st chapter of the Book of Genesis the doubling of the dream means that the thing has been fixed by God and God will shortly bring it to pass well God being your own wonderful human imagination if you have dreamt it twice it's a revelation from the depth of your soul as I brought up the other night that vision of mine where I found myself in spirit in this Great Mansion which you heard the story that I told you I absorbed the message

the message was that while standing on an empty lot I painted a word picture for my lot as I desired it to be not as it appeared to be I denied appearances yes I was learning a lesson the lesson is that wise grandfather used to say while standing on an empty lot I remember when this was an empty lot then while still standing on it he would paint a reality as though it were true then I woke rote it out went back to sleep and red dreamed it but I had absorbed the lesson so I

told the story you can stand on an empty lot for anyone someone is unwell that's an empty lot relative to health I remember when he was sick when you are looking at him and the doctor said he can't live I remember when he was unwell well then he can't be unwell now to you and you rejoice in the state of his health he is well question from the audience Neville would you define Soul Neville to me soul is the animating principle of the universe therefore I call soul and Imagination one because I have had the

experience of coming into a room just like this only it was a dining room and arresting my own imagination something in me that was active as I arrested it everything Stood Still including the bird in flight and the leaves falling and the grass moving everything Stood Still and they were dead then I released not them I released that activity that I had arrested Within Myself And as I did so all became reanimated so I know that the creative power of the world the animating power of the world is my own wonderful human imagination I call

that my soul so to me soul and Imagination are identical it is the animating power of the world it animates it it makes it alive question from the audience how would you explain heart Neville heart the word heart in the Bible is the word mind they are one and the same thing the same word as a man thinketh in his heart a man thinketh in his mind it is the same translation but they thought the word heart but you and I the heart is a physical organ and we think in terms of the heart well

isn't quite what they intended and yet the heart is so essential to Vitality to life can't do without it so they call that the center as a man thinks in the core of his being that's what they really mean the word heart or the word mind same thing but as we read these words because of our association with the word we are anchored by the use of the word and we are stuck with the word heart for instance we speak of the word loins well it isn't so at all in that wonderful chapter of Jeremiah

why do I see every man with his hands on his loins like a woman in labor the word translated loins is an entirely different Hebrew word why do I see every man with his hands yes pulling himself out of himself just like a woman in labor for the Primitive world even to this very day even China wouldn't send their women to hospitals to Bear a child while plowing in the fields when that moment of delivery is upon them she delivers herself she uses her hands and draws from her own being what she formed within herself

that's what the prophet meant that's what he saw but our translators had to relate and say why do I see every man with his hands on his loins like a woman in labor Isn't So at all I will say to everyone as you read this greatest of all books the Bible if you don't have a concordance it will be wise to get one really if you're that interested and take not one word for granted look it up because through habit we quote scriptures as we remember hymns and we think that is it when you start

to really find the true definition of the words you stand amazed yet our Scholars have done a wonderful job no question about it yet words change in their meanings and because they change in their meanings there must always be a need for revision right now we're working on a new Old Testament we've just brought out the new one called the new English Bible so words having lost their meanings over the years they've gone into refreshing as it were question from the audience in the New Testament Neville it said the woman of the South comes to

the wisdom of Solomon finds there one greater than the wisdom of Solomon what is the woman of the South Neville well the South see if you take everything above the neck as it were the Bible speaks of hearing the north wind well you always hear with the ear and the ear in the symbolism of Blake is always the north the eyes are the South the nostrils the East and the tongue or mouth is the West so taste and touch are closed in man he doesn't know how they feel and he makes the statement why is

the Bible more entertaining and more instructive than any other book in the world is it not because he answers it is addressed to the imagination which is spiritual sensation and only immediately to the understanding or Reason so the sense of touch is missing in man but he can see that's not missing and he can hear and smell but he can't quite touch how can I touch but you can touch learn to touch so the woman from the south the queen from the south came she could see the glory and and she had heard about the

glory of Solomon she came and she saw this fabulous Kingdom and she heard of the wisdom of this one you and I must try to open up that gate that is so closed which is the sense of touch I use the little picture of a ball a tennis ball and then a baseball a billiard ball can you discriminate between these three Sensations they are not unreal though invisible because you couldn't discriminate between nothings if they did not exist you couldn't discriminate so if I can learn the sense of touch I put a ball in my

hand it is a tennis ball how do I know what it feels like well it gives I have a baseball that doesn't feel like the other one I can discriminate then I take a billiard ball or a pingpong ball if I can discriminate between these feels well then I must be feeling something that actually exists even though to my mortal eye it is invisible good night