It Works by Self Persuasion: How to Let Your Faith Work in You

12–04–2022

Yesterday, Karen Sinclair was filled with rapture as she shared how the law has worked for her ‘100% OF THE TIME’. Looking back, she felt truly grateful and said how unbelievable her overall and specific transformations have been. We must consider ourselves blessed to have a friend in this family such as Karen, and to have a bold teacher such as Neville who brought this Law to us in ways that we could understand and apply it consciously. Karen has shared her stories, and her outburst yesterday simply reflected, ‘It works!’ So, if it works, how do you get it to work in you?

Neville is fond of saying that it works and we could try it, we should test it by living in the end. All this is know by us already. Then we have the question, ‘Why hasn’t it worked for me yet?’ Neville is fond of saying one thing about the law of imagining, self persuasion. Consider the following words of Neville, ‘Trust this power in your own being. Persuade yourself that this imaginal act is true and real, and to the degree that you are self-persuaded it is real it becomes real.’ (Neville Goddard, The Sin Against the Holy Spirit)

‘The secret is to imagine to the point of self-persuasion. Can you believe what you are imagining? There are not two of you — you and Imagination! You are not reshaping a piece of pottery when you imagine, but yourself! You are moving into your desire. If you persist until you see exactly what you want to see, fix your position with the glue of feeling and remain there — it will be reflected on the screen of space, just as your world is now reflecting the fixed state from which you are viewing it.’ (Neville Goddard, There Is No Fiction)

So, Neville talks about operating the imagination by Self Persuasion. Well, there is only ONE Self, and that is You, your I AMNESS who is the LORD God. So that Self Persuasion means you are convinced with yourself that what you imagine is true and your imagination is the eternal truth. So, it works by the degree of your self-persuasion. If you are least self-persuaded about your imaginal acts, you doubt. Why? Because to be least self-persuaded in the reality of your imaginal act is to be most persuaded of in the reality of your contrary circumstances. Therefore you doubt that your desire is fulfilled. To be most self-persuaded in the reality of your imaginal act is to walk confident in the persistent assumption that your wish is fulfilled. Did you know the attitude of Abdullah towards Neville when Neville would be travelling to Barbadoes? That would be your attitude of mind as well, the attitude of brazen impudence. In other words, circumstances stand no chance to shake your faith. What’s even more powerful?! Circumstances cannot but conform to the image of your persuasion.

So, the Law is that Imagining Creates Reality. But it works for you to the degree that you are persuaded in yourself that it is done! Do you need the external assurance of someone or something that it ‘will be’ done before you expect your manifestation? Or are you capable of accepting that what you have imagined is TRUE and REAL and FINAL?!

Now, which is more reliable for you to believe: your imaginal acts or the external facts? External facts are changing. If we regard the external world to be true, then time is of relevance to us. The mere passage of time indicates that no fact remains the same. The same car parked in the garage last night is not the one you drive this morning. If you disagree, buy a car newly tonight and take it to sell tomorrow morning. No fact remains the same; and the fact that seems to point eastwards will suddenly change and go westwards. Just consider the upheaval in global markets, national economies, personal fortunes, etc. Do you persuade yourself to rest assured based on the words/ethical behaviour of a person? Or the automation of a machine? Well, these things consist of ‘human errors’ and ‘bugs’. I don’t mean to take away your confidence; I believe if you want a sense of security at all, you want the best sense of security. And frankly, no external facts can guarantee you that security because ‘heaven and earth shall pass away’, and mortal ‘man is as the flower, he withers away’.

But your imaginal acts, these are eternal structures. Let us pick a changing fact and juxtapose it with an imaginal act. Consider where a colleague is promoted to a new office. That’s an external fact which left his old position vacant. But the company operates with the imaginary assumption that the vacant office is always occupied. And in a matter of days, it is occupied again. The facts of who occupies it changed; but the imaginal act of the office as a part of the company’s structure remains the same. Consider also that if all the computers in the world are terminated, the imaginal act of a finished computer product remains and could be reproduced physically. So that because the imaginal pattern of computers exist, they cannot be actually destroyed. Now, I will ask you one more time, ‘Which is more reliable for you to believe: your eternal imaginal acts or the changing facts?

So, you believe your imaginal acts. And Neville gave us his idea of faith. ‘So, I tell you: faith in unseen reality. You don’t give reality to the unseen; it is loyalty to unseen reality that is the secret of faith.’ (Neville Goddard, Faith) Do you understand this? By self-persuasion, you are not making your imaginal acts become real. Remember that external facts are changing; imaginal acts are eternal, real and unchanging. So, by persuading yourself that your imaginal act is true, you are not making it real. You are accepting that it is already real. This is a shift in attitude that could unlock your effortless manifestation and keep you grounded in your persistent assumption. Karen emphasized that ‘Things literally manifest out of thin air.’ This is effortless manifestation. What is the difference between successful and effortless manifestation and failure? Self-persuasion in the reality of the imaginal act.

By persuading yourself, you are not making it real. So, you don’t have to ‘try’ and ‘try harder’ maybe it will then become real and more real. Then by intensifying your efforts towards imagining, you make it more and more real? NO! N-O! Your faith doesn’t make the life of the end real. It doesn’t make the state of the wish fulfilled any real. That is Already Reality! Your faith makes you accept it as being already real. Your faith is your acceptance of the existing reality of what you imagine, and faith is another word for self-persuasion. For ‘faith’ is the word, ‘persuasion’. You become loyal to the reality that isn’t seen in space-time. You are unwavering in your conviction of its existing truth. That is how it works!

Here is a story of what happened yesterday. I was having a conversation with my darling, who has told me about five months back of the troubled household of a friend of hers. I encouraged her to revise the scene as she would want her own marriage to be. Well, I revised what she told me. I imagined then, five months ago, that she told me how happy and loving with one another the couple dwelt. More than five other times, she reported more irritations of the situation to me. But I was steadfast and devoted to a reality different from the reality she’s telling me. So, I’d tell her, ‘It is well. You can continue to imagine that it is done.’ The more she reported, the more self-persuaded I became of the reality that she told me how happy and loving the couple really were. Then yesterday we were talking, and it’s been over a month since she told me anything about the couple. But I just asked, ‘What about this family?’ And she smiled, told me the exact words that I’ve revised she was telling me. She told me it’s been going on for a few weeks now, they are a happy couple again. Peace is restored. Now, that’s how it is done! Self-persuasion in the reality of my imaginal act. I didn’t question my imagination. You don’t question the reality of your imaginal act. If you have questions at all, ask your circumstances why they’ve been slow and sluggish because you’ve ordered and you are God! But would you even follow your order with a question if you rest in the knowing that you are God?

‘For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater: So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.’

So, you send forth your word by imagining that it is already done. Then believe in the reality of your unseen imaginal act. The whole world did not see it. That’s alright, but you see it; and the whole world, though they do not see it, they are being moved by your order. To what degree are you persuaded that not this physical world but the imaginative world within you is the reality of life? To that degree does it externalise in your world as you have imagined. Don’t question the reality that is within. For what will you question it? For the changing shadows that are called external facts? Are they worth it? Live in complete loyalty to your unseen reality. Persuade yourself that it is already true and actually real what you have dared to imagine. Therefore, imagine the end. And persuade yourself that it has already happened; it is already done.

‘But every mystic worthy of the name knows that a true judgment need not conform to the external facts to which it relates. If I say: “Aren’t they beautiful?” and you see nothing, you may not agree. That is because you are not seeing what I am. I may be seeing a dozen red roses in a crystal vase which has been placed on a corner table in my living room. Now, to the degree that I am self-persuaded they are there, their appearance will become a fact. This I know from experience, so I know that a true judgment need not conform to the external facts to which it relates. Satan insists that it must, but truth (called Jesus Christ) tells us that it need not be so.’ (Neville Goddard, The Spirit Within)

Now, let us go into the silence.