Neville Goddard Gangplanking

Causation isn't just visualizing; it's assuming the effect of an experience as one's reality.

In his lecture God's Law and His Promise, Neville discusses how he learned the technique of assumption. His Bible teacher, Abdullah, knowing that Neville wanted to travel to Barbados, had Neville assume that he was IN tropical Barbados, although in reality he was in pre-Christmas New York. Neville then received passage and was IN Barbados.

In How Really to Pray (aka "Repentance, a Gift from God"), Neville explains how, on a subsequent trip to Barbados, he got return passage from Barbados to his home in New York. Neville's brother had been greatly dismayed that Neville had not arranged return passage while in New York. "He simply was not familiar with this technique," he said. If Neville HAD the tickets for his family's return to New York, he knew that he would have to walk up the gangplank of the ship that would take him there. Walking up the gangplank of the ship as its passengers was the effect the experience of having the tickets would yield.

In the first case, Neville assumed that he was IN Barbados, having gone there first class. In the second case, Neville assumed he boarded the ship with his wife and child and bid farewell to Barbados, having gotten the tickets for passage. In the latter case, Neville in his imagination assumed the reality that having the tickets for his family's return trip, he was climbing the gangplank of the ship carrying his daughter. His mind wandered. He brought it back. He did it again. His mind wandered. He did it again. Not visualizing, but experiencing the effect of having the tickets as his REALITY. Not thinking about it, but BEING IT. There was the smell of the ocean, the crust of salt on the rail, the hurt of leaving his family on Barbados, and the joy of embarking on the trip home. Achieving that effect as his reality in his imagination, the steamship company called, "Come pick up your tickets."

The imagination is our tongue, just as it is God's. The imagination and the tongue both are unruly, but they can be tamed. "Think on these things" (Philippians 4:8) does not mean to imagine or envision wistfully, but to CREATE, assuming effects according to God's will. Let God rejoice over the works of our mental "hands" (Zephaniah 3:12-17).