Goddard

originally posted 6/19 (This will be further revised)

    Although it can seem like you are living in a material world, you are actually living in a world of the imagination. All current events are the result of previously thought assumptions. At times, the imagined state will be so real that when one turns back to the world it is a shock that it does not correspond to the imagined state. This reverses your time sense and the world now becomes a result of being in imagination where you have not yet been physically. The assumption of the wish fulfilled is the vehicle through which the world is transformed. When you use the law of assumption, you are conforming to it just like the law of magnetism. In this respect you are impotent to it, you can only yield or conform, and so the value of using the power of assumption must be obvious. Imagination is distinguished from reverie in that in imagination, ones thoughts are steadied, controlled, and focused, whereas reverie is an undirected and uncontrolled imagination- usually just a daydream. The imagination works regardless of objective good or evil, but a good objective usually results in a better outcome than a bad objective. One can live in poverty, which is equivalent to sin and is ultimately a consequence of his beliefs not being the truth. If his beliefs are correct and his assumptions strong, he can be saved of sin, which is equivalent to righteousness. One common mistake is to focus on things such as a better house, and  righteousness is really focusing on being the person you want to be and already having what you desire. The kingdom of God (your I am God) is already within you and righteousness is realizing that you already possess it all. Free will occurs but once the assumption is assumed, everything operates according to determinism and happens automatically.

     Your concept of yourself determines who you are. The individual possesses something that the rest of nature does not- the imagination, which is the vehicle through which you create your world. You thus have a choice whether you want to remain in a state of longing or use your imagination to change your world. The ideal you seek will not become manifest until you have imagined that you already possess it. You must create an image in your mind of an ideal and assume you are already that person. The key is that the desire that realizes itself is always a desire upon which attention is exclusively concentrated. The secret of success is to focus the attention on the feeling of the wish fulfilled without permitting any distraction. The world depends not so much on what is there but on the assumption you make when you look. Therefore, if you change your assumptions, the world will change with it. You must renounce evil and other negatives and refuse to concentrate on them. Everything is yours. Everything depends on your concept of yourself.  Know that you are all that you desire to be. You go and prepare a place for yourself by imagining yourself into your wish fulfilled. All that has ever existed exists now. You are free to choose the concept you accept of yourself. Therefore, you possess the power to alter the course of your future. Imagine yourself to be the ideal you dream of and desire. Your imagination is able to do all that you ask in proportion to the degree of your attention. Attention may be either directed from without or directed from within, and your capacity to change the future depends on the latter. Each day, withdraw your attention from the world and direct it within.   (Revise)

     Goddard is one of the members of the new thought movement of which one of their focuses is the attainment of success. Goddard starts with the mystical notion that the imagination has the ability to control the world and the individual is in essence God, and develops a philosophy around it.  This is similar to Atkinsons mystical notion of the thought vibration emanating from the individual. I believe we should let elements of mysticism into the colleges as they are a crucial part of philosophy and results in a wider amount of things to be said. Now we would keep the mystical distinguished from the purley philosophical and critiques of mysticism will keep the two separated from each other. The Indians philosophy also borders on the mystical and this is studied in the colleges. This would allow new thought to be studied in the colleges. New thought has had a greater impact on the country than perhaps many Western philsophers, and coilleges are suffering from this lack of incorporation, even if it is simply to defend against new thought. The colleges are heavily biased toward morally realism right now, and there will always be arguments for moral idealism. (Revise)