Imagination · “Feel It Real”
Unwavering Persistence in the Assumed State
Remain in the assumption of the wish already fulfilled — acting and feeling AS IF already there — refusing any thought to the contrary until it hardens into fact.
In 5 lines: Assume the wish fulfilled once, cleanly — then refuse to reopen the “how.” Fall asleep each night in the felt state, as Abdullah told Neville to “sleep this night in Barbados.” When contrary evidence shows up, don’t accept it as the verdict; return to the assumed version. Commit fully — “you can’t be a little bit pregnant” — and hold it as quiet faith, not anxious checking. Persist, keep taking real action, and stay willing to update if reality truly calls for it.
What it is
This is the persistence half of the teaching Neville Goddard attributed to Abdullah: once you have assumed the wish fulfilled, you stay in it — acting, feeling, and (above all) falling asleep as if it were already true — and you refuse every thought to the contrary until the assumption “hardens into fact.” It is best known through Neville’s retelling of the 1933 Barbados episode: penniless and wanting to sail home to Barbados, Neville kept bringing Abdullah his doubts and logistics, and Abdullah kept refusing to engage, returning him each time to the flat assertion “You are in Barbados.” The distinctive emphasis here is not the initial assumption but the discipline of remaining in it without wavering — treating any reopening of “but how?” or “it hasn’t happened yet” as a step backward.
(Sourcing note: Abdullah left no writings. This is reconstructed from Neville Goddard’s spoken accounts of the Barbados episode, which he told many times with small variations.)
The Method
As relayed by Neville, the persistence discipline ran like this:
- Assume the end once, cleanly. Settle on the single fact of the wish fulfilled and enter its feeling (see the companion practice). The persistence work begins after this.
- Refuse to reopen the question. Abdullah would not discuss the “how”: “If I am faithful to my assumption, I can’t discuss the ‘how.’ I’m already there!” Every time Neville returned with doubts, Abdullah declined to negotiate.
- Sleep in the state, nightly. The core instruction was to “simply sleep this night in Barbados” — to fall asleep in the assumption, repeating it night after night. Drifting off in the felt end-state was treated as the moment of deepest impression.
- Hold the state against contrary evidence. When a setback came — Neville was offered only a third-class ticket — Abdullah refused to accept it as the answer, pressing: “Who told you that you went to Barbados Third Class?” and declaring the desired version finished: “You went to Barbados, and you went First Class.” 5. Commit totally — no half-measures. Abdullah’s image for this was blunt: “You can’t be a little bit pregnant.” Either you are in the state or you are not; partial assumption is no assumption.
- Persist until it externalizes, then stop straining. Neville likened the completed assumption to pregnancy: “If you did it, then you’re pregnant. Let the child grow. And interference with it is going to be a miscarriage.” Persistence means holding faith, not anxiously re-checking. (Sourcing note: the quoted lines — “You are in Barbados,” “sleep this night in Barbados,” “you can’t be a little bit pregnant,” the third-class exchange, and the pregnancy metaphor — are the words Neville attributed to Abdullah and to himself in recounting the episode. They exist only in Neville’s retellings.)
Source & Lineage
Abdullah (fl. 1920s–30s, New York), Neville’s esoteric mentor, taught the discipline of remaining faithful to an assumption “in spite of the senses.”. He left no writings; the Barbados account is Neville Goddard’s testimony of his own training.
Neville later generalized this into his teaching on persistence in the assumption and remaining “faithful to the unseen reality.” This entry frames the discipline as attributed to Abdullah, the root — Neville’s mature, first-person versions live in his own technique pages (below).
The deeper claimed root is Kabbalistic / esoteric-Bible discipline of inner fidelity.
The Traditions' versions
Neville’s living in the end — the all-day persistence in the assumed self-concept; Neville’s own development.
- Neville’s SATS (state akin to sleep) — entering drowsiness to impress the assumption, the nightly mechanism Abdullah pointed at.
- Eric John Campbell — persisting in the assumption — modern restatement of the persistence move.
- Agrippa — vehement imagination / fixed desire — older esoteric cousin: hold the image with fixity.
- Wattles — acting in the “certain way” — sustained orientation from the state of having.
Common refinements
Re-opening the “how.” The classic error Abdullah refused to indulge; debating logistics reasserts that you are not there.
- Accepting partial evidence as the verdict. The third-class ticket wasn’t the answer — persistence means not letting a halfway result collapse the assumption.
- Anxious checking. “Has it worked yet?” is interference — the “miscarriage” Neville warned against. Persist as quiet faith, not surveillance.
- Confusing persistence with white-knuckling. Straining to feel it harder is counter-productive; the aim is calm fidelity, especially on falling asleep.
- Stubbornness past the point of sense. Persistence is not refusing to update when reality genuinely says change course — see Safety.