“Revision is of greatest importance when the motive is to change oneself, when there is a sincere desire to be something different, when the longing is to awaken the ideal active spirit of forgiveness. Without imagination, man remains a being of sin. Man either goes forward to imagination or remains imprisoned in his senses. To go forward to imagination is to forgive. Forgiveness is the life of the imagination. The art of living is the art of forgiving.”
Neville Goddard
Neville Goddard was a big proponent of revision. He taught that it’s the tool by which we are able to move forward into the future by removing the emotional and mental burdens of our past and present. He even argued that, without revision, a hurtful past event does not actually stay in the past, but is carried into the present moment, perpetually re-infecting our present reality every time it’s revisited as a painful memory.
But how does revision actually work and what is it’s actual purpose and mechanism? The concept of revision can be somewhat confusing, especially to those just starting out, because it can be easy to assume that what we’re doing with revision is straight out changing actual past events. While this isn’t necessarily inaccurate, the mechanism by which revision works merits some clarification. While me may choose to revise an unfavorable event or situation by imagining it transpiring in a different, more favorable way, the way Neville taught it (and it’s worth mentioning here that there isn’t only one way to revise – but this is beyond the scope of this article and we will go into more depth in a future post), the first and main purpose of applying revision is to change our own thoughts, feelings, and energy surrounding said event or situation.
“Change the way you see things, and the things you see will change.”
Wayne Dyer
The above quote from Wayne Dyer captures the essence of revision. We do not apply revision to change the actual event, but to change the way we see this event internally. Change always starts within and is then projected out. It’s never the other way around. This is how the Law works and there are no exceptions. Changing your energy regarding a specific event or situation that has hurt or triggered you in the past or the present — your thoughts, feelings, assumptions, inner emotions, opinions — will inevitably cause you to see this event in a completely new way, under an entirely new light, and to feel very differently about it. It will remove feelings such as being triggered, hurt, annoyed, angry, upset, jealous, or feeling like a victim — all these low energies that keep us stuck in unwanted states of being. Now what happens after that change has occurred in a genuine, sustained way is when the true magic begins. Just like Wayne Dyer implied in his quote, things (and this includes people, circumstances, events and situations) begin to change as well in all sorts of exciting ways. For example, you may notice that someone in your life starts treating you much better than before after you have revised the way you perceive them and have allowed that new perception to become dominant in your consciousness. You may find that a circumstance you previously thought to be insurmountable all of a sudden shifts or disappears or stops mattering. You may even experience people remembering past events differently after you’ve shifted your state in relation to those events. For example, someone may no longer remember a fight they had with you or the hurtful words they might have said to you and are now behaving in a completely different way that’s aligned to your revised state. These are all proper quantum shifts in your reality, brought about by your shifting your state in connection to a person, event, or circumstance. All this happens because you, the observer of all things in your reality, have shifted, and as a result, your world, being your mirror at all times, has to shift with you. This is the Law.
So don’t take revision to be a tool to change external events and circumstances you don’t like. It all goes back to you before anything can change in the external. Through revision, you shift yourself and your perception of things in your reality to allow a new reality to emerge. It is then that you will experience the material world shifting in ways that you may never have thought possible. But for this to happen, YOU need to change first and the change in your energy has to be genuine, sustained and consistent for the seeming miracles to start pouring in. Revision is an excellent tool that can allow that to occur.