Neville Goddard: Assumption and Scripting

Where it comes from

Neville Goddard (1905–1972) was born in Barbados and lectured in New York and Los Angeles from the late 1930s. He described learning from a teacher he called Abdullah. His teaching is often called the law of assumption; “scripting” is a later name for writing in his spirit.

Key books

• Feeling Is the Secret (1944)
• The Power of Awareness (1952)
• Your Faith Is Your Fortune (1941)

The core idea

Imagination creates reality: assume that your wish is already fulfilled, feel it as a fact, and act and think from that end state rather than toward it.

How to practise it

1. 1Decide what you want and imagine one short scene that would happen only after it came true, such as a friend congratulating you.
2. 2Relax into a drowsy, relaxed state, which Neville called the state akin to sleep, often just before falling asleep.
3. 3Replay the scene from inside it, in the first person, until it feels natural and real.
4. 4During the day, think from the end: speak and act as the person who already has it. Rewrite upsetting moments in your imagination (revision).
5. 5Scripting: write the outcome in the present or past tense, as a diary entry from the future.

What it can help with

• Rehearsing confidence before an event
• Turning a vague wish into a concrete scene
• A calm evening routine

Further reading

• Wikipedia: Neville Goddard