Buildings Falling Vision (1960)

Neville describes a vision he had on 21 December 1960, shortly after his experience of the 'birth from above' and his discovery of the Fatherhood of God. In the vision he saw a city of modest, twelve-to-sixteen-story buildings that he somehow knew were about to fall, and one by one, each building crumbled before his eyes. He takes the collapse of the buildings as symbolic of his own former Christian beliefs -- the whole structure of doctrine he had lived by -- giving way at once to his new understanding.
Date (happened)
21 December 1960
certain
  1. 21 December 1960 conclusion
    Why dc1-agreement-20261004, pm-actor-551 (PM 8702)
    Reasoning All 8 claims agree on 1960-12-21: phase-2 canonical event (fingerprint references); passage:538646; passage:548343; passage:553590; passage:556486; passage:538646; passage:548343; passage:556486.
  2. 21 December 1960 stated · preferred
    Source One Thousand Two-Hundred Sixty Days ¶15Passage 538646: 'On the 21st day of December, 1960'; corroborated independently by passages 548343 and 553590.
    Why Appended after referred-event adjudication; no preferred flag set.
    Reasoning Three independent whole-passage tellings explicitly name 21 December 1960. The lone 1959 wording occurs in a conflicting witness and is outweighed by the repeated direct first-person dates; this claim rests on passage text, not on any lecture delivery date.
  3. 1960 stated · probable
    Source phase-2 canonical event (fingerprint references)
  4. 21 December 1960 stated · doubtful
    Source One Thousand Two-Hundred Sixty Days ¶15"On the 21st day of December, l960", told in One Thousand Two-Hundred Sixty Days (nid 1377)
    Reasoning || v1.1/l7/passage-inherit: lowered `certain` -> `doubtful`. This date was inherited from lecture node 3987, whose own 1960-12-21 delivery claim has been refuted, and no other node in the corpus holds that date live — so the only witness for this date is one the corpus has disproved. Lowered, never refuted (#2461 §1 rule (b)): what collapsed is the evidence for WHEN, not the event. This row was reached through a PASSAGE source, which every earlier rule-(b) pass was structurally blind to.
  5. 21 December 1960 stated · doubtful
    Source Experience Scripture ¶8"on the 21st day of December 1960", told in Experience Scripture (nid 1904)
    Reasoning || v1.1/l7/passage-inherit: lowered `certain` -> `doubtful`. This date was inherited from lecture node 3987, whose own 1960-12-21 delivery claim has been refuted, and no other node in the corpus holds that date live — so the only witness for this date is one the corpus has disproved. Lowered, never refuted (#2461 §1 rule (b)): what collapsed is the evidence for WHEN, not the event. This row was reached through a PASSAGE source, which every earlier rule-(b) pass was structurally blind to.
  6. 21 December 1960 stated · doubtful
    Source Hear O Israel ¶5"In 1960, December the twenty-first", told in Hear O Israel (nid 2130)
    Reasoning || v1.1/l7/passage-inherit: lowered `certain` -> `doubtful`. This date was inherited from lecture node 3987, whose own 1960-12-21 delivery claim has been refuted, and no other node in the corpus holds that date live — so the only witness for this date is one the corpus has disproved. Lowered, never refuted (#2461 §1 rule (b)): what collapsed is the evidence for WHEN, not the event. This row was reached through a PASSAGE source, which every earlier rule-(b) pass was structurally blind to.
  7. 21 December 1960 stated · doubtful
    Source "on the 21st day of December 1960", told in The I of Man (Unresolved ASR Witness) (nid 3987)
    Reasoning || v1.1/l7/passage-inherit: lowered `certain` -> `doubtful`. This date was inherited from lecture node 3987, whose own 1960-12-21 delivery claim has been refuted, and no other node in the corpus holds that date live — so the only witness for this date is one the corpus has disproved. Lowered, never refuted (#2461 §1 rule (b)): what collapsed is the evidence for WHEN, not the event. This row was reached through a PASSAGE source, which every earlier rule-(b) pass was structurally blind to.
  8. 21 December 1960 stated
    Source Experience Scripture ¶8passage 548343 (lecture nid 1904), 'In my own case, on the 21st day of December 1960 I saw a city ... prior to that day, which is the 21st day of December 1960'
    Reasoning Neville states the exact date of the vision directly and unambiguously, repeating it twice in the same passage; no calculation or relative reasoning is needed.
Show all 10 claims
  1. 21 December 1960 stated
    Source Passage 556486: 'on the 21st day of December 1960 I saw a city.'
    Reasoning Neville directly supplies the exact day, month, and year for his own vision.
  2. 21 December 1959 stated · refuted
    Source Eschatology ¶37"on the twenty-first day of December in the year nineteen fifty-nine", told in Eschatology (nid 2120)
    Reasoning Refuted: p553359 dates this vision to December 1959; p538646 and p548343 both date it to 21 December 1960, and the preferred delta agrees. The same passage also misattributes the fatherhood discovery - it conflates two events.
Place
Los Angeles possible
Persons
Neville Goddard
Told / reported
  1. 13 September 1968 stated · probable
    Source One Thousand Two-Hundred Sixty DaysOne Thousand Two-Hundred Sixty Days (nid 1377), telling 1377-4, told 1968-09-13
  2. 28 May 1971 stated
    Source Experience ScriptureExperience Scripture (nid 1904), telling 1904-1, told 1971-05-28
  3. 1969 stated · probable
    Source EschatologyEschatology (nid 2120), telling 2120-4, told 1969
  4. 1971 stated · probable
    Source Hear O IsraelHear O Israel (nid 2130), telling 2130-0, told 1971
  5. 28 May 1971 estimated
    Source Experience Scripturedelivery claim on lecture nid 1904 'Experience Scripture' (catalog #857)
    Reasoning The lecture has 2 delivery claims and both agree on 1971-05-28 at certain confidence: d0 (catalog #857, preferred=1) and d1 (transcriber-sourced from the recovered byline '-By Neville Goddard - 05-28-1971-'). No disagreement, no tiebreak required.
  6. 28 May 1971 estimated
    Source Lecture node 3987, The I of Man; adjudicated standing delivery claim 1971-05-28 certain.
    Reasoning The vision is recounted in node 3987, whose own recovered dateline and content identity with independently dated node 1904 establish delivery on 1971-05-28.
Sources

Source

  • One Thousand Two-Hundred Sixty Days ¶15 (On the 21st day of December, l960, I came upon fantastic city of tall buildings, and as I looked at each building it tumbled until not one stone was left standing upon the other.)
  • Experience Scripture ¶8 (In my own case, on the 21st day of December 1960 I saw a city. They were not enormous buildings like the Empire State . . 12, 15 or 16-story buildings; but they seemed to be everlasting. At the very moment, I knew everyone was going to fall.)
  • Eschatology ¶37 (no, but on the twenty-first day of December in the year nineteen fifty-nine, came my discovery of the fatherhood of God. This vision was mine. I saw all the buildings, beautiful buildings, tall buildings, and one is going down before my eyes, are falling…)
  • Hear O Israel ¶5 (In 1960, December the twenty-first, I had a series of visions in one night.)

Temporal reference

4 tellings, oldest first. A date in brackets shows how it is known; "circa", "after" and "possible" dates are rough.
Date Lecture or book Telling Passage
1968-09-13 [exact/certain/final] One Thousand Two-Hundred Sixty Days We are told that when Jesus stood upon the Mount of Olives, they asked him: “When will you come and what will be the sign of your coming?” Pointing to the wonderful buildings, he said: “You see these buildings? I tell you, not one stone will be standing upon another that will not be thrown down. That is when you will know.” On the 21st day of December, 1960, I came upon a fantastic city of tall buildings, and as I looked at each building it tumbled until not one stone was left standing upon the other. So I wrote that date against this prophecy in the 24th chapter of Matthew and the 13th of… 538646
1969-07-18 [exact/probable/final] Eschatology Beautiful imagery — “one of these buildings” — no, but on the twenty-first day of December in the year nineteen fifty-nine, came my discovery of the fatherhood of God. This vision was mine. I saw all the buildings, beautiful buildings, tall buildings, and one is going down before my eyes, are falling, are falling to the ground, leaving not one stone upon the other, and I know that’s really next — that’s going next — and I saw three, three, four buildings in my imagination, my vision, and everything started leaving not one stone. It is imagery — beautiful images — but what were the buildings,… 553359
1971-02-09 [exact/probable/final] Hear O Israel In 1960, December the twenty-first, I had a series of visions in one night. And here I am, and here is the thirteenth chapter of the Book of Mark — but you know the story. He came out of the temple; as he came out of the temple, one disciple said to him, “Look, teacher, what great stones, what great buildings!” And Jesus said to him, receiving his great building, “Not one stone will be left standing upon another; but all will be thrown down.” And in my vision I saw this city, and I knew in advance which was going to fall, one after the other. They fell one after the other, all symbolic of the… 553590
1971-05-28 [exact/certain/final] Experience Scripture In my own case, on the 21st day of December 1960 I saw a city. They were not enormous buildings like the Empire State . . 12, 15 or 16-story buildings; but they seemed to be everlasting. At the very moment, I knew everyone was going to fall. And here came the first one. It all crumbled before my eyes. I knew the next one . . it crumbled. Everything crumbled, because prior to that day, which is the 21st day of December 1960, I had had the experience of the “birth from above” and the discovery of the Fatherhood of God and the Son of God who actually called me “Father,” revealing who the Father… 548343