The following stories have been collected from Neville's
online lectures. Another great source of stories and testimonials can be from
in his book "The Law and the Promise" which is also part of "The
Neville Reader"
New stories are added occasionally when they are found
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Now, my friend continued, saying: "Driving home from
work the other night I was thinking I could
use a little more cash, as Uncle
Sam would be making demands upon my income. Then I began to imagine lovely,
green, crisp currency raining down on me. For about one minute I lost myself in
a little shower of green currency. Then the traffic demanded my attention and I
assumed my normal, alert state and forgot all about my imaginal act until the
morning of the fifteenth of April. At that time my boss entered the office and
said: `You will receive a ten per cent raise in salary retroactive to April
first,' and handed me a check."
Let me share with you now a couple of stories a gentleman
shared with me this week. He said: "About ten days ago my wife told me of
a little girl only fourteen months old who had developed lumps on her neck [in]
which - when the doctor removed and tested a lump - there were signs of cancer.
Three specialists had been brought in and each separately had declared the
child had cancer. Only one doctor, looking at the results questioned the
verdict, but they were keeping the child in the hospital for further
examination. As I listened to her story I cued my wife's voice out to the point
that I couldn't even hear what she was saying, but hearing her voice, I
reconstructed the story and heard its revision in my minds eye. That night as I
fell asleep I listened again and heard my wife tell me the revised story. A few
days later the doctors made another test from another lump and the vote was
unanimous, the child did not have cancer. And since they had performed no
remedial treatment in the hospital, they determined she never did have cancer,
for without treatment the child could not have overcome the condition. When my
wife heard the new verdict she told the grandmother and the mother what I had
done, but they could not believe that an imaginal act has any power of
causation."
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From 'Signs From Above'
In San Francisco, about ten years ago, I was teaching an
audience of approximately one thousand, when a lady stood up and said: "My
brother is in the army. I do not know what he did, but I do know that he has
been court-marshaled and sentenced to six months of hard labor. Neville, if I
believe you, can I not set my brother free?" I said: "Yes, but only
to the degree that you are self-persuaded that he is free." One week later
this same lady stood up and told this story. "Believing you last week,
when I returned home to my second floor apartment, I sat in my living room and
imagined I heard the doorbell. Then I ran down the stairs, opened the front
door and threw my arms around my brother. I rehearsed that scene over and over
again until I could hear the doorbell ring, feel the banister in my right hand
and my feet moving down the stairs. The doorknob became solidly real in my hand
and I could see, touch, and feel my brother's presence before I stopped
imagining. "Last Wednesday evening, as I was dwelling upon my brother's
return, the doorbell rang and I instantly knew it was he. I ran down the
stairs, opened the door and there was my brother. He told me that the army had
reviewed his case and changed their judgment, setting him free with an
honorable discharge."
From 'Seek the Kingdom'
Here is a story of a man who learned to turn to no one on
the outside for help, for all help came from within him. As a very young boy he
was one of a very poor family of five who lived in Russia. At the age of eight
he was running errands to earn money to help feed the family. Having never had
a square meal, a new shirt, slacks, or shoes, he knew the horror associated
with a minority group, as his family were Jews.
This lad had a job taking large amounts of money to a bank to
be exchanged into small denominations. One day he noticed that the teller's
copper coins resembled the silver ones, and as he returned the money to his
employer he began to play a little game with himself. Assuming the teller had
given him silver instead of copper, he dreamed of the wealth that would be his,
had the mistake been made. The very next day the teller made the mistake.
Giving him silver instead of copper, the young lad pocketed the money, went to
another bank and changed it into the right denomination then, returning to work
he gave his employers the money they expected. Having been taught what was
right and wrong, the boy wrestled all through the night with his conscience,
but in the morning he took the money, bought a new pair of shoes, a new shirt
and pants. Then he went to a restaurant and ate to his heart's content. No, he
never returned the money, but he learned a great lesson from this experience.
The world, upon hearing this story, would say he was wrong;
but when we came out from the Father we ate of the tree of good and evil, and
there isn't one person in this world who has not violated that code. He may not
have the courage to violate the moral code openly, but the drama of life is
psychological. The child was hungry. Having entered the world of experience, he
learned how to use the creative power of his own wonderful human imagination.
In the interval he has given back to society ten thousand times more than the
small amount taken, not to compensate, but because of the lesson learned. After
the First World War Russia collapsed and, penniless, he came to Paris to work
as a street cleaner. Then he remembered what he had done so many years ago, and
from that point on he rose and today is a multi-millionaire in a legitimate
business, applying this simple principle that an assumption, though false, if
persistent in will harden into fact.
From 'Gods Almighty Power'
My father would never go to church. He didn't like the
minister at all. What wonderful stories we have of my father and the minister.
One day the minister said to my father: "I am one of the chosen." My
father looked at him and said: "I wouldn't have chosen you." He was
just as brash as that with everything he did. He had no respect for the man. He
never saw the inside of a church, except when we children were baptized. When
my sixth brother was to be baptized - by this same minister - my father took
two sea captains as godfathers. At the last moment the minister asked if the
two gentlemen were Episcopalians, and when one claimed to be a Presbyterian and
the other a Methodist, the minister informed my father that the child could not
be baptized with these men as godfathers. With that my father said: "Give
me my son. I will baptize him myself." He took the child out of the
minister's arms, dipped his free hand in the water, sprinkled it on the child's
face and said: "In the name of Jesus, your name is Fred" and walked
out. And that's his name -Fred Goddard. That's the kind of man my father was
and still is. Not a bone in his body lacked courage. He found the Lord as his
own wonderful human imagination, so when he wanted something he simply imagined
he had it, and walked in that knowledge.
I promise you, when you find the Lord and really trust him,
you will know a peace you have never known before. You will never again bow
before anything or anyone.
A lady I know took off to Paris with her two children,
leaving her maid in charge of her apartment in New York City. When the lady
returned, the apartment was empty, and the maid was no where to be found. The
lady contacted the police, hired private detectives, and did everything humanly
possible to find her furniture - to no avail. Then she came to me. We sat
quietly in the silence and she returned to her apartment in her imagination. She
walked through the rooms, feeling conscious of being there, now! She saw the
furniture just as it had been before, touched the keys of her piano, and knew
everything was back in place again.
A few days later, this lady went to her bank on Madison
Avenue. Leaving the bank, she turned in the wrong direction and walked one
block before she realized what she was doing. Looking down, she saw a familiar
pair of ankles, and suddenly realized she had found her maid. As the light
changed, she grabbed the girl and made her take her to where the furniture was
stored. This lady now has her furniture back, every piece intact. All we did
was trust the Lord our God. What would I have done to find the furniture for
her, when the New York police or private detectives could not? But we trusted
the Lord, our God. We didn't get down on our knees and plead for help, but
simply sat in the silence and imagined. I assumed she was telling me she had
found the furniture, and everything was in perfect order. When we broke the
silence, I - trusting the Lord to bring it to pass - simply forgot it.
From 'God is Light'
From 'Feel Deeply'
I have been in many places where I was forced to test this
principle. While on the little island of Barbados, which had only two small
ships servicing it as well as the hundreds of islands nearby, I made a
commitment to give a series of lectures in Milwaukee on the first of May. When
I called, the shipping agent informed me that due to the fact that the ship
sailing out of New York City carried only sixty passengers and the one from
Boston carried only one hundred, that there was no passage available before the
first of September. He promised to put my name on the waiting list, but gave me
no encouragement as the list was very long.
I hung up the phone and sat in my chair in the hotel room,
closed my eyes and assumed I was aboard a ship heading toward New York City. I
assumed eight or ten of my family were coming aboard with me, and that my
brother Victor was carrying my little girl. I could feel the motion of the
plank. Having no stateroom committed, I remained on deck and placed my mental
hands on the rail and felt the salt of the sea there. Then I looked back
nostalgically at the little island. I repeated that action over and over again,
feeling every step I made on that gangplank. I felt the rail and smelled the
salt of the sea. I did everything that feeling could be brought to bear upon,
and when my actions seemed natural, I broke it.
The very next day I received confirmation that I would be
sailing on a ship which would land in New York City one week before my
commitment in Milwaukee, which I did. When I asked the agent how I obtained the
tickets, he said they had a cancellation in New York and the one person he had
called on the waiting list felt that the timing was inconvenient; so - knowing
he could accommodate my wife, our little daughter and myself in one cabin - he
let us in. I never heard why someone canceled in New York or why the one he
called in Barbados could not take the ship at that time, or why the agent did
not call all the others on the waiting list. I only know that I got the
reservation I had imagined.
From 'Bear Ye One Another's Burdens'
Many a man remains behind the 8-ball because no one ever
thought he could be anything other than what he appears to be. Fortunately I
had a mother who, at a tender age took me aside and persuaded me that I was her
favorite. She would say: "You will make mother very proud of you, won't
you?" and naturally I said: "Yes, mother." I wore long white
curls at the time, and she would curl my hair, run her finger up my curl, kiss
me, and send me on my way - then call the next one to have his hair curled.
Mother told the same story to each of us. It was only after we had all grown to
manhood that we discovered what mother had done, but by that time she had
accomplished her purpose. She didn't expect us to make a fortune but to be one
in whom she would be proud, and in our own separate spheres we all became
successful in her eyes.
Many a man is a failure today because no one ever believed
he could be otherwise.
From 'Behold the Dreamer Cometh'
The world is, and we are placed upon this little space
called earth to learn to bear the beams of love, for God is infinite love. I
know, for I stood in His presence, then came down and entered a specter in
order to learn to love and take on substance.
Not long ago I was in another section of time instructing a
group of maybe a dozen men all seated around me. In the center with me was a
spectrum, a shadow of a man. I could move him about and do with him as I
willed. Then I said to him, "Go and love. To the degree that you love, you
will acquire substance. Only then can you take part in the drama and awake with
life in yourself."
What I said to those men I say to you now. At the present
time you are only an animated being, not a life-giving spirit. One day you will
acquire substance (acquire love) then you will become one with life in your
self, knowing that all things were made through the creative act of love (the
act of mercy) and without it was not anything made.
From 'Imagination Fulfills Itself '
Ann was a member of the world's oldest profession, that of
being a lady of the evening. She often came to my meetings, but this day we met
on the corner of Broadway and 72nd Street, where she told me this story. One
day, while walking by a hat shop, she fell in love with a beautiful hat in its
window with a price tag indicating a cost of $17.50. Wanting it so much, she
decided to apply this principle, so in her imagination she placed the hat on
her head, and as she walked up Broadway she felt the hat on her head. She would
not look in a store window and be disillusioned, and when she arrived home she
imagined taking off the hat and placing it on the top shelf before looking in
the mirror.
Ten days later a friend called and invited her to lunch.
When she arrived, the friend handed her a hat box, saying: "I don't know
what possessed me, but I bought this hat and when I brought it home I realized
I had made a mistake. I do not like it on me but I think it would look lovely
on you, Ann." Opening the box she reached in and brought out - not a hat,
but the hat.
Then Ann said to me: "Why didn't God give me the money
to buy the hat, instead of giving it to me through a friend?" I asked her
if she felt obligated to her friend, and when she shook her head, No, I asked
how much she usually paid for a hat. When she told me $4 or $5, I asked if she
had ever purchased a $17 hat before. Again the answer was No, and when she
admitted to owing two weeks' rent, I said: "If while admiring the hat you
found a hundred dollar bill on the sidewalk, would you have bought the hat?
I'll answer for you, no you would not. You would have paid your rent and
perhaps bought some groceries, but you would not have purchased the hat. Tell
me Ann, how much money must God give you to get you to buy a $17 hat? If he
gave you a thousand dollars you wouldn't have bought it, for you are not in the
habit of buying such expensive hats, so God knows best how to give you the hat
you desired."
I have bought clothes, brought them home, and wondered what
possessed me to buy them. I did it because someone was treading in the
winepress elsewhere.
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A lady writes: "In July my car needed repair. As I
signed the credit slip agreeing to pay the cost of $62, I imagined it was a
check, for I never sign a check unless there is money in the bank to cover it.
August and September passed with no request for payment. In September a man
stopped by and, eager to sell his house, asked me to list it for him. I told
him that I was no longer in the business and recommended my former broker. I
forgot all about it, but in October, just before the car repair statement
arrived, I received a referral commission from my former broker in the amount
of $68. - six dollars more than the cost of the repair of my car.
Here the money - like the story in the 6th chapter of Luke -
came to her pressed down, shaken together, and running over. Everyone in the
ancient world had a big pocket where grain was placed and pressed down until it
ran over. Just like the baker's dozen this lady received her $62 - plus.
Then she said: "For some time now my favorite chair has
needed new upholstery. Choosing the material and pattern was easy, but the cost
of $87 had to be imagined. So rather than limit myself to an exact figure, I
simply imagined my chair as already newly upholstered. While sitting in it, I
denied its worn cover, and when thinking of it while in another part of the
house, I always saw it as I desired it to be.
In early September, while on vacation, our neighbor had a
heart attack. His wife, desiring to be with her husband, asked if their son
could stay with us until their return. Since he and our son were playmates and
inseparable, John stayed with us for five beautiful weeks, and when his mother
asked how much she owed me I kiddingly said, 'Nothing! But, some day when you
have an old, worn out hundred dollar bill tucked in your billfold and you don't
know what to do with it, you can give it to me.' And the lady replied 'That's
exactly what my husband and I agreed to do,' and from her billfold she took a
folded hundred dollar bill and gave it to me. That money paid for the chair's
new cover, plus an additional $13." Again we see the money came to her
pressed down, shaken together, and running over.
When you apply this principle towards the seeming other you
are applying it towards yourself, because there is no other. We are told that
when Job forgot himself in his love for his friends and prayed for them, his
own captivity was lifted. Then all that he seemingly had lost was returned,
multiplied one hundredfold.
From 'The Secret of Causation'
Let me share with you two experiences which came to me this
past week. The first lady said: "Returning from a wonderful cruise
recently, I checked my baggage at La Guardia Airport, bound for Chicago, where
I expected to spend a few days with friends. Arriving in Chicago, I discovered
that the bag which contained most of my clothes and all of the presents I had
bought for my friends and relatives - as well as a locket I had had made from
the engagement and wedding band my late husband had given me - was missing. I
immediately reported the loss to the airline, but when I arrived in California
there was still no trace of it.
"A week later I received a letter saying that the bag
could not be located, and my first reaction was to curse the airline for their
negligence; but then I remembered that imagining creates reality. I tried to
reconstruct the letter, but when I couldn't feel its words were true, I began
to assume that the bag had arrived at the house. I lifted it up on the bed,
opened it, put my clothes away, as well as the gifts which were there. I did
this every night and during the day, when I would notice my thoughts going
astray.
"When the grandchildren would ask about their presents,
I told them that they were on their way, as I never admitted to anyone that the
bag was lost. How could I, if I believe what I had imagined? Six weeks later I
received a letter from the airline saying: `If you do not pick up your bag
within five days, you will be charged storage.' I picked up the bag to find
everything there, and put them all away, just as I had imagined doing."
Then the lady added this thought: "Love's labor is never lost. Everything
in that bag was loved, and I knew that if this principle was true, it would
prove itself in the testing - and it did."
From 'The State of Vision'
I know a very fine artist (whose works are in national
galleries) who was starving, and didn't have a dime with which to buy food. One
night she was so tired she couldn't even walk to the YWCA to offer her services
for a meal. Instead, she stretched out on her couch and said: "Lord, you
said if I but believed, all things would be possible. Well, I believe that I am
well fed."
In relating this story to me, this lady added this comment:
"I didn't actually hear the words audibly, but received an impression
which was: 'If you really believed as you claim, wouldn't you prepare the table
for the meal?' With that, she began to set the table in her imagination. She
put on her best tablecloth, her nicest plates, and even lit a candle, in preparation
of the food to come. Then she fell asleep and began to dream. As she lifted the
cover from a beautiful platter, she heard a ring which persisted until she
awoke to realize it was her telephone. The caller was a friend of her mother's
whom she hadn't seen for years. The lady said: "Suddenly I have the
greatest longing for a meal you prepared for your mother and me several years
ago. Would you please do it again tonight if I bring over the
ingredients?"
Now, although this lady had a kitchen in her apartment, she
had no food in it, so when the friend went to the store she couldn't buy a cup
of flour or sugar, but stocked up on all the basics needed to prepare a meal.
Within an hour she was in the artist's home with the food, and a short time
later they sat down to a delicious dinner, of which - when the meal was
finished - there was enough left over for at least two more meals.
Although this lady is a great artist, she has developed the
sense of touch. She fell asleep touching the plates and the silver, and awoke
touching the cover to a platter filled with food. Her experience is dramatized
in scripture as the story of Isaac. In order to understand scripture, it is
necessary to see it with the eyes of the mystic. Blake asked: "Why is the
Bible more entertaining and more instructive than any other book? Because it is
addressed to the Imagination, which is spiritual sensation, and only
immediately to the understanding, or reason." When you touch something
spiritually, you are receiving a sensation that your outer senses deny. And
when you use your imagination, you are touching with the hands of Jacob, seeing
with the eyes of Jacob, and hearing with Jacob's ears.
From 'The Fourfold Gospel'
Let me give you a vision of mine that happened many years
ago to show you how it was revealed to me long before it began to awaken in me.
Just like the vision of the 4th of Daniel, only in my case it wasn't a tree.
But just as he starts off the vision: "The visions of my head as I lay in
bed." Suddenly I saw this fabulous field, and consciousness followed
vision and I entered the field. It had no limit, it was infinite. At first I
thought them to be flowers, long tall flowers like sunflowers. As I approached
them they were not flowers, they were all rooted like a flower into the earth;
but they were human faces, everyone was a face. As I came upon them they moved
in concert as though someone led them in some orchestra, and they all moved and
bent over. If one smiled they all smiled. They all did everything in concert.
While I walked among them admiring these beautiful human faces, that were
anchored like a flower, I realized right at that moment that I, - not
comparable to them in beauty, - nothing in that rhythm and yet I enjoyed
greater freedom, limited as I was, than all of them put together. They moved in
concert and I had freedom of movement even though my motion was not in harmony.
I had freedom of choice even if I made the wrong choice. I could choose evil,
they could do nothing. They could do nothing of themselves. And I realized that
with all of my limitations, I was greater. I could make a mistake and they
couldn't. I could actually move without the consent of another; they couldn't.
And beautiful as they were, I realized how much infinitely greater I was, limited
as I was, because I was detached from that field. And I thought in the depths
of me that at one time I must have been one of that orchestra. And God in his
infinite mercy, fell with me, and then took up residence in me.
From 'His Name'
Now here is a true story which I heard this last Saturday. I
am not a member of the Turf Club, but I go occasionally when I am invited and
someone takes me. So last Saturday I and my wife were taken to the Turf Club. I
was introduced to this little man who sat just one row below. Strange, weird
little fellow, and then they told me his story. He had come here penniless from
Kentucky. How he got the money necessary to buy a small little plot of land, I
do not know, that was not told me; but he bought a small little plot of land in
Ventura County. He wanted to have oil, so he would sleep on the land itself. He
didn't build some little shack - he slept right on the ground. With his head to
the ground he would hear oil coming in, he would smell oil, and he would come
home sometimes in the morning at 6 A.M. and his wife was distraught. "What
has happened to you?" He was sleeping on the land bringing it in.
Today the man - I would say he is ten years my senior, which
is 68, pushing 70 - he has no financial problems. He has given away fortunes.
He is worth over six million, so he told me himself, but now he has another
problem, and he has forgotten the name of God. His present problem is boredom.
He goes to the track five days a week, Tuesday through Saturday. If he drops
ten thousand, it's no problem, if he drops twenty thousand, that's no problem.
But he is bored and he is not physically well, and he doesn't remember how he
brought oil into being by the name of God. When he put his head on that earth
and began to listen, who was listening? If you would say to him: "What are
you doing?" "I am smelling oil." That's what he would say. You
have called the name of God. "I am smelling oil. I am hearing oil,"
is what he would say. He brought it all in, but he doesn't remember the name of
God.
Now he is saying: "I am unwell." He is blaspheming
the name of God. You are told: The man who blasphemes the name of God, stone
him to death." The stone is "showing the facts of life," so he
is showing the facts of life. "You aren't feeling well, are you?" So
you see all the things in the world wrong with him, and you tell him. These are
the stones, but he has forgotten and those around him don't know. He once used
the name of God wisely and brought wealth into this world. He could bring
health into this world if he would use the name of God.
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