Neville Goddard: Assume the Desired Reality

Neville Goddard presents a substantially more radical theory.

For Neville, imagination is not merely a psychological tool. It possesses creative power.

The individual is instructed to imagine the desired condition as though it has already occurred and to enter the emotional state associated with its fulfillment.

Instead of saying, I want this, Neville’s method attempts to reach: This is already mine.

The sequence becomes:

desire → imagination → feeling of fulfillment → internal assumption → external expression

This is often called the Law of Assumption.

The important psychological move is the elimination of distance between the present self and the desired future. The practitioner does not merely visualize becoming successful. The practitioner imagines being successful now. The imagined state is treated as causally prior to the external state.

This creates an important difference between Neville and The Godward Way.

Suppose someone desires recognition as an author. A Neville practice might involve imagining holding the published book, hearing congratulations, feeling respected, and experiencing the emotional reality of already having become a successful author.

The Godward Way would approach the same desire differently. It would examine everything contained within it:

• the ambition,
• the hunger for recognition,
• the excitement,
• the insecurity,
• the fantasy,
• the fear of insignificance,
• the longing to communicate,
• the desire to contribute.

Instead of converting all of this into the feeling of already possessing the outcome, the practitioner catches the entire movement of desire and directs it Godward.

The distinction becomes:

• Neville: fulfill the desire internally.
• Godward: offer the desire directionally.

Neville attempts to collapse the distinction between imagination and fulfillment.

The Godward Way preserves the distinction between the individual and God.