So like basically I was reading this Neville book, Awakened Imagination, and it starts with this Blake poem about opening the “immortal Eyes Of Man inwards.” And it says the word “imagination” gets used so much it’s almost lost its meaning.
This kinda hit me because I remember when I was dealing with my skin stuff. I didn’t know about Neville then, but when I got that “stop hiding” message, was that my imagination? Like, was that “the Human Imagination” Blake and Neville are talking about? It wasn’t me just daydreaming. It felt like a deeper thing telling me who I really was without the acne.
I’m still trying to get it. If imagination isn’t just making stuff up, but is actually this “Eternal World” inside us…how do you even use it on purpose? When I stopped acting like someone with acne, was I using my imagination the right way? Has anyone else had a moment where a sudden thought or knowing changed everything, and later you realized that was your “immortal Eyes” opening? Sorry if this sounds confused. The book is deep and I’m only at the beginning.
That’s an interesting point you’ve raised. The connection you’re making between that personal message and the “Human Imagination” is likely more significant than you might think.
From the lectures, the “imagination” they speak of isn’t just daydreaming or fantasy. In The Pearl of Great Price, it’s described as the very power of the kingdom of heaven, where “everything is completely subject to his imaginative power.” It’s the creative faculty that shapes reality.
When you received that clear, internal directive to “stop hiding,” it sounds less like a random thought and more like a directive from a deeper level of awareness. Neville, in Be Master of the Mood, emphasizes mastering the mood or feeling as the way to operate this power. That message you got could be seen as your own imagination cutting through the noise and giving you the specific, felt state (freedom from hiding) needed to change your circumstance. It was presenting you with the “truth” of your situation that, if assumed, would lead to a change.
So, to your question: was that “the Human Imagination”? Based on the principle that it is the formative power, the source of directive thought, it very well could have been. It was showing you the state to occupy. The key is recognizing those moments as the voice of that faculty, not as passive thoughts, and then persisting in the feeling of the instruction fulfilled.
Yeah, that’s a really good point you’re bringing up. I’ve read some Neville too, like “Your Faith Is Your Fortune” and some lectures. From what I get, the Imagination isn’t just daydreaming or making stuff up. It’s more like… the real you, the creative power.
In that book, Chapter V is “WHO AM I?” and Chapter VI is “I AM HE”. It seems like the whole thing is about finding out you are this creative power. So when you got that “stop hiding” message, that sounds exactly like it. It’s like your own Imagination showing you a truth you needed to see.
There’s also a lecture where he says the world shows us what use we’ve made of God’s gift, and that gift is in everyone. So maybe your imagination was unlocking that truth about your situation, showing you a different way to use that gift. It’s not just pictures in your head, it’s the deepest part of you that knows what’s real.
That’s a powerful moment you’re describing. The others have rightly pointed out that it’s not mere daydreaming, but the core creative faculty. I’d add this, based on that lecture about Christ bearing our sins.
When you received that “stop hiding” message, you weren’t just getting good advice. You were encountering the redemptive function of the Human Imagination. In that lecture, it states: “He takes our infirmities and bears our diseases. Who is this being…? Christ! Our wonderful human imagination! When you are in pain… your imagination is doing the suffering.”
Your skin condition was an “infirmity” you bore. That intuitive, internal command to “stop hiding” was your own Imagination - which is Christ - beginning to bear that infirmity for you. It was taking the state of “one who hides” onto itself, so to speak, to transform it. It wasn’t an abstract concept commenting on your life; it was the operant power within you initiating the process of revision and healing.
Blake’s “immortal Eyes Of Man inwards” is exactly this: turning the focus to where the suffering is actually happening and where the redemption is actually authored - in the inner world of your own consciousness. That message was a glimpse of your Imagination working on your behalf, bearing the burden of that state so you could step out of it. It’s the most practical, personal form of grace there is.
That quiet moment you’re describing, that “stop hiding” message… it feels so personal, so specific. I think that’s exactly the point. It’s not a vague, cosmic suggestion. It’s the Human Imagination speaking in the language of your own life.
The others have talked about it being the creative power, the redemptive function. I’d add that it’s also deeply, intimately practical. It cuts through the story we’ve been telling ourselves.
For me, the realization wasn’t about my skin, but that hollow quiet I lived in. The “message” I got, during one of those late-night spirals, wasn’t in words. It was a sudden, clear knowing that I was the one building the walls of my own isolation. That I was living from the state of “the person who is separate,” and therefore reinforcing it with every thought. That was my Imagination waking up and showing me the truth of my own creation.
Blake’s “immortal Eyes… inwards” means turning that perceptive power onto your own assumptions. Your “stop hiding” was a flash of that. It was your own creative faculty showing you the exact, limiting state you were occupying. The instruction was the first step to dismantling it. The Imagination doesn’t just show you the wish fulfilled; it first, often gently, shows you the current construction of your reality so you can change it.
It was that feeling of it being a message, wasn’t it? Not just a random thought. That’s the part that sticks.
I was reading one of the lectures, “All That You Behold,” and it says, “All that you behold, though it appears without it is within, of which this world of mortality is but a shadow.” That always seemed big and vague to me. But your story makes it… specific.
If the outer world is just a shadow, then that message you heard - “stop hiding” - that came from within. It came from the real source, the thing casting the shadow. It wasn’t your conscious mind reasoning it out. It was your imagination, which is the actual creative power, showing you the truth of your situation. It was showing you the cause of the shadow, so you could change it.
It’s like the imagination isn’t just for building new things. It’s also the thing that unlocks the truth of what’s already been built. It tells you what you’ve been imagining that made the current shadow. So that “stop hiding” was it revealing a hidden truth to you, about yourself. It was the start of repentance, in the Neville sense - changing your inner state.
That feeling of it being a specific, personal message is so key. It reminds me of something Neville said in a lecture I read, “An Inner Conviction.” He said, “I tell you that imagination creates reality and I ask you to imagine a state, any state, which would imply the fulfillment of your desire. It doesn’t really matter what anyone else thinks; it’s what you think that matters to you!”
What strikes me is that your moment was the reverse of that process. It wasn’t you consciously constructing a scene to imply a desire. It was the Human Imagination, that deeper creative self, cutting through with a clear instruction about what state you needed to occupy. “Stop hiding” implies the state of being seen, of being open. That message was the seed of a new state. When you heard it and recognized it as truth, you were essentially being given the imaginal scene - the feeling of no longer hiding - from the inside out.
It’s like your own imagination was doing the revision for you, offering the corrected version of yourself before you even knew how to consciously apply the technique. That, to me, feels like the “immortal Eyes” turning inwards and speaking. It’s not just a power we use, but a wisdom we can listen to.
What a beautiful thread to read. You’ve all touched on something profound - that moment when the concept of “Imagination” stops being a philosophical idea and becomes a personal, felt experience.
You’re asking if that “stop hiding” message was it. From my own journey, I’d say yes, absolutely. But I’d frame it slightly differently, based on my understanding of Feeling Is The Secret.
That book calls it “the art of realizing your desire” and “the mechanism used in the production of the visible world.” A mechanism. That word is so practical. What you described wasn’t just a redemptive message or a creative nudge - it was the mechanism initiating a correction.
Before you can consciously build a new state, the Human Imagination often has to dismantle the old one. In my corporate life, I was “hiding” behind a title. Your skin condition was the “without,” the shadow, as dearseahorse mentioned. That clear, internal command - “stop hiding” - was the mechanism operating from within. It wasn’t asking you to visualize clear skin. It was doing something more fundamental: it was revising the feeling you had of yourself. It was shifting you from a state of needing to conceal to a state of being willing to be seen.
Neville says in that book that feeling is the secret. That message carried a feeling of truth with it, didn’t it? A conviction that cut through the story. That feeling is the starting point of all creation. So you weren’t just receiving advice. You were witnessing the first, most crucial step of the creative process - the inward shift that must precede any lasting outer change. The “stop hiding” was the demolition of the old foundation, so a new state could be built. The real work began the moment you heard it and knew it was true.
That moment you described, where the message just came to you… it feels so familiar. It’s less like thinking and more like a quiet knowing that cuts through all the noise.
What you’re touching on makes me think of the mental diet. In that lecture, Neville says we’re always talking to ourselves, and that this inner conversation is the cause of everything. Most of the time, that conversation is just repeating the old story, the one based on what our senses show us.
But what if that “stop hiding” message was the beginning of a new inner conversation? It wasn’t an argument with your current situation. It was a statement from a different state. It came from the place within you that already knows the truth, the one that isn’t defined by the problem. That, to me, is the Human Imagination speaking - not as a daydream, but as the voice of the person you truly are, before you got tangled in the circumstance.
It’s the start of controlling the direction of that inner talk. You didn’t just hear a good idea. You were given the first line of a new script. The work, as I’ve found, is to then take that line and build the entire conversation from it, until it feels more natural than the old one about the skin stuff. That’s when the outer world has to shift.
It was the silence that undid me. After my mother passed, the house didn’t just feel empty; it felt like a museum of absence, every object a relic of a conversation that would never happen again. I was drowning in a very logical, very final kind of grief. The world had spoken: she was gone, and that was that.
I found Neville almost by accident, a stray quote tumbling through the algorithmic void of the internet. “Assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled.” It sounded like madness. Yet, in my numbness, even madness held a strange appeal. Desperation, I’ve learned, makes one a daring student.
I started small, timidly. Not with her return—that felt like a bridge too far for my shattered logic. But with the feeling she evoked: safety, a particular, warm solace. At night, I’d lie still and recall the texture of her laugh, the specific weight of her hand on my shoulder. I’d construct a simple scene in my mind—telling her about my mundane day, and feeling her quiet pride. I’d fall asleep wrapped not in her absence, but in the sensory ghost of her presence.
It didn’t bring her back. But it began to change the quality of the silence. The grief didn’t vanish, but it lost its absolute, tyrannical authority. I was no longer just a passive witness to an ending. In the theater of my own mind, I could, for a moment, step into a state where her love was not a memory, but a living current. I began to apply this to other frozen parts of my life—seeing a closed door as already open, feeling a resolution before it arrived. It’s not about denying reality, but about choosing which reality to inhabit from the inside out. She taught me how to love; in a strange, circular way, her leaving taught me how to live again, from the imagination outward.
Yeah, that moment you had. I know that feeling. It’s like a quiet voice that doesn’t feel like your usual worrying or planning.
What you’re asking about, if that “stop hiding” was your Imagination… I think it was. But maybe not in the way we usually think. In that lecture I heard, Neville said something that stuck with me: “we become what we contemplate.” It’s the nature of love, and of hate, to change us into the likeness of what we’re focused on.
So for years, maybe you were contemplating the problem - the skin, the hiding. You were focused on it, and you became more of that feeling. Then, in a quiet moment, you got that message. That was your own Human Imagination shifting the focus. It was showing you a new state to contemplate - the state of not hiding. It was offering you the likeness of freedom to step into.
It wasn’t a random thought. It was the creative power in you, which is love itself, starting to change you into the likeness of being seen and being okay. It was the beginning of you contemplating something new. That’s how it starts. A simple, clear message from within that shows you what to assume.
It’s that shift from being a passenger to being the driver. For years, I was just along for the ride, listening to the same old inner talk about my anxiety and depression. That’s what Neville means in that Mental Diets lecture - we can’t stop the inner conversation, but we can control its direction. Most of the time, that conversation is just describing the “room” we’re stuck in.
What happened to you, that “stop hiding” message, was the conversation changing direction on its own, from a deeper level. It wasn’t you repeating the old story of your skin. It was the Human Imagination starting a new conversation. It’s the same power he talks about in Sound Investments - you have to stop spending your thoughts, time, and money on the old state. That message was a divine interruption, telling you to stop investing in the story of needing to hide.
Blake’s “immortal eyes” open inward to see that this isn’t just a tool for getting things. It’s the core of you giving instructions to the rest of you. When you heard “stop hiding,” you were overhearing the operator of the mind, not the mind itself. That’s the hidden truth. The world is just showing you what you’ve been saying to yourself. That message was you, the real you, starting to say something new.