There Is No Fiction Ch 4 The Law And The Promise by Neville Goddard

Neville Goddard the Law and the Promise Chapter Four. There is no fiction. The distinction between what is real and what is imaginary is not one that can be finally maintained. All existing things are in an intelligible sense, imaginary. John S. McKenzie There is no fiction. If an imaginal activity can produce a physical effect, our physical world must be essentially imaginal. To prove this would require merely that we observe our imaginal activities and watch to see whether or not they produce corresponding external effects. If they do, then we must conclude that there is no fiction. Today's imaginal drama. Fiction. Fiction becomes tomorrow's fact. If we had this wider view of causation, that causation is mental, not physical, that our mental states are causative of physical effects, then we would realize our responsibility as a creator any and imagine only the best imaginable. Yes, fable enacted as a sort of stage play in the mind is what causes the physical facts of life. Man believes what reality. Man believes that reality resides in the solid objects he sees around him. That is, in the in, that is, in this world. That the drama of life originates, that events spring suddenly into existence, created moment by moment out of antecedent physical facts. Boy, oh boy. It's difficult enough just to pronounce what man believes, much less be there with that oh boy. But causation does not lie in the external world. Here causation does not lie in the external world of facts. The drama of life originates in the imagination of man. The real act of becoming takes place within man's imagination and not without. Within man's imagination, not without. The following stories could define causation as the assemblage of mental states which occurring creates that which the assemblage implies. The foreword from Walter Lord's A Night to Remember illustrates my claim. Imagining creates reality. Imagining creates reality. In 1898, a struggling author named Morgan Robertson concocted a novel about a fabulous Atlantic liner far larger than any that had ever been built. Robertson loaded his ship with rich and complacent people and then wrecked it. One cold winter, one cold April night on an iceberg. This somehow showed the futility of everything. And in fact, the book was called Futility when it appeared that year. Published by the firm of M.F. mansfield. Excuse me. Fourteen years later, a British shipping company named the White Star Line built a steamer remarkably like the one in Robertson's novel. The new liner was 66,000 tons displacement. Robertson's was 70,000 tons. The real ship was 882 and a half feet long. The fictional one was 800ft. Both could carry about 3,000 people, and both had enough lifeboats for only a fraction of this number. But then this didn't seem to matter because both were labeled unsinkable. On April 19, 1912, the real ship left Southampton on her maiden voyage to New York. Her cargo included a priceless copy of the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and a list of passengers collectively worth $250 million. On her way over, two struck an iceberg and went down on a cold April night. Robertson called his ship the Titan. The White Star Line called its ship the Titanic. Had Morgan Robertson known that imagining creates reality, that today's fiction is tomorrow's fact, would he have written the novel Futility? In the moment of the tragic catastrophe, writes Schopenhauer, the conviction becomes more distinct to us than ever that life is a bad dream from which we have to awake, and the bad dream is caused by the imaginal activity of sleeping humanity. Imaginal activities may be remote from their manifestation and unobserved events are only appearance. Causation, as seen in this tragedy, is elsewhere in space time. Far off from the scene of action, invisible to all, was Robertson's imaginal activity. Like a scientist in a control room directing his guided missile through space time. Who paints a picture, writes a player book which others read while he's asleep in bed. Oh, the other side of the world when they o' erlook his page, the sleeper might as well be dead. What knows he of his distant unfelt life? What knows he of the thoughts his thoughts are raising, the life his life is giving or the strife concerning him? Some cavilling, some praising? Yet which is most alive, he who's asleep or his quick spirit in some other place or score of other places that doth keep attention fixed and sleep from others chase? Which is the he, the he that sleeps or he that his own he can neither feel nor see, that his own he can neither feel nor see? Samuel Butler Imaginative writers communicate not their vision of the world, but their attitudes which result in their vision. Just a short while before Kathryn Mansfield died, she said to her friend Orridge, there are in life as many aspects as attitudes towards it, and aspects change with attitudes could we change our attitude? We should not only see life differently, could we change our attitude. We could. We should see not only life differently, but life itself would come to be different. Life would undergo a change of appearance because we ourselves had undergone a change in attitude. Perception of a new pattern is what I call a creative attitude towards life. Prophets, wrote Blake, in the modern sense of the word, have never existed. Jonah was no prophet in the modern sense, for his prophecy of Nineveh failed. Every honest man is a prophet. He utters his opinion both on private and public matters. Thus, if you go on so, the result is so. He never says such a thing shall happen. Let you do what you will. A prophet is a seer, not an arbitrary dictator. The function of the prophet is not to tell us when is inevitable, but to tell us what can be built up out of persistent imaginal activities. What can be built up out of persistent imaginal activities. Mmm. The future is determined by the imaginal activities of humanity. Activities in their creative march. Activities which can be seen in your dreams and the visions of your head as you lay in bed. End quote, quote. Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, end quote. In this true sense of the word. Like this dancer who now, from the summit of his realized ideal, sites yet higher peaks that are to be scaled. After you have read this story, you will understand why he is so confident that he can predetermine any materialistic future he desires, and why he is why he is equally sure that others give reality to what were otherwise a mere fragment of his imagination. That there exists and can exist nothing outside imagining. On some level or another, nothing continues in being save what imagining supports. The mind can make substance and people planets of its own with beings brighter than have been and give a breath to forms which can outlive all flesh. Okay. As my story begins, at the age of 19, I was mildly successful. I was a mildly successful dancing teacher and. And continued in this static state for almost five years. At the end of this time, I met a young lady who talked me into attending your lectures. My thought upon hearing you say imagining creates reality was that the entire idea was ridiculous. However, I decided to accept your challenge and disprove your thesis. I bought your book out of this World and read it many times, still unconvinced. I set myself a rather ambitious goal. My present position was as an instructor with the Arthur Murray Dance Studio. And my goal was to own a franchise and be the boss of an Arthur. Of an Arthur Murray studio myself. This seemed like the most unlikely thing in the world, as franchises were extremely difficult to secure. But on top of this fact, I was completely without the necessary funds to begin such an operation. Nevertheless, I assumed the feeling of my wish fulfilled, as night after night, in my imagination, I went to sleep in managing my own studio. Three weeks later. Three weeks. That's 21 days. Three weeks later, a friend of mine from Reno, Nevada. Excuse me. Three weeks later, a friend called from Reno, Nevada. He had the Murray studio there and said it was too much for him to cope with alone. He offered me a partnership, and I was delighted. So delighted, in fact, that I hastened to Reno on borrowed money. And promptly forgot all about you and your story of imagination. My partner and I worked hard and were very successful. But after a year, I was still not satisfied. I wanted more. I began thinking of ways and means to get another studio. All my efforts failed. One night as I retired, I was restless and decided to read. As I looked through my collection of books, I noticed your slender volume out of this World. I thought of the silly nonsense I had gone through one year ago before getting my own studio. Getting my own studio. The words in my mind electrified me. I reread the book that night. And later, in my imagination, I heard my superior praise the good job we had done in Reno and suggest we acquire a second studio. As he had a second location ready for us if we desired to expand. I reenacted this imaginal scene nightly, without fail. Nightly. Without fail. Continuous. Don't just do it once. Don't just do it twice. Do it persistently. Consistently. Three weeks from the first night of my imaginal drama, it materialized. Three weeks, 21 days. How long would you take practicing this while you fall asleep? Would you take three weeks. Three weeks from the first night of my imaginal drama, it materialized almost word for word. My partner accepted the new studio in Bakersfield. And I had the Reno studio alone. Excuse me. Now I was convinced of the truth of your teaching. And never again will I forget. Now I wanted to share this wonderful knowledge of imaginal power with my staff. I tried to tell them of the marvels they could accomplish, but I was unable to reach many. Although one fantastic incidence resulted from my efforts to tell this story. A young teacher told me he believed my story, but said it would have probably happened anyway in time. He insisted the entire theory was nonsense. But Stick stated that if I could tell him something of an incredible nature that would actually happen and which he could witness, then he would believe. I accepted his challenge and conceived a truly fantastic test. The Reno studio is the most insignificant in the entire Murray. Excuse me. The Reno studio is the most insignificant in the entire Murray system because of all the small population county in the city itself. I must read again. The Reno studio is the most insignificant in the entire Murray system because of the small population count in the city itself. There are over 300 Murray studios in the country with much larger populations, therefore providing a greater possibilities to draw from. So my test was this. I told the teacher that within the next three months, at the time of a national dance convention, the little Reno studio would be the foremost topic of conversation at that convention. He calmly stated this was quite impossible. That night when I retired, I felt myself standing before a tremendous audience. I was speaking on creative imagining and felt the nervousness of being before such a vast audience. But I also felt the wonderful sensation of audience acceptance. I heard the roar of applause and as I left the stage, I saw Mr. Murray himself come forward and shake my hand. I reenacted this entire drama night after night. It began to take on the tones of reality and I knew I had done it again. Once it takes on those tones of reality, once it takes on that naturalness, that feeling of. It's just like. It's as if you were just remembering the day you just experienced. That's the natural tone. It's in your memory as silky and smooth as it is. What you just experienced is a memory silky and smooth. My imaginal drama materialized down to the last detail. My little Reno studio was the talk of the convention. And I did appear on that stage just as I had done in my imagination. But even after this unbelievable but actual happening, the young teacher who threw me the challenge remained unconvinced. He said it all had happened too naturally and he was sure it would have happened anyway. I did not mind his attitude because his challenge had given me another opportunity to prove, at least to myself, that imagining does create reality. From that time on, I continued with my ambition to own the largest Arthur Murthy Dan Arthur Murray Dance studio in the world. Night after night in my imagination, I heard myself accepting a studio franchise for a great city from yeah, for a great city. Within three weeks. Three weeks. Three weeks. Three weeks. Mr. Murray called me and offered a studio in a city of one and a half million people. It is now my goal to make my studio the greatest and biggest in the entire system. And of course I know it will be done through my imagination. Eol Jr. The first two videos I saw on Elm on Neville Goddard was January 1, 2022. And they were of this man who wrote this testimonial, ELMER Owen Locker Jr. I believe is his name. The grandfather of the man who runs the channel, David. I don't know his last name, but he didn't have his name out. The channel's always been under Elmer Locker. But when I saw these two Videos of this testimonial. And when I first came from nowhere of Neville and saw him speaking and what the subject was in those first two videos on that channel, which I highly recommend you watch, especially if you're new to this. When I saw those two videos, they. Those woke me up. Those two videos. I watched them back to back. They woke me up and snapped me out of something. And it was another story how I even got to those, how I even knew what to type into YouTube to find those two videos. That's a whole other story. I'll break that down later. But this man now was I guess maybe in his 70s or 80s. In these two videos, they're about 10 years old, I guess from 20, 25 now, 10 or 11 years old on that channel. I think they're 10 years from when they were posted. When something grabs a hold of you and says, there's something here you need to follow, it's like follow the white rabbit, right? Follow the white rabbit in the matrix. So it's exactly what I did. I just followed and I knew something was right. And then I did the ladder exercise, what he said in the video about the ladder. And I did that right away. I did it that morning, 5am When I saw the videos. I was on a ladder by nine o' clock that same morning. And now I didn't need any more proof of anything by anybody. There was a man who had studied with Neville and that's all I needed to know first and then to try it myself. Within only a few, a handful of hours, I was already on a ladder. Do I need to be more convinced? I had already at that point, spent 30 years in this field of you create your own reality. Steeped heavily in this field, teaching this field, but not really mastering it to this one last degree. Until I saw those two videos and then I knew this was the right path, the right answer. There was something I was missing. And now I could say wonderfully that I have arrived. It is wonderful to be here. It wasn't easy. But this guy, this guy right Here, Elmer Olocker Jr. The grandfather of the current YouTube channel, this guy and his testimonial on YouTube is what really sold it for me, what really convinced me of Neville thoroughly. I don't know if I would have found anything else. I'm just glad I found those two videos. There was maybe about on that channel. There might have been a couple dozen more channels. I'm sorry, videos. Maybe 20 or 30 more videos at that point. This is, this is how far, far back. That is, maybe. Maybe there was more. Didn't seem like a lot, though. But anyway, Great, great testimonial. Wonderful, wonderful imagining, writes Douglas Fawcett, may be hard to grasp. Being quicksilver like it vanishes into each of its metamorphoses and thereby displays its transformative magic. We must look beyond the physical fact for the imagining which has caused it. For one year, Eol Jr. Lost himself in his metamorphosis, but fortunately he remembered the silly nonsense he had gone through before getting his own studio and reread the book. Imaginal acts on the human level need a certain interval of time to develop. But imaginal acts, whether committed to print or locked in the bosom of a hermit, will realize themselves in time. Test yourself, if only out of curiosity, you will discover the prophet is your own imagining, and you will know there is no fiction. We should never be certain that it was not some woman shredding in the winepress who began that subtle change in men's mind, or that the passion because of which so many countries were given to the sword did not begin in the mind of some shepherd boy lighting up his eyes for a moment before it ran upon its way. There is. That's William Butler Yeats. There is no fiction. Imagining fulfills itself in what our lives become. And now I have told you before it takes place, so that when it does take place, you may believe the Greeks were right. The gods have come down to us in the likeness of men, but they have fallen asleep and do not realize that. They do not realize the might they wield by their imaginal activities. Real are the dreams of gods and smoothly pass their pleasure in a long, immortal dream. Dreamer and the dream are one. The dreamer is greater than the dream. EB an author is fully aware that today's fiction can become tomorrow's fact. In this letter she writes, one spring I completed a novelette, sold it, and forgot it. Not until many long months later did I sit down and nervously compare some facts in my fiction with some facts in my life. Please read a brief outline of my created story, then compare it with my personal experience. The heroine of my story took a vacation trip to Vermont, to the small city of Stowe, Vermont, to be exact. When she reached her destination, she was faced with such unpleasant behavior on the part of her companion that she either had to continue her lifetime pattern of allowing another's selfish demand dominate her, or to break that pattern and leave. She broke it and returned to New York. When she returned, and the story continues, events took shape in a proposal of marriage which she happily accepted. For my part in this tale, as small events evolved, I began to remember the dictates of my own pen and insignificant and in significant relationship. This is what happened to me. I received an invitation from a friend offering me a vacation at her summer place in Vermont. I accepted and was not startled at first when I learned her summer place was in the city of Stowe. When I arrived, I found my hostess in such a highly nervous state, I realized I was faced with either a wretched summer or the choice of walking out on her. Never before in my life had I been strong enough to ignore what I thought were the claims of duty and friendship. But this time I did and without ceremony returned to New York. A few days later, after I returned home, I too received the proposal of marriage. But at this point. But at this point, fact and fiction parted. I refused the offer. I know, Neville. There is no such thing as fiction. EB Forgetful is green earth. The gods alone remember everlastingly by their great memories. The gods are known ends run true to their imaginal origins. We reap the fruit of forgotten blossom time in life. The events do not come up always where we have strewn the seed so that we may not recognize our own harvest events are the emergence of a hidden imaginal activity. Man is free to imagine whatever he desires. This is why, despite all fatalists and misguided prophets of doom, all awakened men know that they are free. They know that they are creating reality. Is there a scriptural passage to support this claim? Yes, and it came to pass as he interpreted to us so it was. W.B. yeats must have discovered that there is no fiction. For after describing some of his experiences in the conscious use of imagination, he writes, if all who have described events like this have not dreamed, we should rewrite our histories for all men, certainly all imaginative men, must be forever casting forth enchantments, glamours, illusions. And all men, especially tranquil men who have no powerful egotistic life, must be continually passing under their power. Our most elaborate thoughts, elaborate purposes, precise emotions, are often, as I think, not really ours, but have on a sudden. But have on a sudden come up, as it were, out, out of hell or down out of heaven. There is no fiction imagine better than the best. You know. What a wonderful chapter. Oh my gosh, that was amazing. There is no fiction. Opening quote. The distinction between what is real and what is imaginary is not one that can be finally maintained. All existing things are in an intelligible sense imaginary. John S. McKenzie what an amazing chapter. What was your favorite part in there? I mean, there's some good stuff in here. My favorite part is, of course, what woke me up out of this dream. What shook me. What shuck. What shook. What shooked. What snapped me out of that dream. To go farther in the dream, this student of Neville's who really declared that he thought Neville was full of. Full of s. He thought, there's no way this guy is. This guy's full of it. This guy wants my money. I know he does. If you watch the videos, you'll hear him describe the story. But like Neville not wanting to go see Abdullah, Elmer didn't want to go see Neville. This girl he knew, I guess it was a girlfriend or ex girlfriend, kept pushing him to go see Neville. And he didn't even want to go. But he finally, finally conceded and said, okay, I will. And then he went. And the rest is history. How do these messengers show up? I mean, do they show up in our imagination? What brings you? How does a messenger deliver the message? Is it the message that finds you? Did that message through him, find me? How does this all work? It is so amazing. Especially when you play, when you're playful with this past present. When you got the present, you got the supposed future. You got the supposed past. But this one. This is where your now is. How do these things occur? That something out of the supposed past shows up in your now to delight your future? This is the only one that exists. But something out of the supposed past. This was an old video. Or at least at that time, it was a couple years. It was eight years old, I think, at that time, that video. So I saw something from the past, changed my now to such a degree that it would have an impact on my entire future. But it was right here in my now, where all that happened. What is the message? Is it your message? Did you send me? It's fun to think about this. It's fun to contemplate. Where are these things and where these beginnings happen? And is it the woman in the winepress? Is it the boy whose eyes light up? Where do these motivations come from? It's fascinating. It's fun. All right. End of chapter. We'll see you in the next chapter.