This is season two, episode ten, Neville's Gospel. A utopia that might actually work. We need inner renewal. We discovered in the previous post that in the literature of the utopias, many authors down through the ages have really not done much better than to imagine one dimensional, centralized, collectivist, societies. They relied largely on formal regimentation and control mechanisms. Well, if imagining creates reality, then they certainly got their wish. From Lenin to Stalin to Mao, Castro, Paul Pot, etcetera in the 20th century and on into the present day.

The reviewer that we looked at, Lewis Mumford, he was writing back in 1922. He said, if this dissipation of Western civilization is to cease, the first step to reconstruction is to make over our inner world. Well, I think Neville would have approved of that statement. Mumford himself sought some sort of hierarchy of values, as he put it, but from his scientific, secular humanist viewpoint, he was not able to articulate one. His counterparts today are the globalists and the transhumanists. 

So the question arises, is Christianity on the table? In the eyes of many, Christianity is already discredited because of institutional abuses. But here's a point of logic. Is Christianity, in the true sense of the word, co equal with the corruption of institutions? Does the faulty implementation or abuse of an honorably conceived ideal disprove the ideal? 

Well, this podcast episode is going to be popular neither with the critics of Christianity nor with what you might call conventional Christians. But in any case, I believe that Neville Goddard has construed Christianity brilliantly on the basis of psychological and spiritual truth, all the while rejecting institutional nonsense. 

So my question is, can his view of Christianity actually inform the conduct of life and secular organization? Or is Neville's approach merely a limited personal approach? 

Well, let's do a quick review of Neville's concept of Christianity. 

First of all, obviously he was not a literalist. What he did was interpret Scripture for psychological and spiritual ends. Now, he rejects the idea of God as separate from man and appeals to God within. So man and God are one. 

He rejects the materialist or physicalist view of the universe, and he takes the idealist position. That means man and his world are all mentation. It's all consciousness or mind. Now, this might seem counterintuitive, but this view actually has conceptual parsimony, it has evidence and it has great explanatory power. 

Next, Neville does not endorse the institutional church, but neither does he condemn it. He just leaves it alone. And finally, the imaginal activity of humanity has a creative imperative. 

This is the creative law. So noble ideas are necessary because something has to inform our thoughts that will, in turn, form our imaginative activity and create the outer world. And that's the whole point of trying to build a new argument now for Christianity on a psychological basis. 

You know, when we look into the mindset of people in antiquity, what we find is there was no clear demarcation between the subjective and the objective, between the seeming physical symbol or object and the inner meaning of that symbol or object. So the orientation of the mind was quite different back then because it wasn't contaminated by materialism. Materialism has altered the way we perceive life, the way we live and move and have our being. It's no longer within the mind of God. It's now in some sort of, an artificial construct that we call the physical universe. 

So it was the academics who figured that out. Let me read to you briefly from The Mystery Religions and Christianity (Samuel Angus). 

�The contradiction which our analytic thought is accustomed to find between the nature of an inner spiritual process and its mediation through an outward sensible act has for ancient thought in general no existence. Instead, we could say that our difficulties on this point would have been quite unintelligible to the men of that time. For it appeared to them self evident that a real inward experience must also be visibly represented by a corresponding outward event. And that just in this mystic interplay of inward and outward consisted the significance of their ceremonies.�

So compare that with Bernardo Kastrup's explanation according to his system analytic idealism. When you're looking out into the world to physical objects, seemingly physical objects, the sun, the sky, clouds and so on, you're actually participating in, or perceiving directly mentally mentation itself.
They are not physical objects as we would normally conceive them to be. 

So here's another quote along the same lines. 

�According to this conception, men have in themselves the same elements which exist in principle in the deity and through which they are in sympathy with the deity. Therefore, the religious mind is quickened to perceive that the things of earth are in sympathy with the things of heaven. That the natural is but the manifestation of the divine.� 

Well, all of that is by way of background to start building a psychological view of Christianity. According to Neville's concept, there's certain Judeo Christian formulas that inspire the creation of secular organizations, government, the judiciary and so on. And we can see how they actually originate in the psychological. So let's see if we can take these principles one by one and interpret them in a psychological way. 

Biblical principle: the heart first approach is the key to the integrity and health of the nation. According to the chapter in Matthew, social ills flow from unconverted hearts. Therefore good government rests on citizens who are honest, industrious, compassionate, responsible and self controlled. Psychological interpretation: well you can see that these are not legal points. They're not organizational structures or procedures. These foundational pieces to inform secular organizations are psychological attributes. 

Next, one Biblical principle: Civil authority is delegated. It's limited and answerable to God. The quote is you would have no authority unless it were given from above. That's From John, chapter 19. 

Psychological Interpretation: An individual's volition and self control his very being are not self derived and wholly independent. Rather they are rooted in his consciousness which is God, his divine origin. Neville characterizes awareness of being as God. Awareness of being is God and the ultimate source of an individual's authority over himself. 
Next, one Biblical principle: The purpose of the state is to protect the law abiding and to punish wrongdoers.
 
The psychological interpretation is that an intelligent individual builds and fosters the aspects of his own psychology that understand and observe the creative law. If he ignores the law he can't change it, but he's going to break himself upon the law simply by ignoring it and then suffering the consequences. 

So we've got three examples so far. and in the first one you could see that it's simply the psychological attributes that are foundational to the success of a secular organization� honesty, industriousness, reliability and so on. 

We can see in the second and third examples that the secular organization: the civil authority or the state, just like the individual, they are subject to the authority of God. 

So notice that in these two modes you've got people converted to Christian values who go out into the world and then start to affect the organizations that they take part in. And then you've got the organizations themselves which must abide by the same rules. 

The world is yourself pushed out. That's Neville's dictum. This pushing out then includes not just personal events but the very texture of the world. Institutions, interactions, culture and norms. 

So then what happens if a critical mass of individuals starts to behave in this enlightened way? They stop projecting fear and instead start to imagine responsibly the Lovely things, the worthwhile things, and make the organizations that they work in run that much better. 

So, yes, it's the psychological factor that's the interpretive key to Christianity. It opens up the whole thing for both personal development and worldly institutions. So in this new imagined mode of civilization, it's not ruled by a church authority, but rather it's ruled by principles within people's own awakened hearts. There is a supreme authority. Everyone recognizes the authority of God. It imposes a mental and imaginal discipline upon each individual. And it doesn't deny the need for outward form institutions and social organizations, but it gives them, an inner substance, a psychological grounding. 

So let's review what we covered today. We discovered through our review of the utopias last time that we actually need a hierarchy of values. We need to remake the inner world, in order to be able to imagine something that is really worthwhile. 

We had to ask the question, is Christianity, really still on the table? -  because it's been so badly discredited in the eyes of so many. And yet you have to look at the point of logic. Christianity in its true sense is not co equal with the corruption of its past practice. Does the faulty implementation or abuse of an honorably conceived ideal disprove the ideal? Of course not. 

From there, we went on to test Neville's psychological interpretation of Christianity and discovered that with each Judeo Christian concept that could inform secular institutions, there is a psychological foundation and truth. So in this thought experiment, what we accomplished is a bridge between Neville's inner psychology and, the structure of outer life, not in the form of laws or institutions per se, but as a psychological substratum of civilization itself.

Thank you for listening. Remember to check the show notes and subscribe to the Neville on Fire podcast.