A Reflection on How The Film Adolescence and the Bible Both Warn Us: What We Accept in Imagination Becomes Our World

Netflix’s Adolescence tells the chilling story of Jamie, a boy drawn into a world of violent online content. By the time he fatally stabs a classmate, it’s clear the act didn’t arise spontaneously—it was imagined, rehearsed, and absorbed long before it occurred. The series doesn’t simply portray a crime; it reveals the slow conditioning of a mind left unguarded.

This is where the symbolic reading of the Bible, as pointed out by Neville Goddard, offers sobering clarity.

Neville showed that the Bible is not a record of historical events, but a psychological drama. Its stories symbolise inner processes, and its teachings reveal imagination as the creative power of God. When the Bible speaks of creation, it speaks of thought becoming form, of inner images clothed in flesh.

The statement "man moves in a world that is nothing more or less than his imagination pushed out" summarises this idea—not as Neville’s invention, but as his discovery within Scripture. What we dwell on inwardly shapes what we meet outwardly. The law is silent, constant, and impartial.

In Adolescence, Jamie doesn’t consciously choose destruction. He simply absorbs what is offered—violent ideologies, despairing narratives, images charged with fear and rejection. These impressions settle into his subconscious, and from there, unfold.

The Bible, read symbolically, describes the subconscious as the womb of creation. It receives ideas without judgement and brings them to fruition. This isn’t a moral framework—it’s a spiritual mechanism. Whatever enters the inner chamber will find its way to the surface.

Both Adolescence and Scripture issue the same warning: guard your inner world. Every image we accept plants a seed. If we don’t choose our imaginal diet, the world will choose it for us—and rarely with kindness.

The Bible gives us tools for inner direction—revision, prayer, visualisation, and the practice of calling “things which be not as though they were.” These are not whimsical rituals but disciplines of conscious imagining. They allow us to author our experience instead of being written by the world around us.

Jamie’s tragedy is one of unconscious creation. His imagination was trained before he ever knew it was his to guide. Adolescence doesn’t just tell a story—it cautions us to take responsibility for the unseen realm within.

The world hurls images at us every day. But only what we accept—only what we believe—takes root.

Choose carefully.