The Bible is not a history of people long gone—it is the unfolding story of consciousness. Every character is a state of being that emerges in us, and the drama between Samuel, Saul, and David is the drama of assumption itself. These three figures are are simultaneous conceptions of man arising when one first awakens to the creative power of imagination.
Samuel: The Conceptual Awakening
Samuel means “God has heard.” He represents the first stirring of awareness that imagination responds to assumption—that the “I AM” within is the true creator. Samuel is not action yet, but conception: the voice of God, the prophet within, the awareness that bids us listen.
When Samuel hears God calling in the night and at last replies, “Speak, for your servant hears” (1 Samuel 3:10), this is the moment we, too, recognise the inner law at work. Samuel arises as the mind’s first prophet—the conception that there is an inner authority higher than appearances.
But Samuel does not stand alone. His very emergence carries with it the conception of two paths—the old and the new—the self we have lived by, and the self that now presses to be born.
Saul: The Old Man Preserved by Habit
Saul means “asked for” or “desired.” He is the man the people wanted—the state that seems impressive outwardly but lacks inner alignment. Symbolically, Saul is the ego-self, the old man clinging to appearances, trying to rule life through external effort rather than inner assumption.
Saul is conceived in the same breath as Samuel’s awakening. For as soon as we acknowledge imagination as the true law, we also see how much of our life has been governed by the opposite—by fear, by appearances, by habit. Saul is that conception, the embodiment of the old way of ruling consciousness.
He is not without purpose. Saul represents the unavoidable stage where the ego still seeks to manifest without transformation. But his reign cannot last, because assumption does not uphold contradiction. The old self crumbles when the new conception takes root.
David: The Beloved New Self
David means “beloved.” He is the ideal self—the state we assume when we act on the truth revealed by Samuel. Unlike Saul, David is not chosen for stature but for heart, for inner alignment.
David is the man of imagination, the one who confronts Goliath—the giant of fear, doubt, and seeming impossibility—not with armour, but with assumption. His victory declares the principle: “Assume the feeling of the wish fulfilled, and you will live in its reality.”
David does not kill Saul; he transcends him. For the new self does not fight the old by force—it renders it obsolete by assumption.
The Three as One Movement
Samuel, Saul, and David are not sequential in time but simultaneous in conception. The moment one awakens to the Law of Assumption (Samuel), two selves appear in the mind:
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Saul, the old man of appearances and ego.
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David, the beloved new self, conceived by imagination.
Samuel, then, is the midwife of transformation. His hearing gives birth to both the fading self and the becoming self. The struggle between Saul and David is the drama of our own inner life—the tug of the old versus the pull of the new. But the outcome is certain: David, the beloved, must reign.
In Summary
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Samuel: The conceptual man—the awakening to the law within.
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Saul: The old man—ego, appearance, resistance.
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David: The beloved new self—the ideal assumed.
Through Neville Goddard’s teaching, we see this not as history but as psychological drama: the emergence of men in the mind, conceived at the very moment we begin to respond to the Law of Assumption.