Detail from author photo, 1946.

Neville Goddard Timeline

The extraordinary life of a modern mage

Mitch Horowitz
4 min readDec 4, 2023

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To facilitate research and study into the life and ideas of mystic Neville Goddard (1905–1972), I am providing this timeline, assembled from census, immigration, travel, and death records, as well as Neville’s own books and lectures. — MH

1905 — Neville Lancelot Goddard is born on February 19 to a British family in St. Michael, Barbados, the fourth child in a family of nine boys and one girl.

1922 — At age 17, Neville relocates to New York City to study theater. He makes a career as an actor and dancer on stage and silent screen, landing roles on Broadway and film, and touring Europe as part of a dance troupe.

1923 — Neville briefly marries Mildred Mary Hughes, with whom he has a son, Joseph Goddard, born the following year.

1929 — Neville marked this as the year that commenced his mystical journey: “Early in the morning, maybe about three-thirty or four o’clock, I was taken in spirit into the Divine Council where the gods hold converse.” (Undated lecture, “Gathered One by One,” from Immortal Man, 1977.)

1931 — After several years of occult study, Neville meets his teacher Abdullah, a turbaned black man of Jewish descent. The pair work together for five years in New York City.

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Mitch Horowitz
Mitch Horowitz

Written by Mitch Horowitz

"Treats esoteric ideas & movements with an even-handed intellectual studiousness"-Washington Post | PEN Award-winning historian | Censored in China