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Imagining Creates

1968-06-03LectureFull transcriptAudio available
Imagining creates reality because your imagination is God, the one and only creator. By consciously directing your imaginal acts and feeling them as real using your inner senses, you impress your subconscious mind and bring forth new experiences in your world.
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Executive Summary

In this lecture, Neville teaches that our own human imagination is God, the single creative power in the universe. Every event in our lives, whether good or bad, originates from our imaginal acts. By becoming aware of what we are imagining, we can consciously shape our world from within. Using the analogy of a potter reshaping clay, Neville explains that we can take any undesirable situation, for ourselves or for others, and rework it in imagination until it conforms to our ideal. The key is to use our inner, spiritual senses to experience the desired reality now, and to persist in that assumption until it hardens into fact.

Key Concepts

  • Imagination is God: The creator of the world is not an external being but is your own imagination. When you are imagining, God is in action.
  • Spiritual Sensation: True creative imagining involves using your inner senses—sight, sound, scent, taste, and touch—to experience a state as if it were physically real.
  • The Potter and the Clay: Your imagination is the potter, and your concept of self or any situation is the clay. You have the power to rework any misshapen vessel (undesirable state) into a new form that pleases you.
  • Recognizing Your Harvest: To find God, you must not only imagine but also remember what you have imagined so that you can recognize the connection when your creation appears in your world.
  • The World is Yourself Pushed Out: There is no "other." When you imagine for another person, you are giving a gift to yourself, and you are responsible for the changes that appear in their life.

Detailed Explanation

The central premise of this teaching is the absolute identity between God and the human imagination. The creative power of the universe works in the depth of your soul and is least disguised as creative fancy. Your consciousness, your very sense of "I AM," is God. Therefore, every imaginal act is an act of God, and this is the one and only source of all the phenomena of life. To discover this creative power, you must watch what you are imagining and remember it, so that when it comes to pass, you recognize your own harvest and know you have found the cause.

The lecture provides a powerful example of this principle in action through the story of a sixteen-year-old girl. In a moment of despair on a streetcar, she deliberately used her inner senses to transform her reality. She reinterpreted the taste of her tears as the salt of the sea and the feel of the streetcar rail as the rail of a ship. By fully entering this imaginal state of being on a ship to Samoa, she created the means for its physical fulfillment, which arrived weeks later in the form of an unexpected inheritance. This illustrates that imagination is not idle daydreaming but a form of spiritual sensation that, when persisted in, creates reality.

This creative process is likened to a potter reworking clay. Any undesirable state—be it a critical comment from a boss, illness, or lack of funds—is a "misshapen vessel." You are instructed to go to the "potter's house," which is your own imagination, and reshape the vessel. This is done by revising the scene or concept in your mind. Instead of remembering criticism, you remember praise. For a friend who is unwell, you imagine hearing their voice telling you they are healed. This inner action, this psychological motion, is the creative act that changes your world. You do not need anyone's permission to do this, as the world is simply yourself pushed out, and imagining good for another is a gift you give to yourself.

Important Quotes

The creator of the world works in the depth of your soul, underlying all of your faculties, including perception, and streams into your surface mind least disguised in the form of creative fancy.

Imagining Creates

The world is yourself pushed out. Ask yourself what you want and then give it to yourself! Do not question how it will come about; just go your way, knowing that the evidence of what you have done must appear, and it will.

Imagining Creates

Go down to the potter's house and rework it into another vessel as it seems good for you, the potter, to do.

Imagining Creates

There must be action, for an idea alone produces nothing. You must act within yourself by entering the idea.

Imagining Creates

Common Misunderstandings

  • Events are just coincidence: The lecture directly refutes the idea that the girl's trip to Samoa was a coincidence. It presents it as the direct, lawful result of her specific imaginal act.
  • You need permission to imagine for others: The teaching states that you do not ask the "vessel" (the other person or their situation) if you may rework it. Because there is no other, you simply perform the imaginal act of hearing their good news or seeing them as you desire them to be.
  • Imagining is passive daydreaming: The lecture emphasizes that imagination requires inner action and motion. An idea alone produces nothing; you must enter the idea and feel its reality using spiritual sensation for it to be creative.

Practical Applications

To apply this teaching, you must first identify an aspect of your life or your concept of self that is "misshapen" or undesirable. This could be a lack of security, a negative memory, or a problem a friend is facing.

Next, you enter the "potter's house," which is your own imagination. You do not simply think of the desired outcome; you must think from it. This requires an inner, psychological motion. Close your physical senses to your current reality and use your spiritual senses to construct a scene or a feeling implying the wish is fulfilled.

For example:

  • If you feel insecure, imagine loved ones telling you how successful and wanted you are. Feel the reality of their words.
  • To change a negative memory of a boss's criticism, revise it into a scene where the boss is congratulating you on your accomplishments.
  • To help an unemployed friend, imagine hearing their voice on the phone telling you they are now gainfully employed and making more money than ever. Feel the thrill of their good news.

Once you have performed this inner action and felt its reality, you drop it and go your way, knowing that the evidence of what you have done must appear.

Frequently Asked Questions

What does Neville mean when he says my imagination is God?

He means that the sole creative power of the universe is not an external entity but is your own human imagination. Your consciousness, your sense of 'I AM,' is God, and therefore every act of imagining is a creative act of God.

How is imagining different from just thinking about something?

Thinking of something is not creative. Creative imagining is an inner action where you think from the desired state. It involves using your spiritual senses—what you would see, hear, and feel—to experience the wish as already fulfilled.

Do I need to ask someone's permission before imagining for them?

No. According to this lecture, you do not ask the 'vessel' if you may rework it. Because the world is yourself pushed out, imagining lovingly for another is a gift you are giving to yourself. You simply rework their misshapen concept in your own imagination.

What if my imaginal act doesn't seem to work?

The lecture suggests that if you forget what you have imagined, you may not recognize your harvest when it appears. The key is to believe in the reality of your imaginal act and assume it is done, knowing that it must appear in your world.

Full Lecture Transcript

Read Neville Goddard's complete lecture below — the actual transcript this study guide is drawn from. Highlight any passage and ask the AI to explain it.

≈ 15 min read · 3,062 words

Neville 6-3-1968

IMAGINING CREATES

The creator of the world works in the depth of your soul, underlying all of your faculties, including perception, and streams into your surface mind least disguised in the form of creative fancy. Watch your thoughts, and you will catch Him in the act of creating, for He is your very Self! Every moment of time you are imagining what you are conscious of, and if you do not forget what you are imagining and it comes to pass, you have found the creative cause of your world. Because God is pure imagination and the only creator, if you imagine a state and bring it to pass, you have found Him. Remember: God is your consciousness, your I AM; so when you are imagining, God is doing it. If you imagine and forget what you imagine, you may not recognize your harvest when it appears. It may be good, bad, or indifferent, but if you forget how it came into being, you have not found God. You do not have to be rich to be happy but you must be imaginative! You could have great wealth and be afraid of tomorrow's needs, or have nothing and travel the world over, for all things exist in your own wonderful human imagination. Let me tell you a story of a lady I know who traveled in her imagination. When this lady was about sixteen she lived in Northern California. She was devoted to her father, who lived high, wide and handsome. He supplied all of the family's needs very well until the day he was killed. Then, overnight, the family discovered they had nothing! Her mother, feeling she could not stand being ridiculed, moved the family to San Francisco, where the girl - although possessing outstanding artistic talent - found employment as a waitress in order to help the family. Taking the streetcar home from work that first Christmas Eve, she found the car filled with young boys and girls, singing and happy, and she could not restrain the tears. Lucky for her it was raining, so she extended her face to the heavens and let the rain mingle with her tears. As she tasted the salt of her tears she said to herself: "This is not a streetcar, but a ship and I am not tasting my tears, but the salt of the sea in the wind." While she physically held the rail of the streetcar, she mentally touched the rail of a ship moving into Samoa. Physically tasting the salt of her tears she imagined it was the salt of the sea. As the streetcar reached its destination, she was entering the bay of Samoa, feeling the moonlight shining on her body and hearing a voice say: "Isn't it a heavenly night." Two weeks later this girl received a check for $3,000 from a law firm in Chicago. It seems that two years before, her aunt had left the United States, requesting that if she did not return, the money was to be given to

her niece. Within one month, the girl was on a ship sailing for Samoa. Coming into the bay, she saw a ship plowing through the water leaving lovely white foam in its path. As the moonlight touched the wake, its spray touched her face and a man standing near said: "Isn't it a heavenly night." At that moment her outer senses experienced what she had used her inner senses to make real! Now, imagination - being spiritual sensation - is the creator of the world. With her five senses (sight, sound, scent, taste, and touch) she transformed a streetcar in San Francisco into a ship in the South Pacific, and within one month she physically fulfilled her imaginal act. Many will say that was just coincidence, but it was not! It is reality, but how do I get you to believe me? But whether you believe me or not, I know from experience that God and you are one grand Imagination, and there is no other God! One day, Imagination in you will awaken and you - fully aware of who you really are will know that all things are subject to you. That is your destiny. The present moment is a formed imaginal act. Arrest it, and you can change it in yourself by following the advice given in the 18th chapter of the Book of Jeremiah: " 'Arise! Go down to the potter's house and I will let you hear my words.' So I went down to the potter's house and there he was working at his wheel. The image in his hand was misshapen, but he reworked it into another image as it seemed good to the potter to do." The word translated "potter,” means imagination, and we are told that the Lord is not only our Father, but the potter, and we are the clay in his hands! (Isaiah 64) Remember the day your boss criticized you, and you are molding an image of yourself based upon what he said. Being undesirable, that image is misshapen. Unable to discard yourself, go down to the potter's house by taking the same scene and reshaping yourself by remembering the day your boss congratulated you on your accomplishments. Will this act change your world? Yes! I tell you: the God of the universe is shaping you morning, noon, and night, as you accept words, actions, and events from seeming others. I urge you to shape your world from within and no longer from without. Describe yourself as you would like to be seen by others and believe your words. Walk in the assumption they are true and - because no power can thwart God - what He is imagining, you will experience. You are not someone apart from God, for I AM cannot be divided. The Lord, our God, is one I AM, not two! If God's I AM and your I AM is the same I AM, define what you would like to be. Then believe you are the Lord! Be like the lady who transformed a streetcar into a cruise. Lose yourself in your new state, while your world on the outside remains, momentarily, the same. Now, your reasoning mind may say she did have an aunt who had the presence of mind to die and leave her $3,000 at that particular time. And being young she did not consider the future; but I tell you: this is how the law works. It never fails if you will go all out and believe that your human imagination is God. Because God cannot die, he is a God of the living! So when the garment you now wear comes to its end, you

- the being living in it - will continue to live. You will still be in a world just like this one until you awaken from the dream of life. Then you will move into an entirely different age, to realize the oneness of the being that you really are. Until then, believe what I am telling you, for it is true. When you imagine for a seeming other you are blessed, for there is no other and you are giving your imaginal gift to yourself! Hear your friend tell you his good news, see the joy on his face, feel the thrill of fulfillment, and let it take place in your world. And as it does, recognize your harvest. Realize you are responsible for its consummation. The world is yourself pushed out. Ask yourself what you want and then give it to yourself! Do not question how it will come about; just go your way, knowing that the evidence of what you have done must appear, and it will. Last year, while I was in Barbados, a friend received a call from his mother telling him that his brother had killed a man. As he replaced the phone, a vision appeared in which a woman said: "Find Neville and he will give you the rainbow in the sky." My friend called me in Barbados, and when I heard his story I said: "It is done. God is infinite mercy, and there is nothing but forgiveness of sin." When the spirit of Christ is formed in you, you will forgive a person, no matter what he has done. Pharaoh would not let his people go because God had hardened his heart, so how can you condemn Pharaoh for something God did? Tonight my friend told me his mother had called to tell him his brother had been set free. I will tell you now, that no one can reach the end of the journey without having killed someone. Everyone must play every part, so that when memory returns he may forgive all. The part of the thief, the murderer, the rapist and the one raped - every state will be experienced. Anything man can do is recorded in scripture, and to fulfill scripture man must do every thing. Had I not played every part, I would not have been born from above. My friend, who loves his brother and could not understand how he could do such a thing, has murdered, as we all have. We must do everything the world condemns in order for the spirit of Christ - which is continual forgiveness of sin - to be formed within us. And when this happens to you, you will see no one to condemn. It is not that you are indifferent to war or murder, but you will see the world as a play with you - the author - playing all the parts. Remember: you don't have to abide by anything you dislike. It is but a vessel in your hand which is not properly shaped. Go down to the potter's house and rework it into another vessel as it seems good for you, the potter, to do. You can not only rework your concept of self into a new one, but you can rework another. If one is not well or does not earn enough to pay his expenses, the concept is misshapen. You don't ask the vessel if you may rework it, rather you feel as though you have witnessed the change or heard the good news. There must be action, for an idea alone produces nothing. You must act within yourself by entering the idea. When someone calls or makes a request of you, you must act upon it by producing a motor element within

yourself. It may be the sound of their voice telling you it has already happened. Or you may feel the touch of his hand. Whatever you do, it must be something that takes the desire from being an idea and moves it into the creative state of fulfillment. The very first creative act recorded in scripture is when the spirit of the Lord moved upon the face of the waters. Here is motion. If you would like to be elsewhere, all you need to do is close your senses to the room you now occupy and sense the room where you would like to be. Open your eyes, and your senses will deny any change, for yours was a psychological motion. By closing your eyes the obvious here vanishes, and through the act of assumption, there becomes here. Seeing the world related to your new position, you breathe reality into the state and, having moved from where you are to where you want to be, you have created it. I know this doesn't make sense, but as Douglas said: "The secret of imagining is the greatest of all problems, to the solution of which every mystic aspires, for supreme power, supreme wisdom, and supreme delight lie in the solution of this far-off mystery." How is this mystery unraveled? By claiming you are all imagination. Then wrapping yourself in space, and mentally seeing your world relative to your assumed position in space. Do that and you have moved. President Hoover once said: "Human history, through its many forms of governments, its revolutions, its wars - in fact the rise and fall of nations - could be written in terms of the rise and fall of ideas implanted in the minds of men." Here you see that the change of governments is the result of the change of ideas implanted in the mind. Can you now see how we are implanting the horrors of the world? Read the morning paper, watch television, or listen to the radio, and you will observe how their words frighten you in order to get your attention. See a headline that someone was murdered and you stop to read it. See another, saying things are fine, and you ignore it, as it would mean nothing. Read the scandal sheet, telling of some prominent person who has been unfaithful and you enjoy a bit of gossip. All of these are ideas implanted in the mind, which cause the rise and fall of nations. I tell you: imagining creates reality! If you want to change your life you must become aware of the ideas you are planting in the mind of others! When you meet someone who is negative, put a lovely idea in its place. Then, whenever you think of him, imagine he is telling you something lovely. And, because you now walk in a world that is not disturbed by his negative state, when he finds himself no longer thinking negative thoughts, he will never know you were its source. You will know it and that is all that is important. Become aware of the thoughts you are thinking and you will know a more pleasant life. It makes no difference what others do; plant loving, kind thoughts and you will be blessed in the doing. Believe me: Here was a child of sixteen who transformed her tears into the salt spray of the sea, a streetcar into a ship, and San Francisco into Samoa. She is blessed, for when it came to pass, she never forgot her moment of despair when she imagined a state and it came to pass. I ask you now to believe in the invisible God who became you. When you say “I am”, you think of the face

you wear, but you are not it. You are so much greater than it could ever be. One day, God's son David will look into the eyes of the being you really are and call you father. He will not call you by the name of the mask you wear, for David is the express image of your invisibility. Recognizing you as his eternal father, David signifies that your journey into the world of death is at its end. And from that moment on you will share your experiences with anyone who will listen and save everyone you meet. You will save one who is unemployed by mentally hearing him tell you he is now gainfully employed and making more money than ever before. Having heard his good news, you will subjectively appropriate your objective hope and never turn back by doubting the reality of what you have done. You will simply watch it come to pass. Then you will know that you have found him of whom Moses and the law and the prophets wrote: Jesus of Nazareth, who is the Lord God, and the Father of all! I have disclosed the one and only source of the phenomena of life. Everything that has ever happened, is happening, or will happen to you, comes from God, who is your own wonderful human imagination. I urge you to use it wisely. Now a lady wrote me, saying she heard a voice cursing her, and - not understanding - she questioned self and heard the words: "Because I want you." In the Book of Galatians, Paul tells those who have arrived at the end of their journey, to reject all laws and institutions which would interfere with the direct communication with their individual God. (Galatians 5:1-14) In the spirit world, all organized societies are personified. Rivers, mountains, cities - everything is human, for God is Man. Even the Los Angeles Woman's Club building is personified in the spirit world. Representing a need of the ladies who own it, when seen in the spirit world, and trying to detach yourself from it, it will curse you, for it wants to feed on you. So when you leave religious institutions, organizations, customs, and laws that would interfere with your individual direct communion with your God, they will curse you, for they will have lost you. Just leave them alone. I have seen them all and they are nothing more than shadows. Once I saw a monstrous witch in a cave teaching little children the black arts. When she saw me she screamed: "O Man of God, what have you to do with me?" The Bible tells the same story. Those who teach the black arts and how to hurt people, those who would control your mind and make you dependent upon them, are only personifications of organizations who keep you from contacting the only God who is within you. Every orthodox religious group would enslave you for the rest of eternity if they could; but when you leave that belief, its personification will curse your leaving, but their curse means nothing. They cannot touch you when you completely reject any intermediary between yourself and God. Now to come back to tonight's theme: Imagining creates reality! Have you imagined something and it hasn't come to pass? Then what are you imagining right now? Are you imagining you are John Brown? You were not born knowing you were John Brown. You were born

and others began to call you John. As time passed you began to assume you were John Brown and began to respond when you heard the name John. When you imagined being secure did you forget the feeling? Are you imagining you are secure now? You may have no evidence that you are secure, but as you allow others to tell you how much you are loved and wanted, how successful and famous you are, you will begin to assume it, and imagination will have created its reality. Try it, for that reality you already are! Now let us go into the silence.

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Source-checked against Neville Goddard's lectures & books · 2026-06-01.