A Class in Miracles: New Frontiers in Mind Metaphysics

By Mitch Horowitz

You Are More Than You’ve Been Taught to Believe

In A Class in Miracles, acclaimed voice of esoteric spirituality Mitch Horowitz considers the dramatic steps forward in our understanding of the causative powers of thought—and what this means for you.

Mitch looks at some of the most extraordinary—even miraculous—recent developments in mind-body medicine, psychical research, and placebo studies and the lessons they hold for each of us. He does so with scrupulous responsibility but also a sense of endeavor and hope.

Mitch specifically considers how you can use meditation, directed thought, affirmations, and the natural suggestive cycles that your psyche enters twice daily.

A Class in Miracles also looks at the history—and unresolved predicaments—of mind metaphysics and how the field can grow. Mitch describes how spiritual seekers and researchers can merge their search for a new conception of human potential.

This succinct yet wide-ranging survey expands the possibilities of the human psyche.

“Horowitz affirms that every human being has the innate ability to bend reality toward a particular result…Encouraging exploration, he provides understanding, exercises, and tools to make our visualizations, affirmations, and prayers effective." ―Kristine Morris, Foreword Reviews

“Mitch Horowitz is a no-nonsense historian specializing in matters of metaphysics, New Thought, and the occult. His works don’t stop at mere description of these movements but often delve into method and experience, inviting readers to test the transformational potential of these waters for themselves. A trusted voice on esoteric topics…”—Unity Magazine

• Language: English
• Publisher: G&D Media
• Release date: Feb 15, 2022
• ISBN: 9781722526351

Mitch Horowitz

A widely known voice of esoteric ideas, Mitch Horowitz is a writer-in-residence at the New York Public Library, lecturer-in-residence at the University of Philosophical Research in Los Angeles, and the PEN Award-winning author of books including Occult America; One Simple Idea: How Positive Thinking Reshaped Modern Life; and The Miracle Club: How Thoughts Become Reality. Mitch introduces and edits G&D Media’s line of Condensed Classics and is the author of the Napoleon Hill Success Course series, including The Miracle of a Definite Chief Aim, The Power of the Master Mind, and Secrets of Self-Mastery. Visit him at MitchHorowitz.com. Mitch resides in New York.

Book preview

1

WHY NEW THOUGHT?

This book arose from my personal quest toward pursuing the path of mind metaphysics as a spiritual, ethical, personal pursuit. Are thoughts causative? Is mind metaphysics a path worthy of a serious individual? Is it a complete philosophy? Is it a philosophy that is just built around inspirational ideas and getting goodies, or is it a philosophy that is complete and whole and worthy of the life of a serious, thinking person?

These have been very hot questions for me over the course of many years of searching. I’ve been on the spiritual path, in some ways, all my life, as have you most likely.

I grew up in a traditional Jewish household in the borough of Queens in New York City. Ours was a kind of Archie Bunker Jewish household. I had an orthodox bar mitzvah at a small synagogue in the town of New Hyde Park. Bar mitzvahs in those days, at least in my neighborhood, were very different from what people are accustomed to today. If you’ve been to a bar or bat mitzvah lately, it might seem like the coronation of a adolescent king or queen. In many scenarios, a kid who’s thirteen years old, and excels in doing his or her homework and playing Xbox, stands up by the Torah and delivers a discourse on life. My bar mitzvah was in a synagogue about the size of a large living room. I was called up to read from the Torah, and after it was over, I walked over to the rabbi and he extended his hand to me and said, What was your name again? No one was the least bit interested in my philosophy of life.

The rabbi handed me a couple of books as gifts from the congregation. One of the books contained a Hebrew and English translation of a Talmudic tract called The Ethics of the Fathers. That book proved to be a huge source of guidance for me throughout my adolescent years and beyond. My home, like many homes, was broken apart by divorce, and there were financial disasters. But that little book was an enormous source of stability to me. It’s probably the most accessible book of the Talmud. It’s essentially aphorisms for living. Most of these aphorisms take the form of dialogues between a master and his students. The master would put questions to them as a teaching method, such as, What is the mark of a good man? Different disciples might say different things: A good neighbor, a good eye, a good name, and so on. One student said, A good heart. And the rabbi said, I approve of your words above everyone else’s, because theirs are contained within yours.

I read through this Talmudic book over and over—it is actually a digest of passages and speakers from the Talmud. And I realized that this wisdom that the late-ancient rabbis were attempting to preserve after the Jewish people were dispersed around the globe very often touched upon the idea of a good countenance, a good heart, a good neighbor, not speaking evil of another, not spreading tales. There were many, many other things that were ritualistically oriented in the Talmud. But the ethics of good living sounded a lot like what you will commonly find in New Thought or modern metaphysical literature.

As I got older, probably when I was in my 30s, I found that the congregational model of Judaism was no longer for me. I honored the liturgy. It went back to the Mid-dle Ages and you have to be a very insensitive person not to feel moved by the posterity of that liturgy. But it was, frankly, leaving me cold. I didn’t like the call-and- response form of worship that