More Neville on Successful Prayer

I stumbled upon Neville's book Resurrection more than a decade ago. While I read about the law of reversibility, I really didn't understand it. HOW it worked was above my pay grade. As I live life and observe, I see that it unquestionably DOES work. The rich and the poor both have their beliefs within them, and they manifest accordingly. Neville explained the law of reversibility in dozens of ways for dozens of years in his books and lectures, and he constantly emphasized that one has to DO it--to intentionally imagine, that is--for anything to happen.

What Neville said about telepathic influence in Resurrection was not new to me. The broadcasting of thought is an old idea much evidenced. It's what got me into the occult and then Christianity in the first place. But the law of reversibility and inverse transformation took some time to get. Neville's first experience with it remains one of the clearest explanations. Imagine New York city in winter during the Great Depression. Neville was an out of work dancer. He latches onto an old Ethiopian teacher of kabbalah. For the first time in years, Neville suddenly has an overwhelming desire to visit his home in Barbados. And his teacher, Abdullah, says, "You are in Barbados."

"Well, no, thank you, I am right here in New York," thinks Neville. "I am in Barbados?"

"Yes, you are in Barbados, and you went there first class!"

For a penniless bloke in depression era New York, that was quite laughable. But Neville agreed to imagine as he fell asleep that he was in his own bed in his parents' home in Barbados. And, as I recall, to live in New York with a mind that he was actually in Barbados. New York in November and December bears little resemblance to tropical Barbados. There was something about snow on a sidewalk wider than any palm-lined road on the island that made it hard for Neville to mentally put himself there.

"It isn't working," Neville complained.

Abdullah was furious: "We cannot discuss how to get there if you are already there! You are in Barbados, and you went there first class!!" Slam!

And then the check and the tickets came. Unrequested from Barbados. And Neville sailed first class.

You cannot write it off as a happy coincidence if it keeps happening, and for Neville and his students it kept happening. People have been preaching about the power of prayer for, perhaps, as long as there has been language. The question for the learner has always been: "What do you do to do it?"

First of all, says Neville, you have to know exactly what you want. Second, you have to select a scene of action which implies that you already HAVE exactly what you want. You only do this action because you HAVE what you want. So your scene of action is a little later. E.g., I want a bagel, so I have the taste still in my mouth as I say thanks for it . . . it was good. I want a job, so my friends and family congratulate me for having got it. I want a sale, so I see the signatures on the contract, or the bank statement for the deposit. Or I hear the customer accept the conditions, or receive my manager's praise for my performance. If I need to reach some amount on my computer screen, I see it there. I create some SHORT action which implies that I have actually received from God what I wanted. And if I receive it from his intention, I have it. And, of course, the important thing is to feel the reality of that having.

An interesting aside: Robert Young, in his introduction to Young's Literal Translation of the Bible, points out that there was no future tense in the ancient Hebrew language. Of course, they knew that it was all psychological and so no future was necessary. But the translators needed time reference, so they invented future auxiliaries where there were none. For us, there is no 'will' or 'shall.' Either I do or do not, am or am not, have or have not.

While I am on language, the Hebrew word 'hayah' is, in my mind, excruciatingly important. It is 1961 in Strong's Exhaustive Concordance's Hebrew and Chaldee dictionary. It is translated as is, am, are, was, were, be, shall be, should be, caused, brake, are done, accomplished, happened, become, quit . . . and others. It is the I AM in "I AM THAT I AM" (Exodus 3:14). While there was no future tense, hayah implies TRANSITION. Let that bloweth your mind. No future, but transition, becoming. My mind is blown.

Okay. You know what you want, and you have a short action demanded of your having received it. Now you relax, calm, and quiet yourself. It is tranquil mind time. To my knowledge, Neville never mentioned theta level consciousness, but I think that is where you are heading. You get into a drowsy, sleepy, relaxed state where you are ready to dream, but still in full control of your thoughts, and you imagine. You imagine your action as real. You assume that it is. You are THERE, thinking from the place you are imagining as if you really were there. Where you are physically is distant from where you are mentally, but YOU are there where you are mentally, not where you are physically. You see the reality of that place - see it, feel it, hear it, smell it. And there with your friends, family, or whoever, you do and redo your action until it feels completely natural and real in thought, emotion, and feeling. And in the doing of it, you fall asleep.

That is, may I say, the preferred technique. You do not want to do it while you are driving. Neville reports many incidents where people simply quieted themselves while they are standing or walking, talking with a friend, or thinking. They hear as though they really heard, see as though they really saw, and feel as though they really felt . . . what they would feel, see, or hear were really true that they had what they wanted. Maybe you do not want to do this while you are driving, either. For God's sake, drive carefully all the time.