Date (happened)
2 February 1938 (probable)
passage 536869 (lecture nid 1314): 'I started this work back in 1938 on the second day of February. I had nothing. It was with a borrowed five dollar bill to pay the rent...the rent was three dollars and six people came.'
Told / reported
  • 15 December 1967
    delivery claim [d0] on lecture nid 1314 -- Neville lectures catalog #397, single uncontested delivery claim.
  • after 1948 (refuted)
    delivery claim [d0] on lecture nid 3960 ('The Dreamer') -- an open lower bound, 'after 1948', derived from the same passage 556277 recounting his father's 1948 first attendance as a completed past event.
  • 23 February 1965 (probable)
    nid 3960 surviving delivery claim after refutation. All claims: 1948-??-?? refuted; 1965-2-23 probable (preferred)
Neville recounts that he began his public teaching work on February 2, 1938, with nothing but a borrowed five-dollar bill to cover the three-dollar rent for the room. Six people came to the first meeting; he charged nothing, but each gave about a dollar out of sympathy or embarrassment. The gatherings grew slowly, week after week, while he lectured three times a week in New York City without charging admission or for private interviews, sustaining himself instead on the conviction of what he had already experienced in his visions.