In 1933,
Neville Goddard was living in New York City during the Great Depression.
Bread lines stretched for blocks.
Men slept in department store corridors and city parks.
Broadway was quiet.
Jobs were scarce.
Millions were unemployed.
And Neville was one of them.
He was a dancer by trade,
But there were almost no shows running.
Out of the usual 50 or 60 Broadway productions,
Only a handful remained,
Barely surviving.
People who couldn't eat weren't buying tickets.
Neville had no income,
No savings,
No work on the horizon.
He was living in a small basement apartment on 75th Street.
And yet,
What occupied his mind wasn't survival.
It was home.
Neville had left Barbados in 1922.
Nearly 12 years had passed.
And for the first time since leaving,
He felt a deep desire to return.
Not to move back.
Not to start over.
Simply to visit his family and spend time on the island where he was born.
There was only one problem.
He had no money.
So,
Neville went to his teacher a few blocks away on 72nd Street.
An Ethiopian Jewish mystic,
Abdullah had taught Neville for five years,
Guiding him through the law,
The Kabbalah,
And the psychological interpretation of scripture.
Neville explained his situation plainly.
"'Hab,
' he said,
"'I want to go to Barbados,
But I don't have the money.
How am I going to get there?
' Abdullah looked at him and said,
"'You are in Barbados.
' Neville looked at him and asked,
"'I'm in Barbados?
' "'Yes,
' Abdullah said,
"'You are now in Barbados.
'" To Neville,
It sounded absurd.
They were standing on a wide New York sidewalk surrounded by tall buildings and traffic.
Barbados had narrow streets,
No sidewalks,
And low houses.
Yet,
Abdullah continued,
"'You see Barbados.
You see America from Barbados.
You smell the tropical land of Barbados.
And tonight,
You sleep in Barbados.
'" That night,
Neville did as he was told.
He lay in his bed in New York and assumed he was sleeping in his mother's home in Barbados.
He imagined America north of him,
Not beneath him.
He fell asleep in that assumption.
Days passed.
Nothing changed.
A week later,
Neville returned to Abdullah.
"'Hab,
' he said,
"'How is this going to happen?
' Abdullah refused to answer.
He turned his back,
Walked into his library,
And shut the door.
Neville tried again and again.
Each time,
Abdullah refused to discuss it.
From Abdullah's point of view,
The question made no sense.
How could he explain how Neville would get to Barbados when Neville was already there?
Weeks later,
On the morning of December 4th,
1933,
Neville found a letter under his door.
It was from his brother Victor in Barbados.
Inside was a draft for $50 for clothing and necessities,
And noticed that a ticket was waiting for him at the Furnace Withy steamship line.
The ship would sail on December 6th,
The last possible boat to reach Barbados by Christmas.
Neville rushed to the steamship office.
They told him there were no first-class boats left.
He would travel third class,
Though he could use first-class facilities until the ship reached St.
Thomas.
Neville accepted without hesitation.
He ran to Abdullah,
Excited.
"'Ab,
I got my ticket,
' he said.
"'I'm going third class.
'" Abdullah stopped him immediately.
"'Who told you that you are going to Barbados?
' he said.
"'And who told you that you went third class?
"'You went to Barbados,
And you went first class.
'" He said nothing more.
On the morning of December 6th,
Neville arrived at the dock with his third-class ticket.
As he checked in,
The clerk smiled.
"'I have good news for you,
Mr.
Goddard,
' he said.
"'A passenger canceled.
You're going first class.
'" Neville traveled first class the entire journey,
Ten days to Barbados,
Ten days back,
And three unforgettable months on the island.
That experience changed the course of Neville Goddard's life.
From that moment on,
Everything he taught stemmed from what Abdullah showed him.
Years later,
Neville would lecture hundreds of people at a time.
He would fill rooms,
Answer questions,
And teach what would become known around the world as the law of assumption.
He would be remembered as the man who taught that imagination creates reality,
And every lecture,
Every principle he shared,
Could be traced back to this moment.
Abdullah never explained how.
He never offered reassurance.
He never answered Neville's questions.
Because once Neville accepted the assumption,
There was nothing left to discuss.
You do not ask how when you are already there.
You live from it.
You remember.
You remain faithful to it.
And you let life arrange the details.
That is why this story matters.
Not because of a trip to Barbados,
But because it reveals the law that Neville spent his life teaching.
The law that begins and ends with a single assumption.
I am in Barbados.
