Feeling Is the Secret Explained: The Key to Your Desires (Neville Goddard)

Within each one of us, there’s a power greater than our ability to understand, and we can use it for the manifestation of any goal, intention, or desire that we may have. But how do we use this power? Well, the secret is feeling. In this article, we’ll take an in-depth look at Neville Goddard’s book “Feeling is the Secret” (1944).

We’ll cover all the essentials: what the book is about, why “feeling” is so important, how consciousness creates reality, the subconscious mind, and, most importantly, I’ll give you clear instructions on how to apply the principles laid out in this book so that you can get actual results with manifestation and begin to create your dream life.

It may feel impossible, but by following the advice given in this book, I wholeheartedly believe that you can do it. I say this because I have done so myself. Yes, I can personally testify to this; it works! I’ve had countless manifestations myself, and trust me when I say that conscious manifestation is a skill that is worthwhile learning. It’s no hoax to boast that manifestation opens a path to mastery over yourself and your reality.

While all this sounds very “out there” for some, I hope you’ll keep an open mind. You can actually prove to yourself that there really is an illimitable creative power within you shaping your life. So, after you’ve read this article, I strongly urge you to put this into practice — and that you keep persisting until it works. Don’t believe me, don’t believe Neville. Make results the only testimony of your ability to manifest. You’ll learn far more from experience than from any amount of reading and studying.

If you’re ready, let’s dive into “Feeling is the Secret” by Neville Goddard!

Summary of “Feeling Is The Secret”

Chapter I: The Law and Its Operation

Chapter I of “Feeling is the Secret” by Neville explains “the law of consciousness.”

Consciousness as the Foundation

Neville begins by establishing the primacy of consciousness: “The world and all within it is man’s conditioned consciousness objectified. Consciousness is the cause as well as the substance of the entire world.” (p. 6) Consciousness is the only reality, and to discover the secret of creation, one must turn to consciousness​​.

“Knowledge of the law of consciousness and the method of operating this law will enable you to accomplish all you desire in life.” (p. 6) Armed with this knowledge, one can build and maintain their ideal world.

Neville divides consciousness into two streams: the conscious and subconscious mind. “The conscious is personal and selective; the subconscious is impersonal and non-selective. The conscious is the realm of effect; the subconscious is the realm of cause.” (p. 6)

He goes on to say, “The conscious generates ideas and impresses these ideas on the subconscious; the subconscious receives ideas and gives form and expression to them.” (p. 6) This relationship is the foundation for intelligently operating the law of consciousness​​. It’s this mechanism of first conceiving an idea and then impressing it on the subconscious that evolves everything out of consciousness.

Impressing an idea on the subconscious is done “through the medium of feeling… the one and only medium through which ideas are conveyed to the subconscious.” (p. 7) Control of the subconscious is achieved through controlling your feelings. One needs to control one’s feelings to ensure that only desirable states are impressed and to avoid impressing undesirable states. If you feel the “imperfection in yourself or others” (p. 7), you consequently “impress the subconscious with these limitations.” (p. 7)

If two feelings are in conflict, “The dominant of two feelings is the one expressed.” (p. 7) It is stronger to feel “I am healthy” than “I will be healthy.” Assume the feeling of the desired state as being already a fact.

Neville then explains only to focus on the objective and disregard the means by which the objective is to be accomplished: “The manner of expression or the difficulties involved are not to be considered by you.” (p. 8) If you begin to dwell on difficulties and limitations, you impress those on the subconscious and, thus, hinder the whole process.

Neville recognizes that perfect control of feeling is hard, and you should, therefore, “use sleep and prayer to aid you in realizing your desired states. These are the two gateways into the subconscious.” (p. 9)

Chapter II: Sleep

Neville starts the chapter by highlighting the unique role of sleep in accessing the subconscious: “SLEEP… is the natural door into the subconscious.” (p. 10) Sleep is more than just a rest period; it’s crucial for manifestation because, as Neville notes, it’s “the normal state of the subconscious.” (p. 10) This connection between sleep and the subconscious means that our state of mind as we fall asleep is incredibly influential.

Neville highlights the issue that comes with the fact that when your conscious mind is asleep, you cannot consciously impress your desire on the subconscious. How is this to be solved? Since a person’s “entire slumber is dominated by his last waking concept of self” (p. 11), you can impress your desire on the subconscious through sleep in this way: “feel as you would were you in possession of your wish and quietly relax into unconsciousness.” (p. 11) The state you’re in just before you go to sleep will be taken with you into the subconscious.

Conversely, Neville also warns against falling asleep in a negative state: “Never sleep in the consciousness of failure.” (p. 11) If you do this, the state of failure will be undertaken by the subconscious and realized in manifestation.

So, before you drop off into sleep, assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled — of accomplishment and satisfaction — and as your mind is permeated by this state, drift off into sleep. “By feeling your wish fulfilled and quietly relaxing into sleep, you cast yourself in a star role to be played on earth tomorrow, and, while asleep, you are rehearsed and instructed in your part.” (p. 13)

Chapter III: Prayer

Neville begins by likening prayer to sleep, both serving as pathways to the subconscious mind: “PRAYER like sleep is also an entrance into the subconscious.” (p. 15) He notes that in prayer, like in sleep, the external world’s influence diminishes, making the mind more receptive to suggestions from within. The relaxed and receptive state of the mind in prayer is akin to the feeling you get right before falling asleep​​.

Neville shifts the conventional understanding of prayer from asking for something to preparing oneself for its arrival: “Prayer is not so much what you ask for as how you prepare for its reception.” This means believing in the fulfillment of the prayers: “The only condition required is that you believe that your prayers are already realized.” (p. 15)

All that is required from you is to feel the wish fulfilled: “The moment you accept the wish as an accomplished fact, the subconscious finds means for its realization. To pray successfully then, you must yield to the wish, that is, feel the wish fulfilled.” (p. 15)

An essential though often overlooked principle that Neville points out is the so-called “law of reversed effort.” He states: “Whenever you are in the state of mind ‘I should like to, but I cannot,’ the harder you try, the less you are able to yield to the wish.” (p. 15) Do not try to force the feeling of the wish fulfilled when the evidence of the senses tells you that your desire is not a reality because “all conscious effort to counteract this suggestion is futile and tends to intensify the suggestion.” (p. 15) When feeling is in conflict with your effort, feeling always wins. “Prayer must be without effort.” (p. 15) Effort is fatal.

Neville comes back to prayer and states that “you must create a passive state, a kind of reverie or meditative reflection” (p. 16) in order to yield to the feeling of the wish fulfilled. To achieve this passive state, he recommends one to relax in a chair or lay flat on a bed and to feel oneself to be sleepy — “I am sleepy, so sleepy, so very sleepy.” (p. 16)

When you begin to feel a “pleasant, comfortable rest and not inclined to alter your position” (p. 16), “imagine in picture form what you desire to achieve in life; then feel yourself as having already achieved it.” (p. 16)

You do not need to imagine how your desire will be accomplished. The end is sufficient “for acceptance of the end wills the means to that end.” (p. 16) Neville likens it to seeing the happy and successful end of a play, though not knowing how that end will be achieved.

Chapter IV: Spirit — Feeling

Feeling yourself into a state is entering the spirit of it. Neville says, “Get into the spirit of the state desired by assuming the feeling that would be yours were you already the one you want to be.” (p. 17) As Neville states, “There is a definite feeling associated with every idea in the mind of man.” (p. 17) Feeling the idea — getting into the spirit of it — is all that’s required for its manifestation.

Neville equates faith to feeling. He says, “That which you feel yourself to be you are” (p. 17), and that which you are will be reflected in manifestation.

So, “instead of believing in God or in Jesus — believe you are God or you are Jesus.” (p. 17). (It is here important to understand that it is not you, John Doe, or Jane Smith that is God, but your own consciousness or subconscious mind).

Neville’s perspective places immense power in the hands of the individual, and it shows them to shape their reality through the medium of feeling. As you can see, the book is pretty straightforward. But let’s dive a bit deeper. There are some really important concepts that you simply have to understand for effective practice.

4 Key Points: Remember These Before You Begin Manifesting!

Here, I want to re-emphasize and elaborate on the most important points of the book. These are important to understand before you begin the practical application of “the law” (of consciousness).

Point 1: Consciousness Is Reality

A fundamental principle that is essential to understand in manifestation is that consciousness is reality. It is not an emerging property of the brain, which is what is the conventional and intuitive answer; it’s the first cause layer of reality anterior to space, time, and physical objects, including the brain.

As Neville points out, your external reality is your “conditioned consciousness objectified” (p. 6). In other words, your life, the results you get, and the experiences you have are all manifestations of your internal state of consciousness. More precisely, it is the manifestation of the states held in the subconscious mind.

So, why do you need to understand this? You need to understand this because you now know where the source of power is! You know that since consciousness is the power, your very own consciousness is what you must turn to when you want any sort of change made in your life. Consciousness is the infinite storehouse, the creative power, and it can do anything you ask of it.

If consciousness is the first cause and it creates all the phenomena of your life, even down to the most trivial, you can see that it is wrong to try and fix external conditions when you want to make changes. Instead, the only way to manifest a new condition in one’s life is by changing our thoughts and feelings, the ideas that we often accidentally implant within ourselves.

• Consciousness is reality
•  Your reality is the reflection of your internal state of consciousness
•  To change things, stop trying to alter circumstances from without and instead turn to your own consciousness

Point 2: The Subconscious and the Conscious Mind

The role of the subconscious and its interaction with the conscious mind cannot be stressed enough! The conscious mind or the conscious self is the “tip of the iceberg,” the surface level of your mind, the part of you you think you are. But within you there’s another “self”: the subconscious mind.

Your subconscious is the master of your reality. It controls how you act, what you think of yourself, your physical body, and how you see things, and, more importantly, it directly determines the external conditions, events, results, and circumstances that manifest themselves externally.

Your external world mirrors the internalized ideas in your subconscious. So, from this, it becomes clear that when we want to manifest something — whatever it may be — we must find a way to set the subconscious in action and get it to undertake the task for us instead of doing it by faculties of the conscious mind. If, for illustration’s sake, you want to be more confident in yourself and have a more fulfilling social life, you’ll have to make it an internalized state in the subconscious. It is not enough to think, “I am confident,” you’ll have to somehow implant this thought in the subconscious. As soon as this happens, it will begin to germinate and realize itself in manifestation — both through you and around you.

The reason I highlight this distinction between these two entities within you is due to a very common mistake, which is: trying to will things into being through conscious effort. It doesn’t matter how much you try to assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled or how many times you imagine yourself already in the attainment of your desire; if the thought does not get transformed into a subconscious state, it will not materialize. And to this, transformation is done by the subconscious. Willpower only serves as an obstacle in this.

This is the reason why so many people stay stuck with manifestation (and is the reason why I was stuck myself). People say, “I try so hard to manifest this, but nothing seems to happen!” Well, the very fact that you’re “trying so hard” stops your desire from entering into the subconscious. And in fact, the excessive effort used will only give the suggestion of strain and struggle to the subconscious, which, by law, manifests as more difficulty.

So, keep this dual aspect of yourself in mind for later as I’ll show you exactly how to get control over the subconscious.

• Within you, there’s the conscious and the subconscious self
• Manifestation comes from the ideas implanted in the subconscious
• To manifest you must find a way to transform your wish into a subconscious state
• A common mistake is trying to manifest something through conscious effort; the power is completely subconscious

Point 3: Sleep and Meditation — How to Access the Subconscious

As emphasized before, dealing with the subconscious mind and impressing your desire upon it is how you consciously and intentionally manifest your ideal world.

So, the question becomes, how do we get access to the subconscious? If you’re not getting what you want out of life, it must be because there’s a disagreement between your conscious and your subconscious. You’ve no doubt experienced that there’s a great gulf between what you consciously intend for and what actually happens, and this comes from the subconscious holding a contrary thought. For instance, you may consciously think, “I can,” but no matter how much you do so, you’re met with the underlying feeling that you can’t. Why does this happen? It is because you did not really believe that you could. Your conscious thought is, “I can,” but deep down, your subconscious says, “I can’t.”

There’s a barrier between your conscious and your subconscious mind. We could call this barrier the critical factor. It’s the sum total of your beliefs and assumptions surrounding yourself and your world. If, for illustration’s sake, you want to be wealthy, but the idea of you being wealthy is not part of your belief system, the intention is blocked from entering the subconscious mind.

What do we do about this? Are we stuck with the same belief system forever and thus doomed to get the same results over and over again? Luckily no. As Neville states in the book, sleep and “prayer” temporarily shut down the critical factor, and you are in this suspended state, thus free to implant any desire you want on the subconscious.

Sleep

Right before you go to bed and right after you wake up, your conscious mind is in a drowsy state, and this is why Neville suggests you “pray” (or imagine your fulfilled desire) at night before you go to bed and in the morning before you rise.

As well as that, when you imagine your desire right before bed and permeate your consciousness with the feeling of its fulfillment, this state will be taken with you into sleep and implant itself deep into the subconscious. Imagining at night before you sleep is a really important step that should not be overlooked.

Prayer

You can also attain a passive state of consciousness, akin to that of sleep, through meditation. In the book, Neville recommends you sit or lie down flat on your back and then feel yourself sleepy while saying, “I am sleepy, so sleepy, so very sleepy.” (p. 16) This is basically just a form of meditation. In this state, where the critical factor is now lessened, plant your desire in the subconscious by imagining and feeling yourself having already attained it. Then, wake up from your meditative state and go about the rest of your day as you normally would.

So, sleep and meditation are how you access the subconscious. From this day forward, assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled at night, permeating your mind with this state, and let yourself fall asleep. Do this again in the morning before rising. Doing it before sleep is the most important thing, but you should also set time aside each day to “pray” throughout the day, even if it’s just 10 or 15 minutes, by going into meditation and feeling the wish fulfilled. The combined routines of sleep and prayer are a really effective method for strengthening the desire in the subconscious, eventually leading to the realization of it in the outer world.

Point 4: Feeling — Planting Your Desire In the Subconscious

We know that any idea planted in the subconscious must, as per “the law,” manifest itself externally. Consequently, the question becomes: how do we implant an idea in the subconscious mind? Well, this is where the secret comes in: Feeling.

Feeling is the gateway through which you implant your desire upon the subconscious, and we’ll now look at how to actually feel the wish fulfilled in the correct manner so that you can impress your thought on the subconscious. This is not something that requires elaborate explanation but something you’ll learn pretty quickly just by trying.

We can compare feeling to touch. When you move your hand and touch an object, you get a sensation in your hand. Likewise, when you mentally “touch” a thought, you feel it.

The first step is to go into a drowsy state of consciousness, as described before. This shuts off any internal and external distractions and enhances your ability to feel. You are, to a lesser extent, inhibited by the “facts” of your life.

So, to manifest our desire, Neville tells us to “assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled.” This means you should feel your desire as an already accomplished fact while in a drowsy, trance-like state of consciousness.

To aid in this, visualize a scene where you are now in possession of your desire and feel it to be real. Feel how you would feel if the scene were real; feel the gratitude and satisfaction that would come along with it.

Do not wonder, “Am I feeling the correct feeling?” You have to permeate your mind with a single idea: the accomplishment of your desire, and you cannot do so while at the same time doubting that you are doing it correctly. Your attention can only be on one thought at a time.

Putting It All Together: Using the Book to Manifest Your Desires

Having delved into the key concepts of Neville Goddard’s “Feeling is the Secret,” it’s time to bring all these elements together into a cohesive practice. We will transform theory into action, taking what we’ve learned and applying it so that we can produce tangible, real-world results.

1. Clarify Your Desire

The first step is crystal clear: define exactly what you want. Be clear about your goal or desire. This clarity is essential for the subsequent steps. It can be a broad or general goal.

2. Achieve a Receptive Mental State

Enter a drowsy, receptive state of mind. This can be achieved by sitting or lying down in a comfortable position. Gently tell yourself, “I am sleepy, I am sleepy, so very sleepy,” until you reach a state where you have no desire to move. This relaxed state is crucial for accessing your subconscious mind.

3. Assume the Feeling of the Wish Fulfilled

In this receptive state, it’s easier to engage with your feelings. Focus on feeling as if your desire has already been fulfilled. Feel the satisfaction and gratitude that naturally arises from achieving your goal. You can do this without these emotions if you, for instance, have a bad day, but emotion is a powerful auxiliary.

Remember, this step should ALWAYS feel simple and natural. If you find yourself overthinking or questioning whether you’re doing it right, refocus on the simple feeling of fulfillment. Visualization can aid in this process; imagine a scene that reflects your fulfilled desire and immerse yourself in the feelings this scene evokes.

4. Dwell in This State

If you’re practicing this technique before sleep (the optimal time), continue to dwell in the state of your wish fulfilled as you doze off. If you’re awake during the day, gradually come out of your meditative state. Remember, if you can’t fall asleep while in the state, it’s okay to let yourself sleep shortly after while the idea will still be fresh in your subconscious.

Conclusion

As we reach the end of our exploration of Neville Goddard’s “Feeling is the Secret,” I want to reemphasize that the power to achieve our deepest desires lies within us.

In this article, we’ve looked at the role of consciousness in shaping our reality, the interplay of the conscious and subconscious mind, and the influence of sleep and meditation in accessing the subconscious.

But understanding these principles is just the beginning. The true magic happens when you apply them in your life. Remember, it’s not just about knowing; it’s about doing.

Here’s what you need to do next:

1. Define Your Desire
2. Enter a Receptive State
3. Feel Your Wish Fulfilled and Let Yourself Dwell in This State for a While
4. Trust the subconscious

Do this every day, at least once or twice a day, preferably in the morning and in the night.

It’s through personal experience that these teachings truly come to life. Don’t just take my word for it, or even Neville’s. Test it out for yourself. Begin tonight, and then keep at it every day. It’s a journey that requires patience, trust, and persistence, but the rewards are limitless.

You now hold the keys to unlocking your full potential and creating the life you’ve always dreamed of. So, what are you waiting for? Use that key! You only have the present moment to begin. Begin now. Experience the power of “Feeling is the Secret” firsthand.