Before he began teaching in 1938 he worked many jobs in the world of Caesar — dancer, elevator operator for Macy's, filling bins for J. C. Penney.
Neville says that 2 February 1938 was his first time publicly telling the story of God's law.
The source identifies the first lecture as Secret of the Sperm and recounts Neville taking his son to it.
Neville began lecturing on his wife's birthday, 2 February 1938, on a borrowed five-dollar bill used to pay for Steinway Hall, in the Depression with no job in sight; about six people came and paid th
Anne receives the hat she imagined wearing
Description
In New York, Neville told Anne, a prostitute living at the Ansonia Hotel, to mentally wear the seventeen-fifty hat she admired in a millinery window; ten days later a friend gave her that very hat, and he explained why God gave her the hat rather than the money.
Authored by
Anonymous (not verified)
Told
26 February 1965
(probable)
Sources
- Source: Where Are Staying ¶14 (She said to me one day in New York City, “Neville, I would love a new hat!” “Alright, you have a new hat. Put it on. What hat do you want?”)
When he first came to California, Neville and his wife visited an ardent Catholic family's home with a pool; her warning was that as a Protestant he was damned but could still enjoy himself, and the f
During the Second World War, knowing sugar and fats were unobtainable, Neville had his family in Barbados send food parcels — but only every third parcel arrived, the rest being taken by people in the
A woman imagines and receives a concert grand piano
Description
During the Second World War, when pianos could not be bought, a woman Neville knows cleared the space in her New York apartment where a piano would stand and felt its presence there; someone moving to the coast then gave her a concert grand piano.
Authored by
Anonymous (not verified)
Sources
- Source: The Primal State ¶26 (And she fell heir to the piano, a wonderful concert grand piano. I know the family well, I know the piano well.)
between 1939 and 1945
(probable)
On a snowy New York night he slept imagining himself in his mother's home in Barbados; days later a cable came saying his mother was dying, and he and his wife sailed within twenty-four hours without
Neville's first book, At Your Command, was published in 1939.
between 1939 and 1941
(doubtful)
Wanting to marry his present wife while still legally bound to his first, Neville slept night after night in his hotel room in the assumption that he was in an apartment with his wife in the other bed
In 1939 Neville brooded on the Jacob and Esau story of Genesis 27 until an inner voice gave him its psychological meaning, and he then tested the method and found it worked.
Neville's 50-page book At Your Command was published by Snellgrove in 1939, often cited as his true first book.
Place: New York City
Person: Neville Goddard
Ann imagines and receives an expensive hat
Description
Four weeks after telling the hat story, Neville met Ann — a prostitute living at the Ansonia Hotel — at Broadway and 72nd; she had imagined owning a $17.50 hat and been given the very hat by a friend, and asked him why God had not simply given her the money, which he answered by pointing out she would never have spent it on a hat.
Authored by
Anonymous (not verified)
Sources
- Source: Your Creative Power ¶12 (Four weeks later, Broadway and 72nd Street, I’m walking up the street and I run into a lady whose name is Ann.)
Neville's actual first publication was a 5-to-21-page pamphlet, Ask of Me, published by Snellgrove at 50 cents, predating At Your Command.
Place: New York City
Warden's conflicting datings of when he first read Neville: when Neville had only one published book (c.1939-41 if literal); 'back into the '50s'; and 'fifty years ago' — his engagement with the written work began early and long preceded understandin
Description
Warden's conflicting datings of when he first read Neville: when Neville had only one published book (c.1939-41 if literal); 'back into the '50s'; and 'fifty years ago' — his engagement with the written work began early and long preceded understanding. [Retold 4 times across the interviews.] [Date evidence: Warden says Neville had only one published book at the time he first read him — if literal, c.1939-1941 (between At Your Command and the second book); contradicts his other datings.]
Verbatim (witness's words)
After having a course with Neville, it was so obvious. You know, I mean, it was embarrassingly obvious that it was always right. Everything you want is already right with you. Choose this day and you are that. I heard that over and over and over, because I played Neville’s tapes nightly.
Sources
- Source: Think For Yourself, Part 2 - Lindell, Neville's Student (lwf_uAn21YgCvDs — Lindell Warden, first-hand; also: lwf_JPlo0QSSwzA,lwf_RfDmxDZfE1Q,lwf_XG4FzFrDTh4,lwf_uAn21YgCvDs)
Wealthy New Yorker berates Roosevelt while shaving
Description
He recalls a wealthy only-child in New York City during the last war who hated Roosevelt and told him off in the mirror while shaving every morning, refusing to give up the amusement because no Broadway play gave him as much fun for the money.
Authored by
Anonymous (not verified)
Date (happened)
between 1939 and 1945
between 1939 and 1945
between 1939 and 1945
between 1939 and 1945
between 1939 and 1945
Told
27 January 1967
(refuted)
4 September 1965
(doubtful)
16 July 1968
21 February 1969
27 January 1967
(refuted)
2 December 1966
(probable)
Sources
- Source: God Plays All the Parts ¶40 (He said, “Neville, there isn’t a play on Broadway that I can get into for under ten dollars— oh, in a morning I spend, say, five minutes on my face and in five minutes telling him off I have such fun—there’s no play on Broadway running two hours that’s g…)
- Source: Order Your Conversations Aright ¶44 (He said, “Why, Neville, the shows on Broadway today are $10 a seat. There is no show on Broadway that could give me the thrill of those fifteen minutes in the morning when I shave.)
- Source: There Is No Other God ¶28 (I knew a man in New York City during the Second World War. He hated Roosevelt – hated him!)
- Source: I AM the Lord ¶26 (I remember a man in New York City during the Second World War, who claimed he despised Roosevelt. Every morning when the man shaved, he would talk to himself in the mirror, imagining he was telling Roosevelt everything he disliked about him. The gentlema…)
- Source: I Am The True Vine ¶34 (I know that from experience: a man in New York City, in the Second World War, hated President Roosevelt. I said to him, “why do you hate the man?”)
Neville describes the Broadway play 'Family Portrait' as a wonderful presentation, implying he saw it himself some thirty-odd years earlier.
In 1939 Neville browsed daily in a little bookshop on 49th Street in New York whose two elderly proprietresses put a large picture of him in the window; standing behind two women looking at it, he ove
The New York Times Book Review's 'Latest Books Received' column listed Neville's pamphlet Ask of Me alongside At Your Command.
Place: New York City
Neville spent a two-week vacation at Alice Bentley's strange nudist-tolerant place on the Canadian border in 1939 when war broke out in Europe, where she cooked three meals a day and walked barefoot i
After the Snellgrove imprint ceased operating following 1940, Neville moved to self-publishing under his own name from 112 West 72nd Street.
Place: 112 West 72nd Street, New York City
Back in the 1940s in New York City Neville suddenly stopped time; that same night he told a friend, and could tell his wife in the morning, though he knew he would be thought strange or insane.
between 1940 and 1947
(probable)
Twenty-odd years ago in New York a wealthy woman kept coming to Neville's home to stand in his living room with the doors and windows closed and affirm "I am" this and that, believing not a word of it
between 1940 and 1950
(probable)
Neville recounts the first time he arrested the action: in spirit, with his body on the bed, he came upon a New England restaurant scene of about a hundred and fifty years earlier, stilled an activity
Woman dreams of two men she believed dead
Description
Neville reads from a letter a woman friend wrote him about two dreams: in one she met a friend named Jack and told him she thought he had died, and he answered that it was his wife who died; in another she met an old high-school flame and reminisced with him so naturally, though she had not seen him since 1940 and her mother had written her years ago that he had died.
Authored by
Anonymous (not verified)
Told
1960
(refuted)
1960
(refuted)
16 May 1969
(probable)
Sources
- Source: The Lord's Anointed ¶37 (She said in her letter to me, “I found myself in a dream talking to a friend that I knew well. His name is Jack. I said to Jack, ‘Well, Jack, I thought you died.’ He said, ‘No, it was my wife who died.’”)