Neville Goddard Decoded: All Things Exist

The following is an analysis of Neville’s lecture All Things Exist. Neville’s words will appear in bolded italics, my commentary in regular text. Very long post ahead — Enjoy!

“All that you behold, though it appears without, it is within, in your imagination of which this world of mortality is but a shadow.” 

(William Blake)

The world of imagination is infinite and eternal, whereas the world of generation is finite and temporary. In that eternal world, the permanent realities of everything exist. Their reflections are here, cast in a glass called nature. 

In can be useful to think of reality as existing on a spectrum of potentiality and actuality. When something exists in a clear and definite form, its potential to exist in any of an infinite number of other forms goes to zero. When something exists completely in potential, it has no actuality, and thus, is formless.

I like the metaphor of painting a picture. If I sit down at a canvas with no ideas in my head, the potential of what could be painted is at a maximum; I could paint a realist portrait of my Uncle, I could paint a landscape of the French countryside, I could paint something totally abstract like a Jackson Pollock, etc.

When I decide I’m going to paint a bowl of fruit, I begin sliding down the spectrum toward actualization. At this point, the possibilities of me painting a portrait of my uncle or a landscape of the countryside have disappeared. Even though the painting is still in “idea form,” it does have some actuality to it. But it has a good deal of potential as well – what style will I paint my fruit bowl in? Will it be realist, will it be abstract? What fruits will I choose to paint? Apples and pears? Bananas and oranges?

As I move further along with these decisions and actually begin painting, I continue to head towards actuality. And, when the painting is finished, all “potential paintings” have been traded in for the one “actual painting.”

So, all Neville is saying here is that imagination contains the unformed potential of all things existing simultaneously, and that the 3D or the physical is a distillation of one single potential creation into its actual form. He also notes that anything “formed” (anything existing in time and space) is temporary, but things existing in potential, as a consequence of not being bound by time or space, exist eternally.

“The oak is cut down by the ax

And the lamb falls by the knife,

But their eternal forms exist forever,

And are renewed by the seed of contemplative thought.”

(William Blake)

The permanent realities of an extinct bird, animal, or fish, live! They can be resurrected and externalized by the seed of your contemplative thought, for everything lives within you! This world of generation I call the world of Caesar should not be neglected, as it is an important aspect of reality, even though it is only a shadow. Scripture urges us to revise, to forgive, and change our thoughts, thereby changing the conditions of our life. This is how it is done.

Here we double down on that potentiality-actuality idea using the idea of extinct animals. Though these animals no longer have form, they do still exist in potential – the ideas of them exist, and can be accessed easily by us through thought. In this way, nothing ever truly dies or goes away – things just move into and out of actuality.

Neville uses the term “The world of Caesar” to describe the 3D and notes that this “generative” (or, in our terms, actualized) world depends on its existing first in potential for its eventual existence in actuality. This is why he calls it a shadow – because actual existence can’t occur without potential existence, but potential existence can persist even in the absence of actualization.

A friend recently wrote saying:

“Three weeks ago a friend called, saying he was afraid he was going to be fired. I instantly revised his call. Hearing his voice bubbling with excitement, he told me how he had been praised for his work and I felt the thrill of rejoicing with him. Today he came to my office and said the very words I heard in my imagination. 

“This morning, while dressing I was thinking about an ad I was working on which carried the name of a very prominent man in San Francisco. As I ran the ad through my mind I said to myself, I want to put the word ‘Mister’ before his name. I did it and it felt right. I made a mental note to do it when I arrived at the office, and promptly dropped the thought. That afternoon the man called, asking that I insert ‘Mister’ before his name - not in the ad, but in a radio commercial where his name was used.”

These two examples are of people creating the actual by first abiding in the potential. In example one, the person revised – meaning, they went back and accessed a potential reality different from the reality that was experienced in actuality. This is an interesting example, because you could debate whether or not the actual reality of what happened was being denied, or if the potential reality being “accessed” was one in which the friend did in fact worry about being fired, but ended up being praised. It’s a subtle difference – “revision” suggests a denial of what actually occurred, though, and that’s hard for people to wrap their heads around. Because of this, I tend towards the later explanation – that revision can simply be viewed as a technique for accessing a more preferable procession of future actualization, and that you don’t actually have to deny what occurred. But it’s up to interpretation.

In the second example, the person just noted something mentally and then that thing occurred (or something close to it, at least). Again, a very interesting case. Did Neville’s friend think about changing the billboard because he was already in the “potential pipeline” of that call happening in actuality, or did the call happen because he entered that potentiality with his thoughts? Ultimately, I don’t think it matters – in either case, what occurred is evidence that things exist in potential first and actuality second, and we know that we can intentionally enter a different “potential pipeline” if we want to, whether or not this person did or not.

Then my friend added this thought: “I stand in awe at the operation of this law. You asked about the little pig I saw. He was small, but fat, and the way I am stuffing him today, in no time at all he will be so large he will fill this room.For those who are not familiar with this symbol, the pig is the symbol of Christ, the power and wisdom of God. Every time you exercise your imagination lovingly on behalf of another or yourself, you are feeding Jesus Christ. My friend is stuffing his pig, because every moment of time he is alert and putting this law into practice.

The fat pig metaphor is a funny one (especially with Biblical significance attached to it), but I think the point is clear enough. If you want to fatten your pig, you have to feed it. Every trough of food you offer it is “potential fatness” – feed it this potential often and consistently enough and eventually you’ll get a pig that is fat in actuality. If you want X to occur, you have to “feed” that aspiration by persisting in the feeling of X occurring. If you want X but you spend all your time thinking about Y, you’re going to get Y – just like how, if you want a fat pig but you give all your food to your chickens, you’re going to end up with fat chickens and a skinny pig, which isn’t what you want.

Now a lady wrote, saying: “I found myself looking at an enormous building at the edge of a vast body of water where your classes were held. A man at my side asked: ‘How do the students get to the classes?’ Pointing to another student who was walking on the water towards her destination I answered: ‘That’s how it is done.’” “Unwilling to accept my answer the man said: ‘But how do you do it?’ and I confessed: ‘I have placed stones just below the water.’ Then the scene changed and I am with a friend who said: ‘I am pregnant.’ Shocked, because I knew she had no husband I asked: ‘By whom?’ and before she could answer, I awoke.

“Three nights later I found myself in a very large building containing a theater, where you were the one actor who was playing every part. As you assumed the role of the blind man, I realized there was no one to lead you, so I ran to help. As we walked, we came upon a young boy sound asleep. Then you said: ‘I told him to meditate and he has fallen asleep again.’

“The scene changed, and I am viewing paper decorations hanging above a door. I reached up to pull them down, when an enormous wind caught me and I felt as though I was borne in the arms of a very strong man and awoke saying, ‘I love thee, O Lord.’”

This marvelous series of dreams revealed much. This lady admitted crossing the water while walking on a solid foundation. Now the Bible is a parable from beginning to end, and water is the symbol of its psychological truth. The literal interpretation of a parable is solid as a rock. When the meaning behind the parable is discovered, the stone is rolled away and the water found. However if a little solid reality in this world is desired while playing with this psychological truth, it becomes stepping-stones below the water.

Loving what is heard is not enough. One must be willing to go all out and walk on the water. Instead, feeling she must be practical as she was living in a world of reality where rent must be paid, food bought, and clothes purchased, she is unable to walk by faith at the present time.

We can continue using our potential vs. actual idea to analyze this first part of the dream (and Neville’s explanation of it). We discussed before how potential reality precedes actual reality – the idea for my painting of a bowl of fruit has to exist before the painting itself can; we also discussed how the reverse isn’t true – I don’t need to actually paint the bowl of fruit for the idea of the painting to exist.

What Neville is saying here is that most people have this equation backward. They believe the potential to cross the water is dependent on the actual existence of a path for doing so. The woman in question couldn’t walk on the water without first placing stones to step on. Our goal, though, is to walk on water through faith alone – to know that the potential creates the actual, and thus, that our persisting in the knowledge that we can cross the water is what creates the means for us to do so; laying out stones in advance is unnecessary.

Let me give you a definition that came to me concerning the word faith. Faith is the subjective appropriation of an objective hope. When my friend revised the first telephone conversation, he subjectively appropriated what he hoped would objectify for his friend. He remained faithful to his imaginal act, and confirmation came. 

In other words, Faith is the claiming in potential of what we hope to occur in actuality.

Do as my friend does, and you will experience the glorious sensation of walking on the water in your mystical world. In my own case I was pulled by a wonderful goose, the symbol of the Holy Spirit. Having lassoed him with a silver chain - the symbol of knowledge - he propelled me over this fabulous water. This is He who will lead you into all things, as recorded in the 14th chapter of the Book of John.

When the metaphors get difficult to comprehend, run them through the filter of what you already understand. The knowledge of the holy spirit guiding one over the water is just another way of expressing that when you know all things exist in imagination (when you know the potential to cross the water exists), you don’t need a path to walk on. This knowledge will propel you across by any means necessary, whether that be by the creation of the stones as you walk, by the momentary solidification of the water as you cross it, by a gust of wind that blows you over to your destination, or by any of the other infinite potential paths to your destination.

The lady saw the protean man when she saw me playing all the parts. As the dreamer of the dream, she has been impregnated by the one she spoke to when she awoke, saying: “I love thee, O Lord.” Mary did not know the name of the one who impregnated her, yet it was the same Lord, the same I AM.

The woman saw that underlying any specific part played by the actor is the actor himself – the man as he exists in potential. And, when Neville says this woman was impregnated by the Lord, he’s saying that out of the vast, unknowable ocean of potential arose this actual insight that came from the dream.

In this lady’s dream she was so brutally honest with herself when the man insisted that she tell him how she crossed the water. She could have said she walked on the water. Instead she told him exactly how it was done, thereby admitting to herself that she has not gone all out and lived by the law, but has a little anchor on the side, in the event it doesn’t work. 

In Barbados we have a saying: “I have a hind-claw,” meaning there is some money tucked away in the bank, a little income from the family, or something I can fall back on just in case. We have these beach crabs on the island that are almost impossible to catch. Running at top speed, the crab can run right over a precipice and disappear. If you followed him you would break your neck in the fall, but the crab has a hind-claw that stops his fall. He grabs the earth just below the surface, and there the crab can pause and get his breath before climbing back and entering the race again. I urge you not to have a hind-claw. Be for me or against me, but be one way or the other. 

The compulsion to have a “hind-claw” or back-up plan is based on the belief that some actual path must precede the potential occurrence. It’s a person saying, “This water is impossible to cross unless there is a path of stones laid out beneath the surface.” When we say this, though, we’re unwittingly cutting ourselves off from the full range of potential solutions to our problems. If you need a path of stones to cross the water, then you cut off the possibility that you’ll be guided across by a goose or blown across by a gust of wind.

It’s ultimately a question of contentedness with your knowledge of the potential. Either you know you will cross the water, or you know you will not – there is no room for “if” (I will cross the water if there is a path of stones laid out for me).

Now, I want to share an experience of a lady who wrote, saying:

“About a year ago I was deeply concerned for my mother. While lying on my bed, I began to imagine her face radiantly happy, and hear her tell me she had never known such happiness before. As I listened, I heard my name whispered softly three times. “Startled, I raised myself off the pillow to see you standing in mid-air. Dressed in a gray suit, you smiled, raised your arms, and removed the eyes from your head. Then you came over and calling me brother, you pressed them into my eyes. Bending your head, I watched it grow transparent and enormous in size. Then I saw that every living thing in the universe was there. You straightened up, and as you did your head returned to its normal size. Again, raising your right hand, you took off the top of your head and handed it to me, where I saw the greenest of green grass growing there, and you vanished.”

Yes, I called this lady brother advisedly, for regardless of the sex worn here, we are immortal brothers, all of us. So I say: “Go unto my brothers and say to them, ‘I have ascended unto my God and your God, unto my Father and your Father.

It was over a year ago when I placed my eyes into her sockets and gave her sight. Now she has become the incurrent eyewitness. In her vision she saw a long table. A man dressed in the white robe of a judge, carrying a gavel in his hand, entered the room. Looking directly at her, the gavel hit the table and he said: “I pronounce you the incurrent eyewitness.”

The word incurrent means, giving passage to a current that flows inward. This lady is now so conditioned that I can reveal all things to her so that she can know the truth of the statement: “All that you behold, though it appears without it is within, in your Imagination, of which this world of mortality is but a shadow.” She saw that every living thing was contained in my immortal head. Destroy the garment I now wear or anything in my world and I will reproduce it again, for my immortal head cannot be destroyed.

Neville’s friends have a lot of wacky dreams. What this woman saw was exactly what Neville details when he says, “Destroy the garment I now wear or anything in my world and I will reproduce it again, for my immortal head cannot be destroyed.” Potential reality exists eternally regardless of what’s present in actuality. Destroy my garment in actuality and I’ll reproduce it again, as your destruction didn’t touch the potential version of it. And in the dream, Neville gave this woman the eyes to see that fact – i.e., his teachings led her to this conclusion.

Start now to practice what the Bible calls repentance, which is a radical change of attitude. No matter what it is, if it does not conform to your ideal change it by subjectively appropriating your goal. Remain faithful to it and no earthly power can keep you from attaining it. Go all out and walk on the water!

Don’t be like Peter, whose understanding told him imagination didn’t make sense (symbolized as his feet), or you will drown in the sea of illusion. Imagination, speaking to his faith, said: “Peter, come,” and as Peter walked, he looked down to see how this was possible, and sank. My friend, who did not look down, walked on the water in the direction of his wish fulfilled - and it was. 

When you look down at the water it’s because you’re looking for that path of stones – you’re looking for the actuality that makes the potentiality possible. When you don’t see that actuality, you sink.

Why do you feel compelled to look in the first place? Peter’s understanding was so backwards that even as he was walking on the water he needed to look down to see by which actual means he was doing so. And most of us are like Peter – even when we’re walking on the water of potentiality, we feel compelled to look down and check to make sure there are stones underneath our feet. Though we’ve already done the work of persisting in the potential reality of our choosing, we have to check to make sure the actual 3D path we decided we must travel on is there underneath us.

And, even if we’re 99% of the way toward our destination (the actualization of our desire), when we look down and don’t see stones, we immediately sink. 

All of the Bible stories will be fulfilled literally on different levels of your being. You will experience them all, because you are Jesus Christ. Blake tells us so beautifully: “Desires and perceptions of Man, untaught by anything but organs of sense must be limited to objects of sense; therefore, God becomes Man that Man may become God.”

If you only knew what your organs of sense reveal, you would never perceive anything beyond them. It would be horrible to remain an organ of sense and never transcend it. But God brought creation with him when he became humanity, and you are here to awaken to that fact! If God did not become you, you would be an animated body, limited to all that your sense organs would reveal. But having become you, God is awakening and will give you desires and their fulfillments, far beyond the wildest dreams of those who are still limited to the organs of sense. 

If you had no access to the potential, and only to the actual, you’d be limited to a single track of reality. You could paint a bowl of fruit only if you saw one in front of you – and you could only paint it exactly as you saw it. When you can walk on water without needing a path of stones, though, you gain the power to bring potentials beyond your wildest imagination into the world of actualization.

When Blake said: “All that you behold, though it appears without, it is within you,” he meant it. Being an incurrent eyewitness like my friend, Blake saw God’s mystery of salvation clearly. I urge you to exercise your divine right by using your imagination. Be like my friend who is now consciously feeding his pig. Every moment of time you have the opportunity to feed your pig. When someone phones to tell of their misfortune, revise their words. Go about your business of creation on the inside, and do not do a thing on the outside. Use your imagination and let your words come into being! All things are possible to you, because you are all imagination and imagination creates reality.

Knowing what you want, imagine you have it. Knowing what you want to be, imagine you are it. Subjectively appropriate your objective hope and you have assumed a virtue you did not have. Ask no one to help, and do not feel below the water for something to fall back on if imagination doesn’t work. Instead, learn to count on your true Self, who is Jesus Christ! Jesus, your own wonderful human imagination, is your hope of glory, and there is no other Christ. Defined as God’s power and wisdom, Imagination is in travail until Christ is formed in you. On that day your history will be changed from BC to AD, and every year thereafter will be the year of the Lord.

Having been formed in you, Christ is born, and the words of Isaiah become yours: “For to you a child is born and a son is given. The government shall then be upon your shoulders, and you will be the Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. And of your reign there shall be no end.” Start now to look upon the great mystery of creation as the subjective appropriation of your objective hope. Dwell upon my words. Put them into practice, and you will experience their fulfillment, for all things exist within you!

Now let us go into the silence.

Neville ends with a single call to action, and essentially, it’s this: stop looking down at the water. When I look out and see the place I’d like to go, I’ve already begun walking across the surface. I’m traveling on the path of potential; I’m feeding my pig. When I turn toward the actual for confirmation that I’m actually moving, I sink. It’s like looking at your pig eating and saying, “he’s not fat, thus he is not eating.” Or, it’s like imagining a painting of a bowl of fruit, then reaching out to touch your paintbrush to the canvas and saying, “There is no painting.”

This is no painting in actuality, but there are many paintings in potentiality. If you sit there staring at a blank canvas telling yourself there is no painting, then the painting can never actually come into being. For that actualization to occur, you have to look away from the canvas and into imagination so that the potential painting can lay out its own path to existence.

As always, good luck.