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Neville Goddard (1905-1972) offered a compelling explanation of the human condition and an intriguing and empowering path of self-discovery. Join your host Ed to explore from the ground up this most essential mystery: the human imagination.
[edited for clarity]
This is E7, Neville and Christianity.
In this episode, I want to explore different views of Christianity and to discuss how they affect the whole project of considering and working with Neville's ideas.
1. Different types of religion for different types of people. There are all kinds of topologies for psychological types. It doesn't matter whether you look, let's say in CG Jung, or you could look in the Bible itself, or you could look into the Gnostic texts. There's going to be a division or categorization of different types of people. And each of those sources that I just mentioned will also characterize the kind of spiritual understanding or approach to religion or the type of religion that each type will have. So already in the consideration of different views of Christianity, we can see that the question is relative, based on this notion that there are different psychological types. Within these different views, there is one fundamental distinction that's important, and that is people who rely on a literal interpretation of Scripture, and those who rely on the notion that there must be an interpretation.
2. Comparing ways, comparing different religions, philosophies, techniques, approaches. I would say that a permanent fixation on one and only one method or religion or approach can lead to stagnation. It doesn't necessarily have to, but it can easily lead to stagnation. Then again, the converse of that is if you jump around from place to place, this will likely lead to confusion and would be sort of irresponsible. So the right approach seems to be to spend a considerable time with one discipline and go into its depths to try to really understand what it's all about, as far as you can, and then permit yourself to eventually explore other views, to shed light on what you've learned.
3. Any fundamental change is going to involve a change in the feeling of oneself. And here I'll give you a quote from Maurice Nicoll from his book Living Time. “We fight for our opinions, not because we believe them, but because they involve the ordinary feeling of oneself.”
[02:44]
4. Neville Goddard's views. A few of the core ideas from Neville's teaching that I think are going to be the most fundamental in its definition: The first one is that Scripture does not present secular history. It requires psychological interpretation. It's a set of psychological instructions. The second one is character of Jesus Christ is not an historical figure, but rather is identified as the human imagination. The third one is that God's name as identified in Exodus, is “I am”, and the interpretation of that, since we're going on psychological interpretation, is the wordless experience of consciousness. And that is the very creative principle itself, that is God himself.
5. Objections to Neville's views. Well, I think objections, ironically, are going to be coming from both those who are what you might call conventional Christians, and also from people who are not particularly religious. They will each have the same reaction, and that is that the tenets that I just set out [above] are outrageous; they're blasphemous, arrogant, going down the wrong path towards perdition...
So we have to ask, why is it that both conventional Christians and people who aren't particularly religious will have this gut feeling that this appropriation of God himself -- to oneself -- is so objectionable?
Just imagine there was a group of us having this discussion, and we could transport ourselves 5000 or 8000 years into the past -- before the whole edifice of the church that we're familiar with, and the institutions that govern various parts of our lives (government, the medical institution, education, finance, and so on). If we were discussing these questions, we would very likely allow ourselves the freedom to consider the idea that the creative principle was indeed resident in our own consciousness, and our own self awareness. That would not be such an outrageous idea to consider. No, it would be on the table for consideration, because we wouldn't be affected by all the things that we discussed back in E3 with regard to these negative suggestions inculcated in us by various institutions. As it is now, it seems we're steeped in the atmosphere of our dominant institutions, whether you're religious or not, as I said, and this is going to constrain our powers of independent thought and judgment.
[05:14]
6. Second category of objections: the whole reading that Neville gives the Bible is faulty, it's wrong, a misinterpretation, contradicting the authoritative view. Well, in answer to that, let me start with this.
A good friend of mine who is a Christian said to me that she started to question, among her Christian companions, the whole notion contained in the Bible that the world was created in such a short span of time when, on the other hand, scientific and geological evidence shows quite a different story. Well, there was a reaction of shock expressed by her companions. This shows an extraordinarily narrow view and sort of a servitude to a literal view of things. And that's kind of shocking, especially when even the character of Jesus himself in the Bible explained the need for using parable.
My point, then, is that anyone who wants to pursue a critical examination of the Church and its conventional interpretation is going to have to peel away many layers of deception. The first one, as we just discussed, is to free oneself from the grip of fear, or the subconscious programming, and to give ourselves permission to even ask the questions -- which obviously, my friend is doing.
The second layer is to remove the blinders of a simplified standard version of the history.
I checked the etymology of the word Church in the Catholic dictionary online, and it comes from an Anglo Saxon word Cirice, which is also, as they state in the definition there, Circe. Well, who was Circe? She was a Greek sorceress “renowned for her vast knowledge of potions and herbs” and through the use of these and a magic wand staff, she would transform men into animals. That's from Greek mythology.
Well, any reasonably objective history of early Christianity is going to show an extraordinary struggle going on. It's going to be a struggle for control over the minds of men. And this is going to be taking place in the form of a coercion of the Imperial government -- Rome against the impulse for local autonomy. And similarly there's going to be contention for the allegiance of the hearts and minds of men and women among a whole plethora of pagan ritual practices. This is where Christianity came from.
I'm going to put a link in the show notes to some sources where they talk about ancient pagan rituals and beliefs going way back even into prehistory.
The other part of this history of the Church is the fact that the state, that is, the Roman authorities, co-opted Christianity and made it the official state religion, and undoubtedly corrupted it in the process.
What you'll see in those sources is that there has been in Christianity for the past 2000 years a whole overlay of pagan iconography, rites, rituals, practices and so on that have nothing to do with Christianity, but have everything to do with the worship of the sun, the worship of Saturn, the worship of the moon... the whole history of astro theology. There were many spiritual figures, many messiahs in different traditions and cultures before Christianity ever appeared, who have the same qualities and characteristics of the supposed figure of Jesus Christ.
[08:30]
I checked a source on the Gnostics -- that is sort of the esoteric arm of Christianity. Their material did not make it into the Canon of accepted biblical literature. This author says that the Gnostics claimed that there were two lines of tradition, the public sayings and the inner teachings which dealt with things that people in the world could not understand. So there you see the division of people into different categories of religion, as I mentioned at the outset.
Now here, this question of historicity of Jesus: The author says “the personality of Jesus proved to be a very difficult problem. We can find examples of every shade of opinion” with regard to Jesus among these Gnostic practitioners, even including the very, he says, “the very antipodes” (in other words, the complete opposite) of belief.
Even these early early Christians are expressing a disbelief, and they said that he Jesus was “a necessity forced upon the faith by the boastful spirit of an enthusiasm which sought to transcend the claims of every existing religion.” In other words, they were sort of in competition with other religions to try to gain followers.
So what is our conclusion with regard to history? In a sense, you can say that the history of the whole thing really doesn't matter. You could be on one side of the question or the other once you've decided, okay, there was an historical Jesus or there wasn't. So then what?
Well, my position is I'm not defending or attacking Christianity per se. I'm simply interested in the fact that Neville is accessing a certain body of information which we call scripture, and he's presenting a consistent system that is fascinating, that gives new information, and can be checked and verified by ourselves in practice.
[10:18]
7. Standard of truth. If we accept that the interpretation of history is going to be extraordinarily variable, then we have to still arrive at some sort of standard of truth. What is the basis upon which we are going to be satisfied in our spiritual quest? What indeed, is the standard of truth by which I can assess the correctness of my path and have certainty in it?
Well, I think even to ask this question, you would have to be, first of all, self possessed. That's a condition. You have to be self-realized. In other words, you can't be in the grip, the hypnotic grip of some propaganda system, because then by definition, you're not thinking. So then the answer will be up to the individual to determine, and it must be free from coercion. I think that's clear.
Another condition, though, which is a little more difficult or subtle, is the fact that it's going to depend on the extent to which a person is able to be sincere with himself or herself. And that could be an involved or delicate process, to be sure that I'm really getting to the bottom of things within myself.
Something along those lines was a movie that I saw recently, and it's an older movie, and it's a dramatization of the cleric, John Hus. He was 15th century Czech cleric in the Catholic Church. He made scripture accessible to his parishioners and went around the authority of the Church. He made the mistake, when they accused him, of trying to engage with the institution, as if it was going to play fair and actually answer the questions that he asked. He said that he was willing to be taught, he was willing to be instructed, but the authorities didn't dare to enter into discussion with him in a sincere way. They just kept insisting on their own infallibility and eventually condemned him and burned them at the stake.
This sort of thing we still see going on today, unless we change it in our imaginal activity and produce a better world.
8. Objections based on self-deception. We've already considered that the human imagination is the creative principle itself. People will say, well, that's just too daring; it's obnoxious, it's impertinent, blasphemous, and so on. And then we also looked at the historical question. Now we come to the objection that Neville's ideas, they're from the devil, from some evil entity.
Another way to say this is that this interpretation exalts the self. It builds up the individual's personality. It inflates the ego. It defies God and ignores the imperative in Christianity to surrender to Jesus Christ, to lay aside everything and submit in complete honesty and humility and purity. That's the only way to Salvation, the only way to reach God.
[13:00]
Well, first of all, an exaltation of the self is required. But which self are we talking about? As I mentioned back in E1, it's the second man that Paul, for example, in scripture talks about, and that's the second man who will then become first. So there is something in us; there's some development, some psychological transformation that we will benefit from. There will be a gain. We're not going to be abject and miserable, but we're actually going to be joyful, more conscious. So in that sense, yes, there will be an exaltation of the self.
Now, as to whether this process is going to be sincere, honest and humble and pure and so on. Well, let's break this down a little bit. I've already mentioned that sincerity is necessary, and that's only going to be discernible by oneself within oneself. Nobody else can monitor that. But it's the very discipline of self observation, self critique, separation, non identification, and so on, that's going to be putting us through the furnaces of affliction and developing the self. So the ego, the surface personality, doesn't have an easy time in this. It's going to be subject to this work on oneself.
As to the other part about whether the whole thing is pure and humble, well, any pretence of that humility and purity, I mean, as moral virtues will instantly be ruined. Why? Because in order to obey the precept of honesty, you have to admit that when you looked lustfully upon the woman, you enjoyed it. If you deny that, then you're lying, bang, purity is out the window.
The answer to the humility problem is this: It's about psychological balance and honesty with oneself, as we were saying.
With regard to being in [the] control of the devil, or indeed a whole pantheon of evil spirits and so on. Well, you're free to believe in the external existence, independent existence, of some other being, like a devil or an evil spirit if you want. But I think that's the point that Neville is getting at. You have the capacity to believe and bring to life whatever you want, and therefore belief in something evil that is going to defeat you is simply a false and self defeating belief.
In scripture, in antiquity, they didn't have psychological terms, so they characterized and personified evil and negative tendencies and emotions, and so on, in Man, as external, independently existing entities spirits, ghosts, hobgoblins, and the rest of it.
The answer to all that is just to exercise some vigilance over our own internal mental economy. When are we going to slide into depression or to negativity? These are the evil spirits that we should be worried about.
So rather than giving in to an evil that is literal -- independently existing [in] unseen realms -- which produces its own corresponding mental effects, we should really follow sensible advice and relegate it to the category of false belief. Follow the familiar instructions: “choose life”, prune the twisted branches from the vine, and displace evil with thoughts of whatever is good, lovely and of good report.
On the other hand, if you have a deep conviction in the reality of an entity called Satan or the devil, this will effectively render sterile your attempts to positively conceive and manifest anything at all. You will instead reap the result of your own false belief.
Summary and Conclusions
In this podcast episode, we covered psychological types and corresponding practices of religion, comparing one way or one religion to another and how to proceed. We looked at the fact that shifting our opinion might well involve changing the feeling of ourselves. We looked at Neville's view with regard to the psychological interpretation of Scripture and the actual identity and nature of God and Man. We considered objections from the point of view of conventional Christianity and even people who are not particularly religious. And yet we answered those objections with comments about the institutional training that we have all undergone. Further objections had to do with the wrong interpretation, and we answered that with a bit of discussion on the whole history of the Church, and how that history is much more complicated than we usually imagine. We then talked about what the standard of truth is going to be -- how do we know that we'll actually be on the right path? The question can only be answered by being sincere with oneself.
Well, my conclusion with regard to Neville Goddard and Christianity is that he, so it appears, was the recipient of an underground current of thought, that was enhanced by his own mystical revelations, not to mention his diligence in reading, practically memorizing, all 66 books of the Bible -- all while checking translations and commentaries. So the result was his intuitive discovery of the blueprint for self change, with a deep reverence for God in the process.
He showed people how to extricate themselves from self imposed persecutions in order to achieve what they had thought was impossible, against reason and against the social order, against the economic order and even against the laws of probability. His message was that all is rooted in Man: all of creation is rooted in our own psyche. All must be understood psychologically.
Well, I started out with the intention of looking at different views of Christianity and seeing the implications for considering Neville's ideas. I think Neville's system of thought is accessible to just about everyone, except where a literal interpretation of Scripture and an overall dogmatic viewpoint prevents you.