Neville Goddard Law And The Promise
CHAPTER 5: SUBTLE THREADS

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“. . . all you behold; tho’ it appears Without, it is Within;
In your Imagination, of which this World of Mortality is but a Shadow.” — Blake

Nothing appears or continues in being by a power of its own. Events happen because comparatively stable imaginal activities created them, and they continue in being by virtue of the support they receive from such imaginal activities. The part which imagining the wish fulfilled plays in consciously creating circumstances is obvious in this series of stories.

You will see how the telling of one story of the successful use of imagination can serve as a spur and a challenge to others to “try” it and “see.”

One night a gentleman rose in my audience. He said that he had no question to ask but would like to tell me something.

This was his story:

When he came out of the Armed Forces after World War II he got a job that gave him take-home pay of $25.00 a week ($330.35 – Adjusted for inflation to 2014 ). After ten years he was making $600.00 a month ($5,325.04- Adjusted for inflation to 2014 ). At that time he bought my book “Awakened Imagination” and read the chapter “The Pruning Shears of Revision.”

Through the daily practice of “Revision,” as set forth there, he was able to tell my audience two years later that his income was equal to that of the President of the United States (In 1957 $100,000/year + $50,000 expense account) ($846,448.40 + $423,224.20 – Adjusted for inflation to 2014 )

In my audience sat a man who, by his confession, was broke. He had read the same book, but he suddenly realized he had done nothing with the use of his imagination to solve his financial problem.

He decided he would try to imagine himself as the winner of the 5-10 pool at Caliente Race Track. In his words: “In this pool, one attempts to pick winners in the fifth through the tenth races. So this is what I did: In my imagination I stood, sorting my tickets and feeling as I did so, that I had each of the six winners. I enacted this scene over and over in my imagination, until I actually felt ‘goose pimples.’ Then I ‘saw’ the cashier giving me a large sum of money which I placed beneath my imaginary shirt. This was my entire imaginal drama; and for three weeks, night after night, I enacted this scene and fell  asleep in the action.

“After three weeks I traveled physically to the Caliente Race Track, and on that day every detail of my imaginative play was actually realized. The only change in the scene was that the cashier gave me a check for a total of

$84,000.00 instead of currency.”. . . T.K.

$668,212.98 – Adjusted for inflation to 2014 (http://www.usinflationcalculator.com/)

After my lecture the night this story was told, a man in the audience asked me if I thought it possible for him to duplicate T.K.’s experience. I told him he must decide the circumstances of his imaginal scene himself but that whatever scene he chose, he must create a drama he could make natural to himself and imagine the end intently with all the feeling he could muster; he must not labor for the means to the end but live imaginatively in the feeling of the wish fulfilled.

One month later he showed me a check for $16,000.00 ($127,278.66 – Adjusted for inflation to 2014 ) which he had won in another 5-10 pool at the same Caliente Race Track the previous day.

This man had a sequel to his most interesting duplication of T.K.’s good fortune. His first win took care of his immediate financial difficulties although he wanted more money for future family security. Also, and more important to him, he wanted to prove that this had not been an “accident.” He reasoned that if his good luck could happen a second time in succession, the so-called “law of percentages” would give way to proof for him that his imaginal structures were actually producing this miraculous “reality.” And so he dared to put his imagination to a second test. He continues:

“I wanted a sizeable bank account and this, to me, meant ‘seeing’ a large balance on my bank statements. Therefore, in my imagination I enacted a scene which took me into two banks. In each bank I would ‘see’ an appreciative smile meant for me from the bank manager as I walked into his establishment and I would ‘hear’ the teller’s cordial greeting. I would ask to see my statement. In one bank I ‘saw’ a balance of $10,000.00. In the other bank I ‘saw’ a balance of $15,000.00.

“My imaginal scene did not end there. Immediately after seeing my bank balances I would turn my attention to my horse racing system which, through a progression of ten steps, would bring my winnings to $11,533.00 with a starting capital of $200.00.

“I would divide the winnings into twelve piles on my desk. Counting the  money in my imaginary hands I would put $1,000.00 in each of eleven piles and the remaining five-hundred thirty-three dollars in the last pile. My ‘imaginative accounting’ would amount to $36,533.00 including my bank balances.

“I enacted this entire imaginative scene each morning, afternoon and night for less than one month, and, on March second, I went to the Caliente track again. I made out my tickets, but strangely enough and not knowing why I did so, I duplicated six more tickets exactly like the six already made out but in the tenth selection I made a ‘mistake’ and copied two tickets twice. As the winners came in, I held two of them — each paying $16,423.50. I also had six consolation tickets, each paying $656.80. The combined total amounted to $36,788.00. ($292,645.46 – Adjusted for inflation to 2014 ) My imaginary accounting one month before had totaled $36,533.00. Two points of interest, most profound to me, were that by seeming accident I had marked two winning tickets identically and also, that at the end of the ninth race (which was one of the major winners) the trainer attempted to ‘scratch’ the horse, but the Stewards denied the trainer’s request.” . . . A.J.F.

How subtle were the threads that led to his goal? Results must testify to our imagining or we really are not imagining the end at all. A.J.F. faithfully imagined the end, and all things conspired to aid his harvesting. His “mistake” in copying a winning ticket twice, and the Steward’s refusal to allow the trainer’s request were events created by the imaginal drama to move the plan of things forward to its goal.

“Chance,” wrote Belfort Bax, “may be defined as that element in the reality change — that is, in the flowing synthesis of events — which is irreducible to law or the causal category.”

To live wisely we must be aware of our imaginal activities or, at any rate, of the end which they are tending. We must see to it that it is the end we desire. Wise imagining identifies itself only with such activities that are of value or promise well. However much man seems to be dealing with a material world, he is actually living in a world of imagination. When he discovers that it is not the physical world of facts but imaginal activities which shape his life, then the physical world will no longer be the reality, and the world of imagination no longer the dream.

“Does the road wind uphill all the way?

Yes, to the very end.

Will the day’s journey take the whole long day?

From morn to night, my friend.”