Who Was The Old Scotsman Neville Goddard Met In 1925 Lets Examine Arthur Findlay And Harold Begbie
02 Nov Who Was the “Old Scotsman” Neville Goddard Met in 1925? Let’s Examine Arthur Findlay and Harold Begbie
In No Barrier But Self (1953/54), Neville Goddard looks back on a single meeting in London that changed the trajectory of his life:
“In 1925, while visiting London, I met an old Scotsman who told me that my attitude of mind determined my life. That I need not be enslaved by life but could control my future by my present thinking. This idea intrigued me. I was fascinated by the thought that, in spite of my limited education and background, I could transcend my environment. Seeing my interest, this gentleman gave me some twenty or thirty books. These I read from cover to cover, as I was hungry for the knowledge I found there.”
For decades, the identity of this “old Scotsman” has been attributed to a man named Arthur Begbie, based entirely on a brief remark in Israel Regardie’s The Romance of Metaphysics:
“Whilst in England, he met Arthur Begbie who introduced him to the world of psychical research, giving Neville his first taste of the spiritualistic seance. It left him, I should say, a little bit flat, but nonetheless, he knew afterwards, that he was definitely embarked upon a long journey. Of that he was sure, in spite of his dislike of the atmosphere and the procedure of the seance. Shortly after his return to America in 1926, to continue his theatrical career, his interest in mysticism became keener and keener, coinciding with a waning interest in the theatre.”
This single sentence created another historical research detour, not unlike the one we faced until we finally found Abdullah, Neville’s teacher.
There is no verifiable “Arthur Begbie” who was a Scotsman, in the psychical research movement, or a spiritualist capable of handing a 20 year old vaudeville star, Neville Goddard, 20 to 30 books on metaphysics.
Only two historical candidates exist. One whose first name is Arthur and another whose last name is Begbie.
1. Harold Begbie (1871–1929)
Begbie somewhat fits the bill for this position because he was an English journalist, poet, novelist, and social commentator (and of course his last name is Begbie). He brushed up against the spiritualist movement in London when he wrote, On the Side of the Angels (1915) where he collected and published a testimony surrounding the “Angels of Mons.” The book was taken pretty seriously. The material had accounts of a British officer who wrote to the London Evening News describing how, during the retreat from Mons, he and two other officers watched what appeared to be a body of mounted horsemen riding parallel to their column.
Begbie also wrote many books about religious conversion which are great reads:
Twice-born men a clinic in regeneration: a footnote in narrative to Professor William James’s “The varieties of religious experience” (1909)
In the hand of the potter: a study of Christianity in action (1911),
Broken earthware (1909),
The proof of God (1914),
More twice-born men; narratives of a recent movement in the spirit of personal religion (1923)
Begbie was in the spiritualist climate of the time, but and a big but… he was English, not Scottish, and he was not involved in psychical research or séance circles.
There is though a quote from a lecture, The Word (1966) where unfortunately in the notes the name wasn’t heard correctly and could be Begbie mistaken as Bacon.
But I have been reading for forty years, forty-odd for that matter. I became fired with reading at the age of twenty. Prior to that, nothing interested me but sports—cricket, soccer, football, everything athletic—but not anything of the mind. I was in London when a Mr. Bacon(?)*, a Scotsman, interested me in literature. I returned at the age of twenty to the States, simply hungry beyond measure, and I had to overcome the hunger, so I put in six, seven, eight hours a day reading and meditating.
Let’s look at another candidate.
2. James Arthur Findlay, MBE, JP (1883–1964)
Two quotes about Findlay (note his first name is “Arthur”):