A Garden Locked and Shut Up

A Hidden Garden

In the Song of Solomon, there is a beautiful passage:

"A garden shut up is my sister, my spouse; a spring shut up, a fountain sealed."
— Song of Solomon 4:12 (BBE)

On its surface, this is an intimate image of love, a secluded garden belonging to the beloved. But as Neville Goddard would teach, this is not merely a poetic metaphor of human romance — it is a symbolic statement about self-perception and the imaginative faculty within.

A "garden shut up" represents the human imagination, which has been locked away, guarded, and often misunderstood. The sealed fountain points to the source of abundant imagination within us — the divine, self-generating imagination that can bring forth all experience.

The Cherubim and the Flaming Sword

We find a parallel in Genesis:

"So he drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he put Cherubim and a flaming sword turning every way, to keep the way of the tree of life."
— Genesis 3:24 (BBE)

After the so-called "fall," man is depicted as being shut out from Eden. Cherubim with a flaming sword guard the entrance, preventing re-entry to the Tree of Life. At first glance, this might seem like punishment. But symbolically, Neville saw it as representing the psychological state of separation — the feeling of exile from one's own creative centre, the "I AM."

The flaming sword symbolises the mental barrier — the divided mind that judges "good and evil," causing us to fall into belief in external causation and separation. The cherubim guard the path not to keep us out forever, but to show that return requires a new way of seeing: pure, imaginative faith.

The Garden as Imagination

Neville repeatedly taught that the Bible is not secular history but a psychological drama unfolding in the mind of each person.

The garden in Genesis is the imagination — the place of pure creative delight. When man turns away from inner unity and begins to eat from the tree of knowledge (duality, judgment), he no longer lives spontaneously and joyfully in the garden. Instead, he experiences toil, fear, and separation.

Similarly, the "garden shut up" in Song of Solomon is not locked because of punishment, but because love requires full, conscious participation. The beloved is called to enter this garden not by force, but by invitation — an inner return to the state of pure awareness and delight.

The Sealed Fountain

In Song of Solomon, the beloved is described as a "sealed fountain."

A fountain represents the living water — the flow of life, imagination, and creative expression. When sealed, it symbolises the hidden potential within each person. This is the "secret place of the Most High" (Psalm 91:1), where desires gestate in imagination before they become visible facts.

Neville would say that the sealed fountain is the state of consciousness that has not yet been consciously accessed and activated. When one dares to assume a new state — to enter the "garden" deliberately and feel it real — the fountain is unsealed, and life flows outward as new experience.

Returning to Eden: The Inner Union

Both the Song of Solomon and Genesis ultimately point to reunion.

The "cherubim and flaming sword" are not external guards but internal patterns of resistance — doubts, fears, beliefs in separation. When we move past these through faith and assumption, we re-enter Eden.

The "garden shut up" becomes an open, fruitful space when the inner union between awareness and desire is made. The bride invites the beloved:

"Awake, O north wind; and come, thou south; blow upon my garden, that the spices thereof may flow out. Let my beloved come into his garden, and eat his pleasant fruits."
— Song of Solomon 4:16 (BBE)

This is the moment of acceptance, the merging of the "I AM" with its chosen state. It is the moment when the sealed fountain bursts forth as rivers of living water (John 7:38), when consciousness and desire become one.

Neville’s Vision: The Imaginative Key

For Neville, both the guarded Eden and the closed garden point to a single inner truth:
Your imagination is the creative power of God within.

You cannot "force" your way in through effort or moral striving. The only way to enter is through assumption — by feeling as if the desired state is already true, living from it quietly and confidently.

As long as we continue to rely on external facts alone, the garden remains guarded. But when we dare to assume — to move beyond the flaming sword of reason and enter through love — the inner garden opens, and the fountain begins to flow.

Conclusion: The Garden Awakens

The Song of Solomon and Genesis, far from being separate love poetry and moral fables, together reveal the mystery of consciousness.

• The garden shut up is the hidden creative centre within each of us.

• The cherubim and sword represent our self-imposed mental barriers.

• The sealed fountain is our own unused imaginative power.

• The call to "come into the garden" is the invitation to return to inner union and fruitfulness.

Through assumption, imagination becomes the new Eden, and the once-guarded garden becomes a place of delight, abundance, and union with all that we truly are.