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
1939
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.
A Stern's shopper imagines and receives a desired hat
Description
A woman in his New York audience tried the method at Stern's department store in 1939 — wearing a hat she loved while imagining walking out with it — the hat was sold from her head, and the store gave her any hat she liked with their compliments; she told him the story herself and gave him permission to repeat it.
Location
Authored by
Anonymous (not verified)
Date (happened)
1939
Told
26 September 1969(refuted)- 29 October 1965
Sources
- Source: Your Creative Power ¶11 (But she told me herself, as she walked around the place she actually walked downstairs to the first floor, walked out onto 6th Avenue, with the hat on her head.)
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.
Persons
Location
Authored by
Anonymous (not verified)
Date (happened)
c. 1939
(probable)
Told
26 September 1969(refuted)- 29 October 1965
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.)
Victor sells wartime stores through a rowboat loophole
Description
Neville tells how his brother Victor, foreseeing the war in 1939, borrowed about $1,500,000 to fill Barbados warehouses with duty-free ships' stores; when no ships came and the government and rival merchants refused to let him sell the goods locally with duty paid, he had his lawyers define a ship so as to include a rowboat, advertised the duty-free goods to anyone owning a boat, and sold the lot in forty-eight hours, paying off the bank and making a fortune for the Goddards.
Persons
Authored by
Anonymous (not verified)
Date (happened)
- 1939
- between 1939 and 1945
Told
25 November 1965
(doubtful)
Sources
- Source: The Unrighteous Steward: Memory ¶11 (Well, he didn’t like that, so he said, “Nevertheless, I’ll give you my final word, Goddard. No is the answer. You bought it for ships and for ships it remains!” Then my brother said to him, “Is that your real final word?” “Yes, Goddard.” He said, “Well, …)
- Source: The Potter's House ¶39 (So he took an ad, a huge big ad, the following day, and he itemized all the merchandise: “To anyone who has a thing that floats, and he is confident he can make an island, can come and buy this merchandise tax-free. Bring it only in cash, no checks, brin…)
Friend is saved by people he hated
Description
A friend of Neville's, an Irish Catholic born in Boston who hated Jews and Negroes, told him how a Jew in his company took his grenades and destroyed a Japanese machine-gun nest in the Pacific, and how later, when he was set afire in a San Francisco building-materials factory, a Negro threw him down and smothered the flames with his own body - after which Jews and Negroes got first choice of work from him.
Location
Authored by
Anonymous (not verified)
Date (happened)
- between 1939 and 1945
- before 1 November 1966
Told
- 1 November 1966
- 1 November 1966
Sources
- Source: The Congregation of God ¶4 (Right here, he told me…this chap born of Irish background, Catholic. They came from Ireland. He was born in Boston and raised in that very limited environment, where nothing was right but a good Irish Catholic. He said, “I hated two people in the world: …)
1939
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
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.
Location
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?”)
Ann receives the exact hat she imagined wearing
Description
Neville retells his often-told New York story of Ann, a prostitute living at the Ansonia, who imagined wearing a seventeen-fifty hat and was given that very hat by a friend, and his explanation that money would have gone to her rent instead.
Persons
Authored by
Anonymous (not verified)
Date (happened)
before 1939
Told
3 June 1968
(doubtful)
Sources
- Source: Imagining Creates ¶17 (This lady, Ann, lived up at the Ansonia at 73rd and Broadway and she’s a member of the oldest profession in the world, a lady of the evening. She came to my meetings when time allowed. So this day in question, I met her at Broadway and 73rd, and she said…)
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
between 1939 and 1949
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
c. 1939
Neville describes the Broadway play 'Family Portrait' as a wonderful presentation, implying he saw it himself some thirty-odd years earlier.
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.
Persons
Location
Authored by
Anonymous (not verified)
Date (happened)
before 1939
(probable)
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?”)
between 1939 and 1945
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
between 1939 and 1959
Neville's father gave equal shares of everything to his nine sons and one daughter in 1939 — as war broke in Europe and because West Indian law required a man to outlive his gift by five years to avoi
c. 1939
(possible)
A contemporary review of At Your Command reports that Neville was speaking weekly to thousands in New York. No venue or calendar date is supplied.
Victor Goddard fills warehouses with ships' stores
Authored by
Anonymous (not verified)
Date (happened)
c. January 1939
(probable)
Told
23 November 1965
2 February 1939
(probable)
Writer's mother carries a distressing burden for twenty-five years
Authored by
Anonymous (not verified)
Date (happened)
between 28 February 1939 and 28 February 1964
(probable)
13 August 1939
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
between 18 August 1939 and 1 September 1939
(probable)
before September 1939
c. September 1939
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
September 1939
A Yale mathematician tells Neville only English-speaking peoples should survive
Description
A brilliant American acquaintance, who graduated from Yale at nineteen and stayed on to teach higher mathematics, told Neville at the outbreak of the Second World War that the world would be better with only English-speaking people in it, and that New England was the backbone of the country.
Location
Authored by
Anonymous (not verified)
Date (happened)
- c. September 1939
- before 1968 (possible)
- before 1 May 1968
Told
1 May 1968
Sources
- Source: Manner Jesus Birth Sign ¶8 (He is an American of many, many generations. Then he went further, he said, “You know, Eastern America (speaking of New England) that is the backbone of this country.” And he meant ever word of it. He’s a brilliant, brilliant man. Graduated at the age of…)
- Source: Divine Signs ¶8 (I know a brilliant man who graduated from Yale at the age of 19 and remained there for many years to teach higher mathematics. As an American of many generations, he once said to me: “We should have only English speaking people in the world,” and he mean…)
1 September 1939
(probable)
1 September 1939
1 September 1939
1 September 1939
Neville tells the story of his brother Victor, a Barbadian merchant and ship chandler who foresaw the coming war and stockpiled imported goods just before Britain declared war on Germany (which Nevill
1 September 1939
(probable)
1 September 1939
On 1 September 1939, driving back from Montreal after two weeks on the Canadian border, he heard on the car radio that England had declared war on Germany — exactly as his father had predicted.
1940
(probable)
In the 1940 census Cora describes herself as widowed, which the researcher interprets as a likely social convenience rather than a confirmed death date for Modeste.
1940
(probable)
Joseph Murphy founded the Truth Forum in London in 1940, where Professor Evelyn Fleet and Professor Grimes gave weekly talks.
Place: London, England
Person: Joseph Murphy
between 1940 and 1940
Neville met Catherine Willa Van Schumus, a designer who became his second wife, between 1940 and 1941.
Person: Neville Goddard
after 1940
(probable)
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
1940
(probable)
Walter C. Lanyon's book "I Came" was published by Snellgrove Publications.
between 1940 and 1940
(possible)
During the German occupation, Joseph Berle, required to wear a Star of David armband, personally requested and obtained a visa from a German officer to leave France for New York.
1940
(probable)
Letter writer last sees her former high-school sweetheart
Description
A friend wrote to Neville describing a dream in which she found herself talking easily and naturally with an old flame from her high-school days, reminiscing just as they used to. On waking she realised she had not actually seen him since 1940, and that her mother had written to her years before to tell her he had died.
Authored by
Anonymous (not verified)
Date (happened)
1940
(probable)
Told
16 May 1969
(probable)
Correspondent's resurrection experience as a teenage scoutmaster
Description
A man in the audience, who as a teenage Boy Scoutmaster had gone to bed happy after a satisfying day with his troop, experienced in 1940 the same kind of 'resurrection' vision Neville himself would have the following year: he was lifted up and heard a heavenly chorus singing 'Neville is risen,' though he was unsure in his letter whether the chorus used his own name or the pronoun 'he.' Neville treats the correspondent's earlier account as independent confirmation of the mystical experience he himself had in 1941 aboard a freighter in the Caribbean.
Authored by
Anonymous (not verified)
Date (happened)
1940
Told
8 January 1963
c. 1940
(probable)
before 1940
(probable)
Neville describes his long friendship with Alice Bentley -- known to intimates as 'Ali Ben' -- a very dear elderly friend in New York City who moved in the circle of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky and kept a
between 1940 and 1949
between 1940 and 1949
1940
(probable)
between 15 June 1940 and 17 June 1940
1940
(probable)
Discussing De Gaulle's veto of Britain's entry into a united Europe, Neville quotes a British Foreign Office memorandum of 1 May 1920, only recently revealed in a British newspaper after 43 years secr
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.
Persons
Authored by
Anonymous (not verified)
Date (happened)
- between 1940 and 1960 (probable)
- before 16 May 1969 (probable)
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.’”)
between 1940 and 1966
(probable)
A woman friend of twenty-odd years, met in New York City and now living near him, phoned him enthusiastic about a teacher using the Bible to support a hate campaign; the conversation left him startled