Modern systems: one question

Transurfing and
Neville Goddard

Transurfing and Neville Goddard both ask you to live a wished-for scene from inside; Neville credits imagination, Zeland an intention that selects a version already there. Neville’s books came first, from 1939; Transurfing followed from 2003. Below: dates, research and a five-minute practice built from what holds up.

Who came first, Neville Goddard or Vadim Zeland?

Neville Goddard came first by about sixty-five years: his first book appeared in 1939 and he died in 1972, while Transurfing began circulating in Russia in 2003 and reached print in 2004.

How do Transurfing and Neville Goddard compare, point by point?

Point by point, the two agree on the posture (calm, inward, as if already done) and disagree on the machinery, the sources and the role of effort.

Checked 10 November 2026 against Neville’s books and our concept pages. Versus the law of attraction: Transurfing compared.

What do the slide and the feeling of the wish fulfilled have in common?

The slide and the feeling of the wish fulfilled share three things: the scene is lived from inside, held without strain, and stands in for the result before it exists.

Neville tells readers to feel the wish fulfilled before sleep (Feeling Is the Secret, 1944), in a drowsy “state akin to sleep” (forums say SATS) where attention holds one scene without effort (Out of This World, 1949). In 1952 he writes that creation is finished and what you desire already exists, close to Zeland’s space of variants. A slide is a held image of the wanted situation, repeated until it feels ordinary, and lowering importance does the work of Neville’s drowsiness.

Where they part. For Neville the power is imagination itself, which he equates, after William Blake, with God in man; for Zeland it is outer intention, said to select among ready-made variants. On action, Neville writes (1954) that plans never make up for a lack of continuous imagination; Zeland grants that ordinary effort works but costs, and asks for outer intention instead. Only Neville has revision (1954, 1961); only Zeland has pendulums, an adversary outside you.

Both absorb failure. Neville writes (1952) that failing to hold the state has no bearing on the truth of the law; Transurfing blames importance kept too high. Neither can fail on its own terms, which Transurfing in practice warns about.

Did Vadim Zeland know or cite Neville Goddard?

We found no evidence that Vadim Zeland cites, names or drew on Neville Goddard; the resemblance is real, the borrowing is not documented.

On 10 November 2026 the search on zelands.ru and zelands.com found nothing for Neville’s name; web searches in three languages found only blogs, podcasts and forum posts pairing the two. An academic article on Transurfing (Pluzhnikova, 2011) names Castaneda and Louise Hay as kindred authors, not Neville. We have not read Zeland’s books in full.

One indirect route is on record. Margaret Runyan was reading Neville when she met Carlos Castaneda in 1955 and gave him one of his books, says her obituary (2012), and this site counts Castaneda in Russian translation among Transurfing’s ancestors. A possible path for ideas, not a documented one.

Do both come from New Thought or the Hermetica?

On our reading, both share the modern idea that inner states shape circumstances, which America called New Thought; neither descends from the ancient Hermetica, though Neville, unlike Zeland, quoted them.

Neville’s current publisher, DeVorss, shelves him as New Thought, the current of Atkinson’s law of attraction (1906) and the Kybalion (1908); Transurfing reverses that current’s advice to want harder (Transurfing and the Kybalion).

In Awakened Imagination (1954) Neville quotes Hermes three times, twice citing Walter Scott’s translation (Oxford, 1924): Poimandres (Corpus Hermeticum I.6) on the Word and Mind, and treatise XII (§12-14) on mind and speech. He reads them as a teaching that inner speech shapes circumstances; in treatise XII, mind and speech rightly used lead the soul to the gods. So Neville is a reader of the Hermetica, not a descendant, and the Bible stays his main text. Zeland names no Hermetic text (is Transurfing Hermetic?).

Both credit a source nobody can question. Neville names “my friend Abdullah”, with a lesson dated autumn 1933 (1954); beyond his word, Wikipedia says Abdullah also taught Joseph Murphy and cites a 1929 certificate signed “Abdoullah”. Zeland credits a keeper met in a dream (Step II, 2004) and later Tufti’s channel (2018).

What does research say about the mechanism both use?

Research supports the ordinary part of both, rehearsing a scene in your head, but not the version both teach: picturing the wished-for end tends to go with less effort, and picturing the steps helps more.

• Pham and Taylor, 1999. Introductory psychology students at UCLA spent the 5-7 days before their first midterm picturing either how they would study (5-7 minutes a day) or getting the grade. Picturing the process went with more and earlier studying and better grades; picturing the grade raised felt motivation, not studying (Taylor 2011). Not shown: anything beyond one exam.
• Oettingen and Mayer, 2002. Four studies, from job seekers to hip-surgery patients: pleasant fantasies about the goal predicted less effort and poorer results up to two years later; expecting success predicted more. Not shown: cause.
• Kappes and Oettingen, 2011. Four experiments, 343 US students: assigned positive fantasies lowered energy; in one (49 students), an imagined ideal week went with less done by its end. Not shown: long-term effects; partly self-reported.

Neither method has been tested as taught: PubMed had no record for “transurfing” on 10 November 2026. On our reading, the feeling of the wish fulfilled is close to the outcome imagery that did worst; whether the slide’s ordinariness softens that, nobody has measured. If-then plans raised goal attainment across 94 tests (d = 0.65; Gollwitzer and Sheeran 2006). In all of them what changes is the person’s own effort. We found no study of revision.

How can you use the best of both in five minutes?

Take the calm, inside-the-scene rehearsal both systems share, point it at the steps rather than the arrival, and end with a plan for the hardest moment.

1. Pick one scene (30 seconds). A real situation in the next two days, with a day and a time.
2. Lower the stakes on paper (30 seconds). Zeland’s importance, minus the metaphysics: write what you will do next if it goes badly.
3. Rehearse the process from inside (90 seconds). Eyes closed, drowsy but attentive, as Neville describes. Run the first minutes as an ordinary moment, the slide’s rule: what you do and say, not the applause.
4. Note where you stalled (60 seconds). The snag in the rehearsal is your obstacle. Write it down.
5. Write one if-then (60 seconds). “If [the snag], then I [one action].”
6. Optional, evening: revise. Replay one moment that went badly as you will handle it next time, Neville’s revision minus its claims.

Why it should help. Steps 3 and 5 follow the studies above; step 4 is our answer to the fantasy findings; steps 2 and 6 and the drowsy tone are the systems’ own and untested, as is the sequence.

Where it stops. It changes how you prepare and act, not what others decide.

What does this not promise?

Neither this page nor, on the evidence, either system can promise money, health, a partner or a shift to a better version of reality; the practice changes your preparation, not events you cannot reach.

• No reality shift. No study shows imagining moving events you cannot reach, or changing what already happened.
• Not a treatment. If worry or low mood is constant, or stops you sleeping or working, talk to a doctor or a licensed therapist.
• No ruling on belief. We date claims; we do not rate beliefs.

Next: the law of assumption; the same ground without either system, how to manifest, technically; the older question behind both, the dichotomy of control.

Key facts

Neville Goddard	1905-1972; first book 1939, At Your Command
Reality Transurfing	Online 2003; Steps I-V 2004-2005; Tufti 2018
Shared move	Live the wished-for scene from inside, without strain
Main difference	Neville: imagination, God in man; Zeland: intention
Direct link	None found: Zeland does not cite Neville in anything we read
Hermetica	Neville quotes Scott’s translation (1954); Zeland cites none
Tested	Neither as taught; process rehearsal beat outcome rehearsal (1999)
Checked	10 November 2026

Fair questions

Is Transurfing the same as Neville Goddard?

No. Both ask you to live a wished-for scene from inside and without strain, but Neville Goddard (1905-1972) credits imagination, which he calls God in man, while Vadim Zeland’s Transurfing (books from 2004) credits intention selecting one of many ready-made versions. Transurfing adds pendulums; Neville adds revision of the past.

Which is better, Neville Goddard or Transurfing?

This site does not rate beliefs. On the evidence, neither method has been tested as taught, and the part both share, picturing the end as already done, is the part research supports least; rehearsing the steps works better (Pham and Taylor 1999).

Did Vadim Zeland take Transurfing from Neville Goddard?

We found nothing showing that he did. Searches of Zeland’s official sites, including online texts of some books, return nothing for Neville’s name. Both share the modern idea that inner states shape events, so the likeness needs no borrowing.

Are Transurfing slides the same as Neville’s feeling of the wish fulfilled?

Close, but not the same. Both hold the wished-for scene as if it were already real; Neville stresses feeling it fulfilled in a drowsy state, Zeland stresses the image feeling ordinary and low in importance. Neither has been tested as taught.

Can you combine Neville Goddard and Transurfing?

Some readers do, judging by forum posts. The combination that holds up is narrow: rehearse the steps from inside, calmly and with low stakes, then write an if-then plan for the hardest moment. The five-minute version is on this page.

Sources & further reading

• Neville, Feeling Is the Secret (1944), Out of This World (1949), The Power of Awareness (1952; revised edition 1992), Awakened Imagination (1954), The Law and the Promise (1961): Internet Archive. Copyright status not settled; paraphrased.
• Walter Scott (ed. and trans.), Hermetica, vol. I (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1924), Libellus I §6 and XII §12-14: Internet Archive.
• “Neville Goddard”, Wikipedia, read 10 November 2026: dates; Joseph Murphy; the 1929 certificate, cited to the San Francisco Call Bulletin (not seen by us).
• Vadim Zeland, Step I (Ves, 2004), Russian State Library; Step II (Ves, 2004), record; Тафти жрица (Ves, 2018), record; 2003: zelands.ru. In copyright; not reproduced.
• No results, 10 November 2026: zelands.ru, “Годдард”, “Невилл”; zelands.com, “Goddard”.
• N. N. Pluzhnikova, Izvestiya VGPU 9 (63), 2011, pp. 28-32: CyberLeninka; p. 29: the keeper of ancient knowledge in Step II.
• Obituary of Margaret Runyan Castaneda, Bangor Daily News, 31 January 2012.
• L. B. Pham and S. E. Taylor, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 25 (2), 1999, pp. 250-260, DOI (abstract); S. E. Taylor, ‘Envisioning the future and self-regulation’, in M. Bar (ed.), Predictions in the Brain (Oxford University Press, 2011), manuscript.
• G. Oettingen and D. Mayer, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 83 (5), 2002, pp. 1198-1212, DOI, PubMed.
• H. B. Kappes and G. Oettingen, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 47 (4), 2011, pp. 719-729, DOI, LSE manuscript.
• P. M. Gollwitzer and P. Sheeran, Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 38 (2006), pp. 69-119, University of Konstanz.