2022 Reprint and exact facsimile of the original editions, not reproduced with Optical Recognition. Neville Lancelot Goddard (1905 - 1972), generally known as Neville, was a Barbadian New Thought author and mystic who wrote on the Bible and esotericism. He is considered one of the pioneers of the law of assumption. Goddard viewed the Bible as a parable of the human psyche as opposed to a record of historical events. He argued that the Bible had to be interpreted as guidebook to enlightenment and personal power. Therefore, Goddard did not believe in an external God who answers prayers, but rather that each of us is a creator of their lives. Neville's thought is often considered to be akin to solipsism, nondualism and Advaita Vedanta, especially considering that he stated different times that "everyone is yourself pushed out", alluding at the fact that only God exists and everything else is an extension of said God. Goddard thought that through this "truth", people could create their own reality by assuming the "feeling of the wish fulfilled", hence, the term "law of assumption". The author also believed that death is an illusion and thought that, once "dead", people would be "restored" in the same life they lived again, in a similar way to the Nietzschean version of the concept of the eternal return, until they experienced enlightenment and became one with God, a concept that he referred to as "God's Promise". The Neville Collection includes, in chronological order, the complete texts of all of Neville's books: At Your Command (1939) Your Faith Is Your Fortune (1941) Freedom for All (1942) Feeling Is the Secret (1944) Prayer: The Art of Believing (1945) Out of this World & The Search (1949) The Power of Awareness (1952) Awakened Imagination (1954) Seedtime and Harvest (1956) The Law and the Promise (1961)
