“This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” – Genesis 2:23To the literalist, this verse describes the first woman being formed from a man's rib. But to the one who sees with the eyes of imagination, as Neville Goddard teaches, this is an unveiling of spiritual law. The verse is not about anatomy or gender, but about consciousness and manifestation, the inner and outer aspects of your own inventive power.
And again he said, “To what shall I compare the kingdom of God?
It is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, until it was all leavened.” — Luke 13:20-21
Man as Awareness, Woman as Embodiment
And Adam called his wife's name Eve; because she was the mother of all living. - Genesis 3:20
“Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine." — Isaiah 43:1
In Neville’s teaching, the “man” symbolises your conscious awareness of being—that deep “I AM” from which all creation proceeds. The “woman,” drawn from man, symbolises the outer world, or any manifested condition in your life. She is not another being, but a reflection of the assumption you have internalised.
To say “bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh” is to declare: This thing I now see or experience in the world was born from my own consciousness. It is not separate from me—it is of me. It is my inner state made visible.
Eve is described in Genesis 3:2 as the “mother of all living,” (Eve = "life" or "living") because from her emanates the world of the reader. Yet she brings forth in pain, a reflection of the truth that when imagination is misused—when assumptions are fearful, negative, or contrary to one’s true desire—the manifestations born from it carry the weight of that misalignment (sin). The “sorrow” in childbirth is therefore the natural consequence of giving form to flawed imagining.
The reference to 'wife' is the beginning of marriage, bride and bridegroom symbolism. This is the deliberate joining of conscious and imaginative aspects of mind.
The Mind That Remembers and Responds
The mind is not a lifeless vessel—it is a living network that remembers and responds to every impression you give it. It reflects the treatment it receives. Speak to it in fear, and it will echo fear. Honour it with the awareness of “I AM,” and it will return that reverence in form. This inner communion between awareness and imagination is the sacred dialogue that the Scriptures call husband and wife.
Every woman in Scripture personifies this responsive mind in a different stage of awakening. Sarah is the imagination long neglected, now turning its gaze toward the pleasure of fulfilled assumption. She laughs from the first stirrings of joy in realising that conception is possible through faith. Hannah is the same mind in deep travail, worn from self-pity yet finally pouring itself out before the Lord of Being. In her story, the bitterness of Cain gives way to the yielding of Abel: she stops contending with life and conceives inwardly. When her countenance changes and “her face is no longer sad,” the conception has already taken place. Ruth follows as that mind, once bitter, now choosing devotion to its source—saying in effect, “where you go, I will go.” She is the mind that leaves behind its grief and marries its own “I AM,” the union described in Genesis 2:24. And Mary is the final flowering of this evolution: the mind made virgin and pure, no longer divided or reactive, but wholly receptive to divine awareness. Her conception is immaculate because her assumption is pure—she receives nothing but the Word of “I AM.”
In each of these stages, the same law is at work. The mind remembers, responds, and mirrors back whatever state of being you impress upon it. The “woman” is therefore the record of how you have treated your own imagination—your living mirror of God.
The Crucifixion: Fixing the Idea in Imagination
This inner dynamic is echoed later in the story of Jesus. Neville explains that the crucifixion is not a historical event, but the moment when a desire or idea is fixed in imagination. The “nailing” of Jesus to the cross represents the commitment to an assumption.
Once the state is fixed—“crucified”—it must be resurrected. It must rise into visibility. The outer world, like the “woman” in Genesis, will take form from the seed of your inner conviction.
So, when Adam names the woman and acknowledges her as “flesh of my flesh,” he is doing what you do when you recognise your own manifestion: owning it. Every outer circumstance is a "child" of your inner fixation.
The Birth of Isaac: Manifestation in Its Season
This process of inner conception and outer birth is also seen in the story of Isaac, born to Sarah after years of barrenness. Sarah represents the womb of the subconscious, and Isaac the long-awaited manifestation. Neville often quoted Paul: “These things are an allegory”—and indeed they are.
Isaac’s birth happens “in due season,” after the assumption is fully accepted and rests in faith. So too does the woman in Genesis appear after a deep sleep—a letting go—just as creation arises when you release the assumption into the subconscious and allow it to gestate.
Naming as a Creative Act
“She shall be called Woman…”—naming in Scripture is not just a labelling, but an act of creation. To name is to claim. It is to say, “This is what I know it to be.” The outer world responds to your inner naming.
"Because you are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you, I give men in return for you, peoples in exchange for your life." Isaiah 43:4
Neville said, “Change your conception of yourself and you will automatically change the world in which you live.” The woman—your world, will always take her name from the state you dwell in.
Final Reflection
Genesis 2:23 is not an ancient biology lesson—it is a master key to understanding how the world you experience is your imagination externalised. The “woman” is every result, every condition, every encounter. She's your assumption made flesh. And whether the birth is immediate like Eve or delayed like Isaac, the law is the same: As within, so without.
Every crucifixion (assumption fixed) leads to resurrection (manifestation revealed). You are both the Adam who imagines and the Eve who appears. You are always meeting yourself in form.