To interpret circumcision literally is to remain fixated on ritual and the flesh. Neville Goddard taught that the Bible is not concerned with outer acts at all; it is a psychological drama, using reproductive and physical imagery to describe the movements of the mind.
When read literally, the Bible often appears troubling—full of moral failures, strange laws, violence, and punishments. We find incest, betrayal, genocide, and rigid legalism. Yet beneath this outer narrative lies something entirely different: a symbolic record of spiritual evolution, in which every character and event mirrors states of consciousness within us.
Circumcision, in this symbolic reading, represents the removal of all that veils or obstructs the imagination. It is the cutting away of egoic pride, false identities, and inherited patterns of thought that stand between us and fulfilment. The outer man is stripped back so that the inner man—the divine creative power—can take dominion.
God tells Abraham that circumcision is the sign of the covenant. But what is this covenant if not the realisation that “I AM” is God? It is the deep inner agreement to live by the awareness that imagination alone creates reality.
To be circumcised in this inner sense is to separate oneself from public opinion and external conditioning—the “foreskin” of collective beliefs and appearances—and return to the generative power of assumption and feeling. It is not an act of repression, but one of refinement and purification.
It is a quiet yet bold inner consecration. A turning inward. A declaration that we will no longer serve the outer world of effects, but the inner world of causes. We do not look to circumstances to define us; we imagine and persist until the outer world mirrors our inner conviction.
Thus, circumcision reveals the Bible’s true purpose once again—not to command the body, but to awaken the mind to its creative power.