Neville Goddard is known for teaching that imagination is the creative power behind our lives. Few people know about the man who first opened that door for him, a teacher he knew only as Abdullah.
A Meeting in New York
Neville was born in Barbados in 1905 and came to New York in the early 1920s to study drama. He worked as a dancer and actor, and he was searching for something deeper than the stage. Around 1931, he met Abdullah.
By Neville’s account, Abdullah was a black Jewish man of Ethiopian descent. He was a mystic who dressed in a turban and spoke with quiet authority. The two became close, and for several years Abdullah tutored him in Hebrew and in the deeper meaning of scripture.
What Abdullah Taught
Abdullah’s teaching was simple and radical. Neville recalled that Abdullah told him the Bible was not a record of history. It was a psychological drama playing out inside every person. He taught that God’s name, “I AM,” is the awareness within each of us, and that imagination is the means by which that awareness creates.
From this came the idea Neville later became known for: you can assume the feeling of your wish already fulfilled, and live from that assumption until it becomes real in your life. Abdullah didn’t want his students to take this on faith. He wanted them to test it for themselves, and Neville did.
Testing the Idea
Neville tells a story in which he wanted to travel home to Barbados to see his family but had no money for the trip. Abdullah told him to stop thinking about how and to assume he was already there. Neville imagined himself in his old home, and he says the way opened. That experience convinced him that Abdullah’s teaching worked, and it became the foundation of everything he taught afterward.
The Teacher Who Vanished
Abdullah’s own story is as mysterious as his lessons. He is said to have eventually returned to Ethiopia, and Neville never saw him again. No independent records of Abdullah have been found, which has led some to wonder whether he was a real person, a composite, or a symbolic figure. Neville himself always spoke of him as a real man and a genuine teacher.
Why It Matters
Whether you see Abdullah as a historical figure or a mystical one, his influence is clear. Neville spent more than forty years lecturing on this teaching, and his books are still read today, including Feeling Is the Secret and The Power of Awareness. If you’ve ever practiced assuming the feeling of your wish fulfilled, you’ve been walking a path that started with a quiet teacher in 1930s New York.
