How Neville Goddard Colin Wilson Ilumine Each Other

02 Mar How Neville Goddard & Colin Wilson Illumine Each Other

Excerpt from “Colin Wilson And The Other Mode A New Look At The New Existentialism” by Jonathan Lewsey

“In the final pages of his first book, At Your Command, Goddard writes about the art of fishing. He is commenting on the two miraculous catches of fish as told in the Gospels of Luke 5:1-11 and John 21:1-14.

Here is the first miraculous catch as described in Luke. It occurs right at the outset of Christ’s ministry and is the occasion of him gathering the first of his disciples:

One day as Jesus was standing by the Lake of Gennesaret; the people were crowding around him and listening to the word of God. He saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets. He got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then he sat down and taught the people from the boat.

When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water, and let down the nets for a catch.”

Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.”

When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break.

The story of the miraculous catch highlighted by Neville Goddard could be seen as a story illustrating the mnemonic I grew up with—“If you don’t at first succeed, try, try, try again”—an illustration that you have to be doggedly persistent and eventually you’ll have your reward; and this is certainly a justifiable interpretation; but it fails to take into account all the facts in the story.

The standard Christian interpretation would probably go like this: the fishermen have been casting their nets with no result and are on the verge of giving up. If they were to continue casting their nets, in the same spirit of hopelessness that has taken hold of them, they would almost certainly continue to have the same negative results. It is the fact that they are willing to continue casting their nets, no matter how absurd, no matter how hopeless it may appear, for no other reason than that Christ tells them to do it—because they believe in Christ, because they know that he is the Son of God.

Now this interpretation is perfectly reasonable and congruent with the facts. But it will only make sense to somebody who also believes that Christ is the Son of God, and therefore has supernatural powers that enable him to see what they, the disciples, cannot see. It will only make sense to Christians who have a literal understanding of the Gospels.

There is a modern-day recreation of this parable in the film Forrest Gump, where, having been discharged from the army, Gump determines to set up in the shrimping business in honor of his friend Bubba, who has been killed in Vietnam. For months on end, it appears as though Gump has made a disastrous decision. Every day he takes his trawler out, and every day he returns empty-handed—principally because the competition has always got there first and there are no more shrimps to be had. Then suddenly, the impossible happens—a hurricane hits the region and all the competition is wiped out—leaving Gump to monopolize the waters, with the result that very quickly he goes from being pretty well destitute to being a millionaire. And the only reason this has happened is that Gump refused to give up—he kept on casting his nets in spite of the apparently absurd odds ranged against him. (6)

Neville Goddard’s interpretation of the miraculous fish story is as follows:

“If you would catch that which is beyond your present capacity, you must launch out into deeper waters, for, within your present consciousness, such fish or desires cannot swim. To launch out into deeper waters, you leave behind you all that is now your present problem, or limitation, by taking your ATTENTION AWAY from it. Turn your back completely upon every problem and limitation that you now possess.

Dwell upon just being by saying “I AM”, “I AM”, “I AM”, to yourself. Continue to declare to yourself that you just are. Do not condition this declaration, just continue to FEEL yourself to be and without warning you will find yourself slipping the anchor that tied you to the shallow of your problems and moving out into the deep.’ (7)