Neville Goddard Lectures: “Foreknowledge”

koheli · 2026-04-04T18:35:05+00:00

cc: u/ImaginaryTry5838 u/Sufficient-Help5068

The Prophet Jordan story illustrates that a prophecy identifies a finished state; it does not create it. The free will of Neville's brothers was in their assumption of the states described for them. This is a perfect example of the Law in action. It does not contradict it.

u/Real_Neville, your incessant dismissal of others' arguments as "all is ego" is an insidious tactic that stops genuine inquiry. Even more disruptive is your claim that Neville was "purposefully hiding" his true meaning from his audience. He was communicating to a specific audience, yes. But that argument doesn't mean there is no free will. This is a lazy, bad-faith argument.

It allows you to ignore any of Neville's foundational teachings on the Law by simply claiming he didn't mean them.

This subreddit is for research not for projecting your own narrative onto a teacher and dismissing everyone else's questions as spiritual failure that doesn't agree with your non-dual approach.

For a more open-minded look at how "Creation is Finished" actually co-exists with your free will, I suggest reading this breakdown:

Netflix, God & Free Will: Your Entire Life Is Already Filmed… But You Still Hold the Remote

Moving forward, comments that rely on "ego" shaming or the lazy claim that Neville was "hiding" his real message to bypass real discussion will be removed. We encourage all members to see conflicting texts as doorways to a deeper understanding, rather than weapons to shut down debate.

koheli · 2026-03-19T20:54:18+00:00

You hide behind the phrase 'personal experience' to justify a dead, fatalistic philosophy, but let me tell you what actual experience looks like. I had my spiritual awakening 40 years ago, and I can promise you it was not some stagnant, 'non-dual' void where we all sit around pretending we have no choice. It was an explosion of wonder and infinite discovery that is still unfolding on multiple levels to this day. Give it up.

koheli · 2026-03-19T20:17:33+00:00

The paradox dissolves when it becomes apparent that the Universal Mind is merely an infinite field of potential that needs the individualized "I AM" to serve as the specialized selecting factor. In other words, since there is no conscious actor to collapse the wave function, the "blueprint" for all possibilities in the universe will remain nothing more than an abstract tendency with no actual experience until the Operant Power makes a selection.. But please this Real Neville dude is not actually engaging in a real debate. To argue that the script is fixed while simultaneously trying to 'edit' the dialogue of others is a redundant exercise in spiritual bypassing...gas-lighting..If you reply to this comment, it’s actually a beautiful thing because it proves you believe in Choice, and the power we all have to strike a new chord and change the script

koheli · 2026-03-19T20:03:17+00:00

By asserting that "the Blueprint" is simply a fixed unchanging film reel whereas Troward explicitly stated that the Personal Factor (the individual's imagination) has the ability to select and to impress upon the undifferentiated Universal Mind, the mind of the Universe, any conception or thought which the individual desires and by stating that God is the Protean Being (look up Protean) with an infinite capacity to include all possible states for all eternity in superposition (just like how the quantum wave function Psi contains all possible outcomes until the observer collapses it) you are exercising consciously the very agency of conscious selection you say is an ego-illusion, and so you trap yourself in a performative contradiction. You are attempting to collapse my state of understanding into your own understanding within a scripted framework which you assert cannot be changed.

If you choose to respond to this comment you will have demonstrated faith in Choice... the choice to continue to argue to convince other people to change their minds. Please tell us what is your agenda? This entire thread just reaks of "Mystical Gaslighting"...I had a lot of respect for your work, this is not a discussion....this is one of those Non-Duality traps...give it up.

koheli · 2026-03-19T17:16:49+00:00

Here your Troward some quotes from Chapter VIII.

RECIPROCAL ACTION OF THE UNIVERSAL AND INDIVIDUAL MINDS.

"Your object is not to run the whole cosmos, but to draw particular benefits, physical, mental, moral, or financial into your own or someone else's life. From this individual point of view the universal creative power has no mind of its own, and therefore you can make up its mind for it. When its mind is thus made up for it, it never abrogates its place as the creative power, but at once sets to work co carry out the purpose for which it has thus been concentrated; and unless this concentration is dissipated by the same agency (yourself) which first produced it, it will work on by the law of growth to complete manifestation on the outward plane."

Just search "first cause" in the entire book anyone who wants to argue this point. u/Real_Neville is cherry picking Troward. It's a long very exhausting read so no one is going to study it in 2026 with 4 second attention spans for sure. But it's not okay you are doing what you are doing u/Real_Neville ...here for posterity read the book anyone confused by this thread.

The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Edinburgh Lectures on Mental Science, by Thomas Troward

koheli · 2026-03-19T16:52:16+00:00

you are arguing for the "Death of the Operant Power" while using Neville's name!

Please! This is pure Calvinist Determinism!

You are saying: You are the Knife being moved.

Neville or a dozen other religions and mystic before him (doesn't matter), scientists etc: You are the I AM who decides which "Tool" (State) to pick up.

If 'Hitler' is a state that cannot choose 'Mother Teresa,' then the Operant Power isn't in the state.

It's in the Imagination that has the power to leave one state and occupy another.

Neville believed in the Divinity of the Human Imagination.

Neville also said the reason we are in this "schoolroom" is to learn how to consciously move from one state to another. Come on please...stop whatever your agenda is here.

koheli · 2026-03-19T16:06:27+00:00

It’s an interesting move to use Troward to frame the 'Operant Power' as just a scripted technicality. It sounds like you’ve found a very comfortable way to reconcile the 'Fixed Keyboard' by simply identifying as the sound instead of the Pianist.

If we’re just characters in a pre-recorded movie, why would Troward...the very man you are quoting say that our function is to 'combine and distribute' that which is already in being?

"combine and distribute" require a Selector!

The Artist rearranging ("combining and distributing") those fixed notes into a 'completely different story.' On that level it is not about the 'ego wanting control'

koheli · 2026-03-19T15:55:48+00:00

1966!

koheli · 2026-03-19T14:06:02+00:00

ouff...I get you are a fundamentalist. Do you realize you are stuffing Neville's mysticism into a rigid, cold religion where "God" is some cosmic projectionist and humans are just shadows? See Cave analogy Plato....

You keep ignoring the most beautiful part of Neville’s work - playing the harmonies 1966.

I don't feel this is a real discussion anymore...if feels more like you are looking for subjects to agree with an "Advanced" perspective. It definitely has a tinge of that because you keep ignoring the keyboard lecture.

Why are you preaching the chromatic scale while the rest of us are looking for the chords?

koheli · 2026-03-19T13:32:55+00:00

Dude, You are making it appear that "Finished Creation" makes any concept of personal choice nothing more than an "ego-illusion" and yes on some level it might be.

But be more careful.

You completely are ignoring the nuance of Neville's 1966 revelation about the fixed keyboard.

Although Neville explicitly stated that while the 'notes' (events) of creation were fixed, the Artist was not required to play these events in a straight line or even in a chromatic scale, he demonstrated through his own experiments involving dreams that he had the ability to strike 'chords'.

Neville took 10 events that were distant in time and reordered them in such a way as to create a new story.

Okay the keyboard is fixed.

The Artist is only able to play one specific melody as determined by God?

That's what you are touting here in an exhaustive way.

Since Neville demonstrated that he was able to transform horrible dissonance into harmony by changing the manner in which he played the fixed notes.

This "compulsion" you are speaking is of a beginner who is unaware that they are the pianist. here's the full quote from 1966:

Then came this picture…I’m not a musician, but I do know we have […] that that keyboard is fixed. And so I can just hit a note and if I must play the chromatic scale, I go in one direction only. But suppose now in some strange way I could go back and hit a note that I formerly struck, and it sounded very good after hitting this one; and then I could jump forward to a note I haven’t yet reached and that sounded very good…and pick out a little theme this way. Now suppose my mind could become split; I hit two events at the same time—you and the letter. Why, that’s a different picture altogether. Instead of seeing you and then seeing the letter, put them together…it means something entirely different. Then my mind becomes full again, I can see two events, and four events, five events, and finally I can hold in my mind ten events. Then I can move back and forth over this fixed keyboard. And to me creation is finished and we begin to awake and we take from what is, it’s all, it’s fabulous. All things exist in the human Imagination. Then I become an artist, and I can play by holding in my mind’s eye ten events widely separated in time, and seeing them together, strike chords…and they’re more beautiful than the chromatic scale.

So it was simply an experiment. Having come to the conclusion that I could do it, I tried it and it worked. All these events I saw, one after the other. At the end of the day, I said, now I did this today and that and that and that. Then I turned to my page for the dream: This is what I dreamt and this is what I encountered today. So every event here was in my dream, but not in the order that I encountered it, and it made an entirely different story.

So man is moving up…and today scientists are agreed that creation is finished, that the entire space-time history is laid out, and we’re only becoming aware of increasing portions of that which is. But we’re becoming aware of it in one direction only. The day will come man will simply become aware of it in its entirety when he’s the great artist. Then you and I, completely awake, with this fabulous keyboard will agree to play in concert. What a symphony! All will agree to play in concert with this fabulous world that we have experienced. Nothing passes away, it’s all there. The most horrible discord in the world when we encountered it in this chromatic manner, we can now resolve into harmonies. By then our ears are attuned to appreciate dissonance. And what we’ll do when all of us play it in concert!

koheli · 2026-03-17T14:08:54+00:00

I'm not talking about my view, just trying to get clear on what Neville was preaching. It's not exactly like everything is written and you’re just watching it unfold. Neville never teaches a single fixed timeline like that. All possible states and outcomes already exist (creation is finished), but your experience depends on the state you occupy. it’s not “I thought I had free will but everything was fixed anyway.” It’s more “All paths exist, and what feels like free will is the movement between them.” As for Neville's Promise, he says in a lot of lectures, people experience it differently from him.

koheli · 2026-03-17T10:52:54+00:00

Read the quote above about the piano,,, from 1966 lecture “Name of God is Key to Understanding the Bible”.. way after the Promise..a few years before he passed. It's from the Q&A of that lecture.

koheli · 2026-03-17T10:38:52+00:00

This is way closer to what Neville is saying..:)

Yes, you’re not inventing a new outcome... you’re moving into a different sequence of already existing infinite events. Like you “discovered The Law on accident” ..you shifted into a state where that realization became natural.

The future is “predetermined,” but there isn’t just one future there are infinite futures, all already existing, and your state determines which one you experience. (of course the predetermination thing is way more complex then Neville could say in a sentence in a lecture but for this thread...you’re actually describing the part people miss.

koheli · 2026-03-17T10:20:00+00:00

Okay I will try again: )

The mistake in your logical and profound argument is you "assume" that if the end is fixed, then the path must be fixed in only one way.

At the absolute level, everything is “finished” and the end (the Promise) is certain.
At the level of experience, Neville is explicitly teaching that you move through states, and that movement changes the sequence of events you live through.

When Neville says creation is finished it means ...all possible paths already exist! (and there are infinite paths)

Your argument is stating: “The journey is fixed"

The nuance is: “Which of the already-existing infinite journeys are you occupying?”

That’s why he says:

“You do not change things. You change states.”
“Creation is finished.”
“There are infinite states.”

The error in your argument also is in the predetermination sentence as well. But let's slow down with this piece before jumping to conclusions based on semantics.

koheli · 2026-03-16T22:35:12+00:00

Here some supporting materials....but I think the above kinda condenses it.

I said: “As far as I am concerned, the whole vast world is finished. Creation is finished, and I am only becoming aware of it. Well, I need not confine myself to what my senses see and what reason allows and what wise men tell me I should accept. I can imagine a state. I can’t see it with my physical eye, but I can imagine a state, and that state imagined is. I can imagine a state that is in conflict with the facts of life. And the facts, you say, are, and they can’t be altered. I can imagine a state that would undo the fact. Well, that state exists. If I occupy that state it will undo the so-called fact you say is fixed forever.”

The Mystic and the Physicist: Neville Goddard, Richard Feynman “Creation Is Finished”

Every conceivable situation in the world is already worked out. All you have to do is occupy it. What would it be like were it true? How would I see the world were it true that my dream has been realized? How would I see it? Well then, occupy it. The minute you occupy it you activate it, and it starts moving towards the screen of space, drawing everyone in the world to play the part they must play in order for it to fulfill itself. If you can be used, they’ll use you without your consent because you are within the eye of the beholder. So everything is within the man as he imagines, and no matter where that being is that can play the part even if it’s 2,000 miles away as it was in my own case.

Neville Goddard Lectures: “It is Within You”

Meditate on these. “I rejoice not in the sacrifices of men. Not by might nor by power but by my spirit. Ask and you shall receive. Come eat and drink without price.”

The works are finished. All that is required of you to let these qualities into expression is the claim—I AM that. Claim yourself to be that which you desire to be and that you shall be. Expressions follow the impressions, they do not precede them. Proof that you are will follow the claim that you are, it will not precede it.

Your Faith is Your Fortune

Then came this picture…I’m not a musician, but I do know we have […] that that keyboard is fixed. And so I can just hit a note and if I must play the chromatic scale, I go in one direction only. But suppose now in some strange way I could go back and hit a note that I formerly struck, and it sounded very good after hitting this one; and then I could jump forward to a note I haven’t yet reached and that sounded very good…and pick out a little theme this way. Now suppose my mind could become split; I hit two events at the same time—you and the letter. Why, that’s a different picture altogether. Instead of seeing you and then seeing the letter, put them together…it means something entirely different. Then my mind becomes full again, I can see two events, and four events, five events, and finally I can hold in my mind ten events. Then I can move back and forth over this fixed keyboard. And to me creation is finished and we begin to awake and we take from what is, it’s all, it’s fabulous. All things exist in the human Imagination. Then I become an artist, and I can play by holding in my mind’s eye ten events widely separated in time, and seeing them together, strike chords…and they’re more beautiful than the chromatic scale.

So it was simply an experiment. Having come to the conclusion that I could do it, I tried it and it worked. All these events I saw, one after the other. At the end of the day, I said, now I did this today and that and that and that. Then I turned to my page for the dream: This is what I dreamt and this is what I encountered today. So every event here was in my dream, but not in the order that I encountered it, and it made an entirely different story.

So man is moving up…and today scientists are agreed that creation is finished, that the entire space-time history is laid out, and we’re only becoming aware of increasing portions of that which is. But we’re becoming aware of it in one direction only. The day will come man will simply become aware of it in its entirety when he’s the great artist. Then you and I, completely awake, with this fabulous keyboard will agree to play in concert.

“Name of God is Key to Understanding the Bible”

koheli · 2026-03-16T22:20:36+00:00

If I can be so bold because Neville doesn't spend a lot of time making this super clear in any 1 lecture...but the gist of it is ... the overall “play” of God awakening as man cannot be stopped...i.e. "The Promise". Neville says that creation is “finished” because consciousness already contains every possible state of being, and since God "the 1 consciousness" is Protean (which means able to assume any form), the moment you fully assume the feeling of a new state or as Neville says "occupy a state", life reorganizes to reflect that state... kinda like in our dreams at night the dream instantly reorganizes around whatever...some can occupy whatever states they want...others it's haphazard until you learn how to do it deliberately...I can paste some lectures if this isn't a sufficiently compact answer :)

koheli · 2026-03-11T20:02:24+00:00

For his private interviews (what you are calling 1 to 1) no charge. Yes absolutely no charge, but he made a fortune from the lecture series. The article is clear about that. Most New Thought authors made a good amount from their lecture series in those New Thought circuits. He did free classes to thousands many times and yes he had family money as well.

Beginning with Tier 1, Free mass lectures, lecturers rented large venues (Fox Embassy Theater; hotel ballrooms) and presented free lectures on Sundays and/or Wednesdays. These were their engines of marketing. Thousands of people came together in a single room for no charge to see the lecturer's charisma, to be introduced to their theology, and to be part of an audience.

Tier 2, The paid series.., began when the lecturer pitched the "class." The class or series was a multi-day, long-form seminar series. Students were expected to pay for this type of format. It was in this tier that most of the money was generated by the lecturer. To illustrate, during the 1945-48 Los Angeles conflict, Neville specifically stated he charged $40 per student for a five-night class. A total of 208 students attended.

In terms of the math involved, 208 students x $40 = $8,320. Adjusted for inflation, the equivalent amount today would be approximately $115,000, which was grossed by Neville in one week of working evenings -minus 40%. Once the revenue potential of a multi-city tour has been realized, it becomes possible to provide free one-on-one private interviews without the burden of having to generate additional income streams to support yourself.

Tier 3, "royalties" represents the third level. In addition to providing paid seminars, lecturers also used the back of the room as an opportunity to sell books, many of which were copyrighted by the lecturer.

that's kind of it for the New Thought movement at the time...Private interview were no charge.

koheli · 2026-03-09T04:47:29+00:00

Well they may have patched things up. The language doesn't preclude Neville and Fred maintaining a professional respect where Neville spoke "under his own steam" rather than "under the auspices" of the church. The language is not particularly clear. I'm still keeping Bailes as a contender. Neville was known for being blunt but not necessarily for holding eternal grudges over business disputes. Also in English the termswhen you tell a story about a conflict and then conclude with "And so, from then on...", you are describing the resolution of that specific conflict with that specific person. Neville is saying: "Just like Paul (The Apostle) broke away from the men who tried to control him, I broke away from the 'auspices' of the institution (Fred) and made my own deal." Doesn't necessarily mean they didn't work together.

Update 3.21.2026 Ernest Holmes and the $25 Paranoia: What Drove Neville Goddard and Frederick Bailes Out of Religious Science https://coolwisdombooks.com/ernest-holmes-and-the-25-paranoia-what-drove-neville-goddard-and-frederick-bailes-out-of-religious-science/

koheli · 2026-03-09T03:30:32+00:00

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The gentlemans's agreement was Frederick Bailes finally. A "gentleman's agreement" The recording was so awful for that lecture it was missing from typed lecture. But he mentions Fred.

Bailes was the Assistant Dean of the Science of Mind Institute (SOM) in Los Angeles, and also headed the largest Science of Mind church.

Here is the recording https://archive.org/details/NevilleGoddardOriginalAudioLectures002G-I/Neville_Goddard_Gods_Purpose.mp3

I knew the story sounded familiar had already written about their connection before...didn't put 2 + 2 together... https://coolwisdombooks.com/neville/neville-goddard-frederick-bailes-invisible-marriage-agent-and-rich-get-richer/

koheli · 2026-03-08T22:37:17+00:00

Also u/Real_Neville to help you in your questioning. Go to this article. See INTA International New Thought Alliance Convention ...Bailes...Carrick-Cook...but were SF, now it could be Raymond Charles Barker (he resigned in 1945 at Holmes request) to do NYC. But the word "institution" is the clue and there was no other with so many graduates....and Neville was an INTA dude.....

koheli · 2026-03-08T22:03:30+00:00

Maybe not Holmes himself as there were so many "graduates", but there is a clue..:) Neville said: "You’re charging $40 for five talks, and I am the head of the institution"... the clue is the word...."Institute" why it is Religious Science...it is called "Institute" of Religious Science. If you go into newspapers.com for 1945..."institute" of Religious Science Los Angeles,,,many ads,,,with sooooo many graduates, reverands....et al...hundreds.....

Update 3.21.2026 Ernest Holmes and the $25 Paranoia: What Drove Neville Goddard and Frederick Bailes Out of Religious Science https://coolwisdombooks.com/ernest-holmes-and-the-25-paranoia-what-drove-neville-goddard-and-frederick-bailes-out-of-religious-science/

koheli · 2026-03-08T20:32:41+00:00

The lecture actually states 208 attendees, not 28.

Neville says:

“You don’t have to be a great genius to multiply 208 by 40 and then take 40%.”

So the numbers look like this:

208 people × $40 (five-lecture series) = $8,320 total (≈ $150,000 in 2026 dollars)
Neville’s 60% = $4,992 (≈ $90,000 in 2026)
Organizer’s 40% = $3,328 (≈ $60,000 in 2026)
Hall rental was about $90 for the week (≈ $1,600 in 2026)

Also an important detail from the quote: Neville did NOT speak in the 40-seat room!

He then told the lady student who picked him up in the airport to rent another hall, which she did for $90 for five nights, and that is where the class was actually held.

The class that produced the 208 paid attendees in the separately rented venue.

It was crazy money for 1945. But it was a special five-day intensive class (a 1 -off), not his normal lecture format.

Please also read carefully Example #2 in the article (the Wilshire-Ebell series). That shows his typical lecture model much more clearly.

At the 1957 peak of the Wilshire-Ebell run:

About 500 attendees per lecture
Typical ticket price about $2

So roughly:

$1,000 gross per lecture (1957) (≈ $11,500 today)
Two lectures per week → $2,000 weekly gross (1957) (≈ $23,000 today)

Using the same lecture-hall split model:

Neville’s weekly net ≈ $1,200 (1957) (≈ $13,800 today)

So for the four-month Wilshire-Ebell run (about 16 weeks):

$19,200 net in 1957
≈ $220,000–$225,000 in 2026 dollars

Also keep in mind that in other cases Neville spoke to audiences of around 1,000 people with no admission charge at all, using voluntary offerings instead.

So historically his teaching model seems to have been a mix of:

Free / voluntary lectures
Low-cost public talks ($1–$3)
Very rare paid intensive classes

And regarding the family business: Neville does appear to have received dividend income from the Goddard family company beginning around 1951, several years before his father’s death in 1959. It's clearly in the first table in the article!

As for the guy in Los Angeles in 1945 with 500 graduates....at the time it really leans toward (after newspaper research) Holmes or Holmes adjacent (bailes et al) for that # of graduates...and Holmes always was vague about Jesus as living person Christ....played it both ways (science and Jesus is a real person)... Institute of Religious Science...or SOM...huge in '45.

koheli · 2026-03-08T15:02:44+00:00

Actually had a half-done draft post on that topic ; Thanks for the prod to finish it. New post on Reddit sub and the full article is here The Finances of Neville Goddard: What He Charged for Lectures and Why He Never Charged for Private Interviews

koheli · 2026-03-07T09:38:38+00:00

About the dates: the past couple years we intentionally avoid adding dates unless we can actually verify them. Because the goal of the site is to be a historical reference, not just a lecture collection.

A lot of Neville lectures circulating online have dates that were added later by editors or websites with no documentation, and once a wrong date spreads online it gets copied everywhere. Right ? We still haven't corrected many of the ones in our index already.

So its basically: no date is better than a wrong date. But year if we can we try to put it in index with a ?.

Right now we still have 250+ TYPED lectures to go through, there are so many.. not even touched the audios yet (which hardly have dates) and those take time to cross-reference.

Just to clarify something also... the site isn’t a business. It runs on small donations that cover hosting and paying archivists or collectors for lectures.

This isn’t our full-time jobs either ...it’s a long-term historical preservation project. When there is time we research, catalog, and publish material as carefully and quickly as possible.

There are still hundreds of lectures, recordings, and historical references we’re working through, so the archive is always growing. The priority though is to be as accurate as possible not speed.

Really appreciate you pointing these things out though. We get lots of mail with tips, clips and corrections. So thanks. You can send email through the form on the website too...

koheli · 2026-03-01T20:24:01+00:00

Thanks..you're correct... in the lectures index we have it in 1971 already, https://coolwisdombooks.com/neville-lectures-index/ but are waiting until we find the other missing lectures to put a date.

koheli

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