Neville Goddard Ladder Technique: Steps and Real Origin

How to do the Neville Goddard ladder technique (step by step)

Step 1: At bedtime, lie down in a position you don't normally sleep in (left side instead of right) and close your eyes. It keeps you drowsy but still steering your attention.

Step 2: In your imagination, see a ladder right in front of you.

Step 3: Take hold of one side with your imaginary left hand, then the other side with your right.

Step 4: Place your imaginary left foot on the first rung.

Step 5: Push yourself up and climb to the top. Feel each rung under your feet and the wood or metal in your hands. You are the one climbing; you're not watching a video of yourself.

Step 6: Climb back down, then up again. Keep looping until it feels real, and let yourself fall asleep climbing.

Step 7: During the day, write on pieces of paper: I will not climb a ladder. Put them where you'll see them: wallet, mirror, phone lock screen.

Step 8: Every time you see a note, mean it. You will not climb a ladder. Not under any circumstances.

Step 9: Do this for three nights and three days.

Step 10: Then drop it. Don't go looking for ladders. Watch what happens over the next week or so.

That's the whole thing. The classic result: within days, someone hands you a reason to climb a ladder and you're halfway up before you remember your notes.

Where does the ladder technique come from?

The part Neville taught himself. In his 1948 class, Neville drew a sharp line between watching a scene and feeling yourself inside it. In Consciousness Is the Only Reality (Lesson 1) he tells the class: "The difference will be appreciated if you will now visualize yourself climbing a ladder." Then he asks them to close their eyes, imagine the ladder right in front of them, and feel themselves actually climbing it. He repeats the same exercise in Remain Faithful to Your Idea (Lesson 5), where he calls this difference "the difference between success and failure." It shows up again in his 1949 book Out of This World, in the chapter Thinking Fourth-Dimensionally.

The part Neville didn't write. The three nights, the odd sleeping position, the written notes, and the rule that you have to mean it all come from Elmer O. Locker Jr., a dance instructor who attended Neville's Los Angeles talks. Decades later, in a video interview his grandson posted on YouTube, Locker described Neville setting the challenge at a meeting and inviting back only the people who had climbed a ladder. Locker says he did it to prove Neville wrong. Then he visited his parents, his father called down from the roof for a bucket of paint, and Locker found himself halfway up a ladder.

Locker was a real student: Neville printed his written story in The Law and the Promise (chapter 4, "There Is No Fiction"). But that story is about Locker getting his own dance studio, not the ladder, whatever some sites claim. As far as anyone has found, the full experiment exists only in Locker's spoken account and the retellings since.

So: the imaginal act is pure Neville. The written-denial wrapper is a firsthand student memory that fits his teaching, but it isn't in his books or transcripts.

What is the point of the ladder experiment?

It's a low-stakes test. You don't care about ladders, so there's no desperation. And because your conscious will is openly against the result, you can't explain it away as something you made happen.

The lesson underneath is the one Neville repeated for decades: what you feel as true in imagination, especially as you fall asleep, outweighs what you tell yourself in words. He put it plainly in Assumptions Harden Into Fact (Lesson 2): "The sensation which dominates the mind of man as he falls asleep, though false, will harden into fact."

It isn't for manifesting a specific desire. It's practice. Once a ladder turns up, swap the ladder for a scene that would happen after your wish is fulfilled. That's SATS, the same drowsy, first-person method, aimed at something you actually want.

Why write I will not climb a ladder?

There's no transcript of Neville explaining it, so this is interpretation:

• Words vs. imagination. Saying "I won't" with your conscious mind all day is weaker than feeling yourself do it as you drift off. The experiment pits the two against each other on purpose.
• Proof against coincidence. If you were trying to climb a ladder, you'd find one. Refusing removes that excuse.
• The pink elephant effect. Reading the note makes you picture a ladder. This one is a later idea, not Neville's.

How long should you practice the ladder experiment?

Three nights, per Locker's account. Don't get superstitious about the number. What counts is that at least once, the climb feels so real you'd swear your hands are on the rails.

What if the ladder experiment doesn't work for me?

Don't panic. Check these first:

• Are you feeling yourself climb, or watching yourself from across the room? Neville was clear that watching is where most people go wrong.
• Are you doing it as you fall asleep, when you're drowsy but still in control of your attention?
• Did you actually drop it after three nights, or are you scanning every room for ladders?

If all three are yes and nothing happened, repeat it. Usually the climb just hasn't felt real yet. Imagination gets rusty; practice on silly scenes during the day, then come back.

If your bigger worry is that the law isn't working for you at all, read why manifestation might not be working. And if you want a second pair of eyes, describe exactly what you're imagining to NevilleAI. It will tell you where the scene is going wrong and cite the lecture passages behind its answer.

What to do next

• Turn the climb into a scene for your actual desire: SATS Neville Goddard technique, or get help building a SATS scene.
• Everyone is you pushed out: what does it mean?

Frequently asked questions

Did Neville Goddard create the ladder technique?

Partly. Neville taught the core exercise of feeling yourself climb a ladder instead of watching yourself, in his 1948 lessons and in Out of This World. The full experiment with the written notes comes from the recollection of his student E.O. Locker Jr. and isn't in Neville's books or lecture transcripts.

Is the ladder experiment in The Law and the Promise?

No. Locker's story in chapter 4 of The Law and the Promise is about getting his own dance studio. His ladder story comes from a much later video interview.

How many nights do you do the ladder technique?

Three nights, imagining the climb as you fall asleep, while writing and meaning that you won't climb one during the day. Then you drop it and don't go looking for ladders.

Why do you write that you won't climb a ladder?

To pit your conscious words against what you imagine as you fall asleep, and to rule out the idea that you went looking for a ladder. If you end up on one anyway, the imagined act won.

What should I do after the ladder experiment works?

Use the same method on something you want. Pick a scene that would happen after your wish is fulfilled and enter it in the same drowsy, first-person way. That's the SATS technique.