In this article, you and I are going to look at the unique manifestation method called “revision,” developed by Neville Goddard. With most manifestation techniques we aim to shape the future, but have you ever considered the power of altering your past? That’s exactly what revision allows you to do.
We’ll explore how this technique can change not just your perspective on past events, but even rewrite those events themselves. As Neville said, revision is a tool to “prune the weeds of your mind.” I’ll also share a personal experience where revision made a real difference in my life, changing specific details of a past event that had been holding me back.
Then, I’ll give you two techniques that you can start using right away. Are you ready to reshape your past to create a better future? Let’s get started.
What Is Revision
Revision is a unique and powerful manifesting technique for rewriting the past.
Most often, in manifestation, we want to get something in the future, but with revision, we are rewriting the past instead.
Rewriting the past (or, at the very least, changing one’s attitude toward it) through revision can result in a release from unwanted ideas or emotional baggage developed through past experiences, and it can also change or completely remove the current consequences that emerged as a result of that past event.
A Shift in Perspective or Literally Rewriting the Past?
There are primarily two interpretations of how revision operates:
- Revision shifts one’s perspective: Here, revision serves to relieve us of negative emotional baggage tied to past events. Neville called it the “pruning shears of revision.” Revision prunes away the “weeds” of our minds.
- Revision literally changes the past: In this interpretation, revision doesn’t just change our perception — it changes the past itself. I believe that you can prove to yourself that this is true if you put revision into practice.
In both interpretations, the core of revision lies in changing our beliefs and emotional baggage that comes from the past. Whether you believe that revision just changes your perspective or if it actually changes past events, the healing influence that revision has on your mind is the most important thing.
However, like most aspects of manifestation, true belief in revision comes from your own personal successes with it. If you’re content with revision serving as a way of alleviating emotional baggage, that’s perfectly fine. However, through my own experience with it, I do definitely believe that revision holds the power to completely change past events.
Some Examples
Just to give you a better idea of what revision is, here are a few examples of past events that could be revised:
- Difficult Childhood Memory: Let’s say you have a painful memory from your childhood where you, for some reason, were made fun of in school. Perhaps this event is something that still affects the view you have of yourself today. Using revision, you would reimagine this event — perhaps your classmates responded positively to you instead, and this gave you a boost of confidence instead — and thus, you would have removed the root cause of your negative self-image.
- Job Interview Gone Wrong: Suppose you went for a job interview that didn’t go as well as you’d hoped. You found yourself stumbling over your words and failing to answer the questions properly. In your revision, you’d imagine the interview going smoothly, answering every question confidently and impressively.
Here, even if revision doesn’t completely change the past, it may still cause you to end up getting the job because you have instilled the belief within yourself that you will get the job. - Broken Relationship: You’ve had a significant fallout with a close friend, family member, or lover. Through revision, you’d envision the disagreement never happening, or perhaps it ended with a compassionate conversation and understanding on both sides, strengthening your relationship rather than damaging it. Again, even if you don’t succeed at completely rewriting the past so that the event never actually happened, it can still cause a rekindling of the relationship.
- Missed Opportunity: You regret not taking a particular opportunity that was presented to you. With revision, you would imagine seizing that opportunity and experiencing the positive results that came from it. Again, even if you do not change the past completely, you may still manifest the benefits that would have occurred had you taken the particular opportunity.
- Any Recent Event: Neville Goddard emphasized that revision should be a daily practice. In other words, if there is any event in your day that does not align with your ideal, you should revise it. The “worse” the event is, the more important it is to revise it, but it can also be as small s an argument with a colleague. Think of it as a gardener tending to his garden, pruning away any unwanted growths. Similarly, you too should prune away any unwanted events from your day, not allowing them to take root and influence your life negatively. Instead, envision your day unfolding perfectly in line with your wishes and desires.
Later on, I will give you some methods for using revision. But before we get there, I first want to discuss the reasoning behind why revision is even possible in the first place.
How Revision Changes the Past
It may seem a bit counterintuitive to you how the past can be rewritten in manifesting. To you and me, from our relative perspectives on life, the past seems to have disappeared, no longer existing.
To understand how revision works, as well as manifesting in general, for that matter, we need to explore the two extremes of our existence: the absolute (pure consciousness or the first cause) and the relative and manifested (the external world). The first cause, free from the constraints of time and space, is the creator of our manifested world.
From our individual relative viewpoints, the past exists only as memories, and the future as expectations. We can’t interact with the past or the future the same way the same tangible way we can interact with the present. For instance, we can only lift a cup in the “now,” not in the past or in the future.
This is the answer to why revision works: it’s because time — the past, the present, and the future — is not fundamentally real. It is merely a manifestation of something that does not operate within time — the inner power of the universe or the pure “beingness.” This is the foundation of all manifestation.
To the absolute, there is no past or future — only an everlasting now. From the perspective of the absolute, the past, present, and future, that appear to the relative viewpoint, all exist simultaneously and can thus be changed.
It’s from this space that we can edit and revise these constructs. It doesn’t matter whether we are editing the past, present, or future. While our relative point of view might perceive the past as lost forever, from the absolute standpoint, the past will always exist and can therefore be revised.
So, to change the past (or future), we must first tap into the first cause, a realm free from temporal constraints. From there, we have free range to make the desired adjustments.
The Main Purpose of Revision: Changing Your Self-Concept
Regardless of whether you’re actually changing the past or just letting go of past emotional baggage, the ultimate benefit of revision is its power to change your self-concept, to “prune the weeds” of your mind.
In his book, “Awakened Imagination,” Neville said this:
“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.”
Neville Goddard, Awakened Imagination, Chapter 4
Here, “forgiveness” means releasing yourself from certain beliefs, emotions, and ideas that hamper your quality of life. The purpose of revision is forgiveness; to release yourself from burdensome ideas that hold you back. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter whether or not the past actually changes.
Personal Success Story With Revision
With revision, how do we know that we know that we are not just changing our memories but that we are actually changing the past? The answer is, if there is some sort of external confirmation, such as a change in the physical world due to the revised event or a change in another person’s perception of the particular event, then we know that the past has been rewritten, and that we have not just tricked our mind.
Here’s a personal experience I had with revision where I caused a particular event to actually be rewritten. I will keep it very vague, as I don’t particularly like sharing personal details. Also, before you get your imagination running on a tangent, the event is pretty mundane and boring; but it is still a great case study for revision due to the radical change from how it originally played out.
When I first tried revision in this manner, I was already really good at manifesting, getting results on a regular basis. I already knew about Neville’s idea of revision, but I simply had never tried it before. Therefore, I decided it was time for me to put it to the test. I wanted to get external confirmation that their event had actually been rewritten so that I would know that I wasn’t just playing a trick on my memory.
As I said, I won’t go into detail about what past event I chose. Having chosen the event and having clarified to myself how I would have wanted it to unfold, I went into meditation and imagined the event playing out how I would have wanted it to happen.
I did this every night for the next seven days. I stopped because I got distracted and went on to work on other things, but little did I know that the impression had already been made within me.
First of all, after seven days, my perception of the event had already changed, leaving me with a strange notion that the same event had played out in two different manners. After a couple of weeks, something happened that confirmed that my revision had worked. As I was talking to one of my friends, I decided to question him on that particular event. I was a little shocked to hear that his perception of the event seemed to concur with my revision. To my astonishment, when I asked him to show me some pictures of the past event, they also mirrored my revised version of the event. Was it possible that the past had been rewritten? Or had I initially misremembered? I was certain the latter wasn’t the case.
I clearly remember how surreal this felt, leaving me pretty bewildered. I still felt this way even though I was already pretty good at manifesting the “normal” way.
This is the experience that convinced me that revision actually revises the past, not just changes your perception of it. Since then, however, I have only ever needed to use revision for the sake of shedding emotional baggage, focusing on “pruning the weeds” within me. So, while I can’t provide further evidence beyond this “story,” if you can even call it that, it’s a testament to the potential of using revision.
First Technique: Revising a Particular Event
When there’s a specific event in your past that you feel has significantly shaped your present in an unfavorable way, revising this particular event can be a powerful tool. It can be any event. Maybe you’ve had a falling out with a specific person, maybe you have said things you’ve regretted, or maybe you’ve missed certain opportunities. It really doesn’t matter; the approach is the same.
Here’s how to do it:
Step 1: Going Within
To begin with, find a quiet and comfortable space where you can relax without interruptions. To access the “absolute” or your subconscious mind, you need to first reach a meditative or relaxed state of consciousness. You can do this through deep breathing exercises, progressive muscle relaxation, or any other relaxation technique that works for you. I talk a lot about this in my article on the connection between meditation and manifestation.
The important thing is to get in touch with your innermost within.
Step 2: Select the Event
Once you are in a relaxed state of consciousness, call up the specific event (or series of events) from your past that you want to alter. This event may hold a significant emotional charge to you, or it may have consequences that trickle into the present.
Step 3: Re-imagine the Event
Now, from this state beyond time and space, begin to re-imagine how the event unfolded the way you want it to have unfolded.
You can either a) see the environment of the event surrounding you as if it were happening now or b) alter the memory you have of it. I find the first way is more effective for actually rewriting the past.
Step 4: Immerse Yourself in the Revised Event
Fully immerse yourself in the revised event. You cannot hold two thoughts at the same time. The more the idea of your revised event fills your mind, the less room there is for opposite ideas. This is why Neville talked about “permeating your mind with the feeling of the wish fulfilled.”
Feel the reality of the revised event. If you are imagining that it is happening now, feel the reality of the scenery around you. Also, feel the emotions of it. The original event is probably filled with something like sadness, despair, or insecurity, but your revised event is probably one of confidence, gratitude, and well-being.
Step 5: Repeat the Process
Consistency is key in revision. Repeat this process over several days or weeks until the revised event feels as real to you as the original event did. Each repetition should help lessen the emotional hold of the original event while strengthening the reality of the revised one.
In this meditative state, you’re not just imagining a different past; you’re actually operating from the plane of the “absolute,” where you are beyond the concept of time. From this viewpoint, you have the power to edit the past and therefore change your present and future. This is the essence of all manifestation, including revision.
I also recommend you read my article on Neville Goddard’s SATS technique as I talk more in-depth about how to “feel the reality” of an imaginary scene.
Second Technique: Daily Revision
Neville Goddard recommended a daily exercise for practicing revision. He talked about this in his books “Awakened Imagination” and “The Power of Awareness,” as well as in a lecture called “The Pruning Shears of Revision.”
Here’s a step-by-step guide for doing daily revision:
Step 1: Review Your Day
At the end of your day, preferably right before bed, review the events that happened during your day. Remember the most significant or impactful moments to you no matter what they are. For now, just observe them without judging them yet.
Step 2: Rewrite Your Day
Once you have a clear mental picture of your day, begin to rewrite it in your mind. Take one scene after another and rewrite it so as to conform to how you would have wanted it to happen.
It’s personal preference, but I like to only alter them slightly as it’s easier for me to make them feel real and because my purpose most often is not to change the event entirely but rather to change my attitude toward it.
Step 3: Immerse Yourself in the Revised Day
For each revised scene, immerse yourself in it and experience it as if it actually happened that way. Keep immersing yourself in your imagined state until it feels real.
As with all manifestations, the key is to stir up the subconscious mind, as this is where the power lies. It is not enough to merely think about the revised event on the surface level of the mind.
The Result…
At worst, you will have “pruned” distorted vines growing within you by a change in attitude, and at best, the events will be completely rewritten.
Trust that these revised days, when truly lived in your imagination, will influence your tomorrows. Envision that the people who disappointed you today will no longer do so tomorrow because you have changed their nature within you.
Prune Daily
This is a daily practice — prune your day every day. Do not allow the “weeds” of undesired outcomes to grow. You should not accept anything as final unless it aligns with your ideal vision.
So, this is the practical method of revision, as taught by Neville Goddard. It’s a daily practice of reviewing, revising, and reliving your day as you wished it had been, which thereby shows its influence as the ideas that are presently allowed to grow within you.
Conclusion
So, there you have it. Revision is a manifestation method for rewriting the past. And even if you don’t successfully rewrite the past completely, you can still cause an alleviation of the negative energy that came from a past event, and you can still manifest the benefits that would have been had the past event played out differently.
Revising and “regular” manifestation are no different. The method is the same, and you are working with the same inner power.
To revise, first go within, call up the event you and how you want it to be rewritten, and then immerse yourself in the new event as if you were actually living it out now.
Revision is a tool for pruning the mind. Every day you should be pruning away the unwanted things that do not conform to your ideal. You’re not just altering your past; you’re shaping your present and your future. In manifesting, it’s important to remember that our external world is a manifestation of our inner world. Revision is a tool to “prune the weeds of your mind,” and this will gradually lead to better and better circumstances in your life.
So, I highly encourage you to give it a try. Find a past event and then revise it, by following the steps above. Also, do the daily revision technique Neville talked about. Even if you don’t completely change the past, you are still “pruning the mind,” which will gradually lead to your external world conforming more and more to your desires.
I hope you found this article helpful. Thanks for reading!
