Understanding Neville Goddard’s Perspective on Literalism and Inner Awakening
What Is Religious Psychosis?
Religious psychosis is not a clinical term, but it names a real and tragic condition: the mind trapped in a maze of fear, guilt, and authoritarian dogma, all under the pretence of devotion. In this state, scripture becomes superstition, obedience replaces awareness, and God is no longer the creative spark within but a towering figure to appease without.
Neville Goddard never used the term religious psychosis explicitly, but he certainly exposed it. For him, religion divorced from imagination is not only useless—it’s dangerous. “Imagination is God,” he taught, and the true gospel is not external worship or rigid ritual, but an inward awakening to that fact.
1. Literalism: The Root of the Madness
“The Bible is a psychological drama,” Neville insisted—not a history book or moral code. Religious psychosis begins when that truth is ignored. Taking scripture literally rips it from the realm of the inner man and casts it outward, turning symbolic truths into rigid dogmas.
In this mistaken reading, the characters of the Bible become historical props rather than symbolic states of consciousness. God is no longer the “I Am” presence but a distant, conditional monarch. Obedience becomes survival, not spiritual evolution. The imagination—the true creative faculty—is stifled by fear of divine punishment.
2. The Split Mind: God vs. the Devil, Heaven vs. Hell
One of the most enduring symptoms of religious psychosis is dualism: the idea that a cosmic battle rages between God and the Devil, with the soul as collateral. Neville dismantles this fiction with stunning clarity: “The devil is your own belief in a power outside of yourself.”
Good and evil, heaven and hell—these are not locations or beings, but states of consciousness. To believe otherwise is to fracture the self, to fear the very imagination meant to set you free. This split mind becomes a breeding ground for anxiety, shame, and spiritual paralysis.
3. The Guilt Trap: Sin, Salvation, and Self-Hatred
In this system, sin becomes weaponised. But Neville reframes it completely: “Sin means to miss the mark.” It is not a moral indictment but a creative misfire—a failure to imagine rightly.
Religious psychosis equates desire with danger, especially when desire veers from the narrow road approved by dogma. The result is self-hatred disguised as holiness, a rejection of one’s own power in favour of constant penance. Salvation becomes something to be earned, not realised. In this distortion, the soul is endlessly at war with itself.
4. The Imprisoned Imagination
Perhaps the most tragic outcome of religious psychosis is the enslavement of imagination. Neville often used the biblical symbol of Egypt and Pharaoh to represent this bondage. Pharaoh is the hardened belief in external authority—the idea that miracles come from heaven, not from within.
The people cry out for deliverance, yet do not recognise that the Red Sea to be parted is their own resistance, their own disbelief. The true Exodus is the movement from victimhood to vision. It is not God who withholds freedom—it is man who refuses to awaken to “I Am that I Am.”
5. The Cure: Inner Awakening and the Law of Assumption
The antidote, Neville said, is to “assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled.” In doing so, we claim our divine inheritance. This is not blasphemy—it is faith in its most radical and pure form.
True religion is not submission to a doctrine but the full acceptance of one’s own creative nature. “Your imagination is able to do all that you ask in proportion to your ability to believe that you are what you want to be.” This is the new covenant—not written in stone, but etched in awareness.
Conclusion: From Psychosis to Power
The journey from religious psychosis to spiritual power is not the loss of faith—it is its redemption. What is left behind is not God, but fear. What is discovered is not self-idolatry, but the truth that God and man are one when imagination is awakened.
The Bible, reread with awakened eyes, is not a book of rules but a rich map of states—each story a signpost pointing inward. We are not meant to worship the characters, but to embody them.
To be spiritually sane is to know that you are the operant power. No devil to fight. No wrath to dodge. Just the eternal I Am, creating, choosing, becoming—now and forever.
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