Neville Goddard Revision Technique Explained – Change Your Past
Neville Goddard’s Revision’ is perhaps one of the mystics most powerful techniques for manifestation.
In this article you will learn exactly how to do it and why it works.
“It is a most healthy and productive exercise to daily relive the day as you wish you had lived it, revising the scenes to make them conform to your ideals.”
— Neville Goddard
To understand Revision, you need to understand Neville’s fundamental belief that imagination is GOD or imagination creates reality.
When you imagine something, you plant a seed for its realization in the material world.
The things you imagine most tend to come true.
You have seen this phenomenon occur when you repeatedly visualize a negative event happening and that exact event transpires.
Through unknown means you attracted the outcome.
Your thoughts affect your actions, and your actions manipulate the variables in your physical reality.
What you think sets forth a series of events which could lead to prosperity, happiness and abundance…
or complete ruin.
How To Do The Nevilles Goddard Revision Technique
Let’s hear the method from the horse’s mouth.
- Get in a SATS (State Akin To Sleep)
“It is in sleep and in prayer, a state akin to sleep, that man enters the subconscious to make his impressions and receive his instructions. In these states the conscious and subconscious are creatively joined. The male and female become one flesh.”
This state is often coined the hypnagogic state and is the best time to do subconscious mind work.
During SATS you will notice your capacity to visualize will be improved. The images in your mind become more vivid as you begin to drift off to sleep.
The key here is to maintain your conscious awareness so you can control the direction of your thoughts.
- Revise the day or an event
“Suppose today’s mail brought disappointing news. Revise the letter. Mentally rewrite it and make it conform to the news you wish you had received. Then, in imagination, read the revised letter over and over again. This is the essence of revision, and revision results in repeal.”
You can start by revising specific events, and as you get better at the technique, you can revise your whole day. The idea isn’t to visualize but to ‘assume the state fulfilled’. Step into the picture as if you were reliving it. This involves using all your imaginary senses to mentally revisit the event.
- Fall asleep
Once you feel satisfied, simply fall asleep with the assurance that your ideal has been realized.
You can also do the revision technique immediately after the negative event happens, however, for best results it is wise to employ SATS.
Why Does Revision Work?
There are many ways of explaining why the revision technique works.
Let’s start off with Neville’s philosophical ideas.
Neville believes,
“The whole vast world is yourself pushed out.”
Life is but a mental drama.
Your physical reality is an effect of your imagination (which is cause).
When you revise, you operate in the 4th dimensional world of thought and imagination.
You are changing things from the plane of causation.
If you are persistent in your ideal, the physical 3D world which is a derivative of the 4th dimensional world, will follow suit.
Neville believes the Bible to be a series of metaphorical stories with hidden lessons on the nature of reality.
To him, all the characters are not historical people but symbols to help mental transformation.
The stories demonstrating various dramas which occur within the psyche of men.
We live in a mental universe – a similar concept to what’s believed by Hermetic philosophers.
In explaining revision, Neville quotes the bible.
Luke 6:37 ~ Forgive, and you shall be forgiven.
His interpretation is to forgive the sins of the day. Things which are not consistent with our ideal.
“Forgiveness is a matter of deliberately withdrawing attention from the unrevised day and giving it full strength, and joyously, to the revised day. If a man begins to revise even a little of the vexations and troubles of the day, then he begins to work practically on himself. Every revision is a victory over himself and therefore a victory over his enemy.”
— Neville Goddard
Another Explanation of Revision
You don’t have to agree with Neville’s concept of the Bible to believe in revision.
I believe revision works because it helps reprogram your subconscious mind.
Here is the truth about the past.
It doesn’t subjectively exist because your recollection of memories is often skewed.
Scientists are now discovering that our memories change whenever we recall them.
Slightly altering based on what we feel during the time of recollection.
The past is therefore a myth.
Dwelling on past irritations or hurts perpetuates them and creates a vicious circle that serves to confirm these negative emotions. The circle can be broken by starting now to revise anything that you no longer wish to sustain in your world. By revising the past, you rid yourself of any effect it may have on your future.
It happened, but your perception of it is almost irrelevant since the memory keeps changing.
For many people, past hurts, shame and trauma impede their ability to function at the highest level in the future.
Their self-image is tainted by mistakes from the past.
This is why revision is so important.
When you consciously re-create your past by seeing things as you would have liked them to happen, you program your subconscious mind with good ideals.
The subconscious has a hard time determining the difference between truth and fiction.
It’s a suggestibility machine.
The Neville Goddard Revision method acts as a form of ‘mental practice’.
Much like when a professional athlete visualizes their perfect play, you can use the events of the day to create new models.
The added benefit of revision is the new memory often overrides the memory of the actual event.
So instead of being haunted by mistakes of the past, your mind is programmed to do what you would like.
Examples of Neville Goddard Revision
Public Speaking
Let’s say you butchered a presentation you had practiced.
You feel embarrassed and begin to replay the painful memory in your mind.
Stop and revise the presentation.
Present your material exactly the way you would have liked.
In this revised version you have more charisma, you remember your words, and you command the stage like a seasoned professional.
Repeat this in your mind until you feel the good emotions associated with success.
The next time you present, you will likely perform well instead of being frozen with fear.
Sales Call
A potential whale client is not impressed by your sales presentation. They are not shy to let you know that it was garbage.
Before you sleep at night revise the call.
Present your material in an engaging way.
Hold your posture and be naturally magnetic.
See the client agreeing to work with you and sending the wire transfer.
Repeat the desired interaction until your mind believes it happened.
Seneca’s Evening Routine
The legendary Stoic philosopher Seneca did a similar exercise to Revision during his evening routine.
“I make use of this opportunity, daily pleading my case at my own court. When the light has been taken away and my wife has fallen silent, aware as she is of my habit, I examine my entire day, going through what I have done and said. I conceal nothing from myself, I pass nothing by. I have nothing to fear from my errors when I can say: ‘See that you do not do this anymore. For the moment, I excuse you.’”
— Seneca
Seneca’s version simply analyzed the mistakes of the day as he affirmed a change in his future behavior.
Neville’s exercise focuses more on the revised version of the day and does not pay much attention to the failures your mind will happily remind you about.
The revision technique is a powerful tool in your reality-creation arsenal.
Neville Goddard Revision Quotes
By revising the past, you rid yourself of any effect it may have on your future. Revision is truly the key, which can be used to unlock the doors that have kept you trapped in a particular state. Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
Revision is of greatest importance when the motive is to change oneself, when there is a sincere desire to be something different, when the longing is to awaken the ideal active spirit of forgiveness. Without imagination, man remains a being of sin. Man either goes forward to imagination or remains imprisoned in his senses. To go forward to imagination is to forgive. Forgiveness is the life of the imagination. The art of living is the art of forgiving. Forgiveness is, in fact, experiencing in imagination the revised version of the day, experiencing in imagination what you wish you had experienced in the flesh. Every time one really forgives – that is, every time one relives the event as it should have been lived – one is born again.”
THE VERY first act of correction or cure is always “revise”. One must start with oneself. It is one’s attitude that must be changed.”
He changes his future as he revises his day.”
Try revising the day. It is to the pruning shears of revision that we owe our prime fruit.”
Do this, and you will be one step closer to living and dying well.