This movement from the “old man” (Saul) to the “new creation” (Paul) reflects the transition from outer dependence to inner command.
Saul: The Old Man, Bound by Tradition
Before his conversion on the road to Damascus, Saul represents the unawakened man—externally focused, rigidly tied to religious law, and unaware of his inner power. As a Pharisee and persecutor of those who followed Christ (Acts 9:1–2), Saul symbolises a state of consciousness governed by appearances and inherited belief systems.
This mindset sees reality as something fixed and dictated from outside the self. In Neville’s terms, it is a man living by the law rather than by grace—a life reacting to conditions rather than creating them. It is the belief that righteousness and worth come from adherence to rules, rather than through the inner realisation of the “I AM.”
Paul’s Awakening: A Shift in Consciousness
Saul’s dramatic experience on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:3–6) is the moment of inner awakening. He is struck blind by a great light—symbolic of the collapse of outer vision—and hears the voice of Christ say, “Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?” This moment is not punishment but revelation: an encounter with the deeper self.
In Neville’s language, this marks the point where the individual ceases to identify with the external world and begins to awaken to the reality within. Saul, the law-bound personality, dies in that moment. Paul emerges as the symbol of one who has discovered that imagination is the only reality, and that God and man are one.
Paul no longer seeks truth in outer rules or religious observance. He knows now that Christ—the creative power of God—is within.
The Crucifixion: Fixation of an Inner State
In Neville Goddard’s teachings, the crucifixion is symbolic of the fixation of an idea in imagination. It is not about physical death, but about consciously assuming a new state so completely that it becomes one's reality.
Paul’s transformation is just such a crucifixion. He writes in Galatians 2:20:
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.”
This is the death of Saul—the externally defined identity—and the birth of Paul, who now lives by inner vision. The crucifixion here represents the end of old thought patterns, and the resurrection of a new, imaginative state of being.
In Romans 6:6, Paul writes:
“Our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with…”
Neville interprets “sin” not as moral failing but as “missing the mark”—living in a state that falls short of one's ideal. The crucifixion of the “old self” means that the old assumptions, limitations, and inherited beliefs are discarded. In their place arises a self-aware individual who knows they are the operant power.
Paul’s Letters: The Inner Life Revealed
Following his awakening, Paul teaches a message that aligns deeply with Neville’s core ideas: the power of faith, the transformation of the mind, and the creative nature of inner belief.
In Romans 12:2, Paul writes:
“Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
This directly reflects Neville’s teaching that we change our world by changing our concept of self. Inner transformation precedes outer change.
In Romans 4:17, Paul describes “God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.”
This is imagination in action—the calling forth of unseen reality by assuming it as true. Paul speaks here from a place of knowing that consciousness precedes form.
In 2 Corinthians 5:17, he declares:
“If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: the old has gone, the new is here!”
To be “in Christ” is to dwell in the assumption that your wish is already fulfilled. This is not religious piety; it is the mystical process of becoming through belief.
Paul as the Embodiment of Awakened Imagination
Paul becomes the example of the man who lives from the end—who understands that imagination and feeling are creative. He no longer reacts to life; he creates deliberately by assuming the state he desires.
In Philippians 4:8, Paul writes:
“Whatsoever things are true… honest… just… pure… lovely… think on these things.”
This instruction mirrors Neville’s warning to guard our thoughts and inner speech, for what we contemplate inwardly will outpicture in our world.
Paul teaches not theory but experience. His story is the symbolic template for spiritual awakening—the passage from being shaped by life to shaping life from within.
Conclusion: Paul and the Resurrection of Inner Power
Paul’s journey is not a record of religious conversion—it is the story of spiritual resurrection. Neville saw the Bible as a psychological document, where every character and event unfolds within the mind of man.
Saul’s rigid outer conformity gives way to Paul’s inner knowing. He dies to the world of law and rises into the world of grace—grace being the effortless unfolding of assumed desire.
In Paul, we see the transition from unconscious living to conscious creation. His story urges us to crucify the old limitations, and to rise in a new state, sustained by faith in the unseen and the knowledge that imagination is God.
As Neville says, “Dare to believe in the reality of your assumption, and watch the world mould itself to reflect it.” Paul dared—and his letters remain as living proof of what happens when man awakens to his true power.
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