Eden and Sarah: The Return to Pleasure in Manifestation

When we hear the word Eden, most of us think of the beginning of the world, the first garden, the fall of man. But in Hebrew, Eden means pleasure. It is not just a place—it is a state of being, a condition of delight and effortless creation.

In Neville Goddard’s interpretation of Scripture, the Bible is psychological drama, not historical record. Eden, then, is not a location on a map, but a realm within you—the original state of creative delight before the separation into effort, toil, and duality. The Tree of Life and the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil symbolise different modes of awareness, but before even considering the trees, we must remember the soil they grow in: pleasure.

This brings us to a woman much later in the biblical narrative—Sarah, the wife of Abraham. When she overhears the divine promise that she will have a child in her old age, she laughs to herself and says, "After I am waxed old, shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?" (Genesis 18:12).

That single line carries a profound echo of Eden.

Sarah, having lived so long in barrenness, had grown accustomed to the absence of delight. Her laughter is the soul’s astonishment that the realm of pleasure might be restored. In Neville’s terms, Sarah represents the inner womb of spiritual receptivity—the place where true manifestation occurs. But even she doubts, at first, that Eden can return.

Yet it does.

Sarah conceives and bears Isaac, whose name means laughter. Not the laughter of mockery, but of joyful astonishment—the pleasure that follows fulfilled desire. Her question, "Shall I have pleasure?", is answered by the birth itself. The inner path, though long delayed, leads back to the Edenic state.

In this way, Sarah’s journey is every soul’s journey back to effortless creation—to manifestation that is not wrung from effort but born from inner delight. The promise is not only that a desire will be fulfilled, but that it will be fulfilled in pleasure.

This is the great secret hidden in plain sight: the origin of all manifestation is pleasure. And its fulfilment brings us full circle—to the joy we once doubted, but now remember.

We return to Eden not through death, but through the rebirth of imagination.

Through pleasure, the soul reclaims its garden.