Awakened Imagination

Neville Goddard, better known as just Neville, was one of the quietly dramatic and supremely influential teachers in the New Thought field for many years...In a simple, yet somehow elegant one-hour lecture, Neville was able to clarify the nature of God and God's relationship to every person. He spoke of God in intimate terms as though he knew God very well, which he did. Joseph Murphy, a writer and lecturer, who studied with Neville in New York City, said of him: "Neville may eventually be recognized as one of the world's great mystics," Neville originally came to the United States from Barbados to study drama at the age of seventeen. In 1932 he gave up the theater to devote his attention to his studies in mysticism when he began his lecture career in New York City. After traveling throughout the country, he eventually made his home in Los Angeles where, in the late 1950's, he gave a series of talks on television, and for many years, lectured regularly to capacity audiences at the Wilshire Ebell Theater. In the 1960's and early '70s, he confined most of his lectures to Los Angeles, New York, and San Francisco. Neville once said that if he was stranded on an island and was allowed one book, he would choose, The Bible, without hesitation. If he could squeeze in more, he would add Charles Fillmore's Metaphysical Dictionary of Bible names, William Blake, (..". Why stand we here trembling around, Calling on God for help, and not ourselves, in whom God dwells?") and Nicoll's Commentaries. These were the books he recommended at his lectures. Neville spoke without notes and followed his lectures with questions and answers. When he was asked if he had tapes of his lectures for sale, he replied, "I have no tapes. Others here are making tapes for their own use, Perfectly all right. But I have no tapes."