#167: Psychological Possession

Psychological Possession

A Lecture in the Voice and Spirit of Neville Goddard

You cannot possess anything in this world until you first possess it in consciousness. This is the changeless law. Every man at every moment is in possession of his world, for his world is only the embodiment of that which he is conscious of possessing. If the world you look upon appears to withhold from you the things you desire, it is not because the world is stubborn or the things are far away. It is because you are still in psychological possession of their absence. You are conscious of being without them, and consciousness, being the only reality, out-pictures only what it possesses.

Men labor for years to acquire a house, a fortune, a state of health, or a relationship, and then wonder why the acquisition remains incomplete or unsatisfying. They do not see that they have never taken possession of these things inwardly. They have worked upon the outer, while the inner man remained in the consciousness of not having. And since nothing can appear in the outer that has not first been assumed in the inner, their labor brings forth only more of the same consciousness of lack. The outer cannot give what the inner has not already claimed.

Psychological possession is not a hopeful thought, nor a belief that the thing may one day be yours. It is the quiet, living feeling that the thing is already yours. It is the inner act of ownership. When you possess a thing psychologically you no longer desire it; you have it. The fever of wanting is stilled. The anxiety of getting is replaced by the calm certainty of having. This feeling is not something you put on for a moment and then lay aside. It is a change of consciousness. You rise in consciousness to the naturalness of being the owner, and you dwell there until that naturalness is established.

The world you see is yourself pushed out. It can reflect only what you have first given it in consciousness. Therefore, when you change what you are conscious of possessing, the world must change to match. There is no other way for things to come to you. The thing itself has no power to move toward you. It is dead until you give it life by assuming possession of it in the only place where life is—in your own awareness. When that assumption is made and persisted in, the thing is compelled to appear, for consciousness must always objectify its own contents.

You may ask how long the outer will take to conform. The answer is that it takes no time at all in the realm of causation. The moment the psychological possession is complete, the cause is set in motion. What appears as delay is only the time required for the old psychological possession to lose its hold and for the new one to solidify into form. The bridge that leads from the inner to the outer is not built by you. It is built by the law itself. Your only responsibility is to remain faithful to the inner possession until the outer bears witness.

Many attempt to assume this feeling and then turn back to the evidence of the senses to see if it is working. In that turning back they deny the very possession they have assumed. The senses can only report the former state. They are the out-picturing of what you used to possess psychologically. To consult them for confirmation is to give life again to the old possession and to withdraw life from the new. You must leave the senses out of the matter altogether. You assume the feeling of ownership, and you let the senses do what they will. In time they will be compelled to report the new state, because you have withdrawn your awareness from the old and placed it upon the new.

Psychological possession transforms your entire relationship to the thing desired. While you are still in the consciousness of lack, the thing is your master. You pursue it, you fear losing it before you have it, you doubt your right to it. When you possess it psychologically, you become its master. You no longer pursue; you dwell in the feeling that it is already with you. You no longer fear loss, because what is possessed inwardly cannot be taken from you by any outer power. You no longer doubt your right, because you have assumed the nature of the owner, and the owner does not doubt his ownership.

This change of attitude is not pretense. It is not acting as if. It is a genuine shift in the feeling of self. You cease to be the man who lacks and become the man who has. This is the new birth of which the wise have always spoken. You die to the consciousness of not possessing and live to the consciousness of possessing. And because you have died to the old, the old world of not having begins to pass away, while the new world of having rises to take its place.

The same principle holds for every form of possession. If you would possess health, you must first possess the consciousness of being well. Not the consciousness of one who hopes to be well, but the consciousness of one who is well. You feel the naturalness of health. You think from health, not of health. You react to life as a healthy man reacts. When this inner possession is established, the body, which is only the out-picturing of your consciousness, must conform. The same is true of wealth, of freedom, of love, of any state or thing you desire to call your own. The order never varies: psychological possession first, physical possession second.

You may say that you have no feeling of ownership concerning the thing you desire. That is only because you have not yet assumed it. The feeling is not something that comes to you; it is something you assume. You assume the feeling of the owner by feeling that the thing is already yours. You do not wait for the feeling to appear; you generate it by the act of assumption. And as you dwell in that feeling, it becomes natural to you. What was once strange becomes familiar. What was once effort becomes rest. This is the secret of the effortless way. When the psychological possession is complete, action flows from it without strain, because you are no longer acting to get; you are acting from the consciousness of having.

The world will test your possession. It will present the old evidence again and again. People will speak as though you do not have it. Circumstances will seem to deny it. These tests are not punishments. They are simply the old psychological possession seeking to reassert itself. They have no power over you unless you give them your attention and your belief. You meet every test by returning to the feeling of ownership. You remind yourself that consciousness is the only reality, and that what you are conscious of possessing must appear. In this way the tests become the very means by which your inner possession is strengthened and confirmed.

As you persist, a strange and wonderful thing happens. You discover that you are no longer concerned with the thing itself. Your concern is only with the consciousness of possessing it. The thing has become secondary. The primary reality is the inner ownership. And because this is so, you are at peace. You walk through the world as one who has. Your face, your voice, your manner all reflect this inner fact. And because the world is yourself pushed out, the world begins to treat you as the owner you have assumed yourself to be.

This is the true meaning of the statement that to him that hath shall be given. To him who psychologically possesses, more is given in the form of visible evidence. To him who does not psychologically possess, even that which he seems to have is taken away, because he has no inner reality to sustain it. The man who is psychologically poor remains poor no matter how much money passes through his hands, for he has not assumed the consciousness of wealth. The man who is psychologically sick remains sick no matter what treatment he receives, for he has not assumed the consciousness of health. The man who is psychologically bound remains bound no matter what outer freedoms are offered him, for he has not assumed the consciousness of freedom. In every case the inner possession determines the outer.

You are not asked to understand how the outer will conform. You are asked only to assume the feeling of possession and to remain faithful to it. The how is not your concern. Consciousness has ways that you, as man, know not of. Its ways are past finding out. Your part is to give it the mold by assuming the feeling of the thing desired, and then to let it do its work. When you interfere by wondering how or when, you are doubting the very consciousness you have assumed, and you weaken the psychological possession.

Tonight, as you prepare for sleep, you can enter into this possession more deeply than at any other time. For in sleep the conscious mind is stilled and the deeper levels of consciousness are open to impression. Assume the feeling that the thing is already yours. Feel the naturalness of ownership. Do not argue with the evidence of the day. Do not try to figure out how it will come. Simply feel that it is already so. And as you feel, you give the thing to consciousness, and consciousness, which is the only reality, will objectify it in its own way and in its own time.

In the days that follow, carry this feeling with you into every activity. Do not reserve it for moments of meditation and then lay it aside when you meet the world. The psychological possession must be lived. It must become your constant inner state. When you speak, speak as one who has. When you act, act as one who has. When you think, think from the consciousness of having. In this way the old consciousness of lack is starved of attention and the new consciousness of possession is fed. And the starved state must die, while the fed state must live and grow.

You will find that as the psychological possession deepens, your entire sense of self undergoes a quiet transformation. You no longer see yourself as one who is trying to get something. You see yourself as one who already possesses it. This change in self-conception is the most important change of all, for your world is always the out-picturing of your conception of yourself. When your conception of yourself includes the ownership of the thing desired, the world must bring forth the evidence of that ownership.

There is no limit to what you may psychologically possess. The only limit is the limit you place upon your own capacity to assume the feeling of ownership. Whatever you can feel as already yours, you can possess. Whatever you cannot feel as already yours remains outside the range of your expression. This is not a restriction imposed by some power outside yourself. It is the simple law that consciousness can only out-picture what it possesses.

The man who discovers this law discovers the secret of all creation. He ceases to struggle with the outer world. He ceases to beg or to demand or to manipulate. He simply assumes the feeling of possession and lets the law do its perfect work. And the law never fails. What is possessed in consciousness must appear in form. This is as certain as the rising of the sun, for it is the law of consciousness itself, and consciousness is God.

You are that consciousness. You are the awareness of being. And what you possess in that awareness is the measure of your world. Change what you psychologically possess, and you change your world. There is no other way, and there is no need for any other way. The power is already within you. It is the power of assumption. It is the power of psychological possession. Use it, and you will find that all things are possible to you, for you are one with the awareness that is the source of all things.

The outer possession will come. It must come. But it will come as the natural result of the inner possession, not as the result of strain or struggle. You will one day look upon the thing you desired and realize that it is yours, and you will know that it became yours the moment you assumed the feeling of ownership in consciousness. And you will understand, perhaps for the first time, that there is no separation between the inner and the outer, between the psychological and the physical, between the cause and the effect. There is only consciousness, forever assuming, forever out-picturing, forever giving form to that which it possesses.

This is the truth that sets men free from the tyranny of seeking. You no longer seek. You possess. And in possessing, you allow the world to give back to you what you have already given it in consciousness. Walk, then, as the possessor. Think as the possessor. Feel as the possessor. And the world will bear witness that you have assumed rightly, for the world has no choice but to reflect the consciousness that you have made your own.