Before Most Positive Thinking Gurus, There Was This Caribbean Immigrant

Compiled By NAN Staff Writer

News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Mon. June 28, 2022: Positive thinking gurus are a dime a dozen today, but many owe their theories to a Caribbean immigrant.

Barbadian immigrant Neville Lancelot Goddard, generally known as Neville, was an author who wrote on the Bible, mysticism, and self-help.

Goddard was born in Barbados on February 19, 1905, to Joseph Nathaniel and Wilhelmina Goddard. He immigrated to New York City in 1922, where he initially worked as a ballet and ballroom dancer.

In 1931, he began to study under an Ethiopian rabbi, named Abdullah who introduced him to Kabbalah. Goddard viewed the Bible as a parable of the human psyche as opposed to a record of historical events. Therefore, Goddard did not believe in an external God who answers prayers, but rather that “[y]ou are the creator.”

Goddard was influenced by writer William Blake and early self-help theorists Émile Coué and Thomson Jay Hudson.

His works include At Your Command (1939); Your Faith Is Your Fortune (1941); Freedom for All—A Practical Application of the Bible (1942); Feeling Is the Secret (1944); Prayer—The Art of Believing (1946); Out of This World (1949); The Creative Use of Imagination (1952); The Power of Awareness (1952); Awakened Imagination (1954); Seedtime and Harvest (1956) and The Law and the Promise (1961).

Jonathan L. Walton argues that Frederick Eikerenkoetter, in particular, adopted theories on people’s ability to change their situation through “feeling” that are rooted in Goddard’s ideas.

Rhonda Byrne and Wayne Dyer have noted that Goddard shaped their views.

As of his death in 1972 in West Hollywood, Goddard had been a resident of Los Angeles for roughly 20 years. He is buried in Westbury Cemetery, Saint Michael, Barbados.

Listen to one of his lectures HERE