A short 1944 essay by the Barbadian-American teacher Neville Goddard arguing that imagination paired with felt conviction in sleep-bordering states is the operative mechanism by which inner states become outer facts. The book consists of two Los Angeles lectures presenting a practice for using the moments before sleep as the canvas on which a desired self-image is impressed.
The subconscious does not originate ideas, but accepts as true those which the conscious mind feels to be true and, in a way known only to itself, objectifies the accepted ideas.
Chapter 1, "Law and Its Operation"
First lines
THIS book is concerned with the art of realizing your desire. It gives you an account of the mechanism used in the production of the visible world. It is a small book but not slight. There is a treasure in it, a clearly defined road to the realization of your dreams.
Contents
Foreword
Law and Its Operation
The Dream
The Prayer
Spirit — Feeling
Reception
Feeling Is the Secret is the most-cited of Neville's pre-1950 short works and is treated as foundational by contemporary Law-of-Attraction teachers; Wayne Dyer cited Goddard explicitly and Joseph Murphy drew on the same psychology. Historians of American New Thought (Mitch Horowitz, Catherine Albanese) place Goddard in the lineage running from Phineas Quimby through Charles Fillmore to mid-century positive thinking. Critics on both religious and skeptical grounds have argued that his framing of imagination as the cause of external reality collapses metaphysics into self-suggestion and depends on confirmation bias in the testimonial evidence he favors.
Frequently asked
What is Feeling Is the Secret about?
Feeling Is the Secret is a 1944 short work by Neville Goddard in which he argues that felt conviction of a desired state — especially in the threshold moments before sleep — is the operative mechanism by which inner states become outer facts. The book consists of a foreword and four chapters covering the law of consciousness, the dream state, prayer as feeling, and the relationship between spirit and feeling.
What does Neville Goddard mean by "feeling" in this book?
For Goddard, feeling is not emotion but the subconscious acceptance of an idea as real. He argues the subconscious does not evaluate what is externally true; it accepts whatever the conscious mind impresses upon it with genuine felt conviction, then objectifies that accepted idea. This makes feeling the operative bridge between an imagined state and its outward expression.
How does Feeling Is the Secret relate to the Law of Attraction?
Goddard is considered a significant influence on contemporary Law-of-Attraction teaching. He places the mechanism specifically in the hypnagogic (sleep-bordering) state, where he argues the boundary between conscious and subconscious is most permeable. Wayne Dyer cited Goddard explicitly; Joseph Murphy drew on the same psychology. Critics argue the teaching's testimonial basis is subject to confirmation bias.