My Journey through a Course in Miracles

By J.G. Morphis

"A Course in Miracles:" A personal journal through the teachings of the 'course' with personal opinions, insights, and conjecture from a long time student.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Mar 13, 2024
• ISBN: 9798890611048

Book preview

Table of Contents

Title

Copyright

Preface

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1

ACIM Narrative

The Meaning of Miracles

Principles of Miracles

Revelation, Time, and Miracles

Atonement and Miracles

The Escape from Darkness

Wholeness and Spirit

The Illusion of Needs

Distortion of Miracle Impulses

Chapter 2

The Separation and the Atonement

The Origins of Separation

Origins of separation from God

The Atonement as Defense

Altar of God

Healing as a Release from Fear

Function of the Miracle Worker

Special Principles of Miracle Workers

Fear and Conflict

Cause and Effect

Meaning of the Last Judgment

Chapter 3

the Innocent Perception

Atonement without Sacrifice

Miracles as True Perceptions

Perception versus Knowledge

Error and the Ego

Beyond Perception

Judgment and the Authority Problem

Creating versus Self-image

Chapter 4

The Illusions of the Ego

Right Teaching and Right Learning

The Ego and False Autonomy

Love without Conflict

This Need Not Be

The Ego-Body Illusion

The Rewards of God

Creation and Communication

Chapter 5

Healing and Wholeness

The Invitation to the Holy Spirit

The Voice for God

The Guide to Salvation

Teaching and Healing

The Ego's Use of Guilt

Time and Eternity

The Decision for God

Chapter 6

Lessons of Love

The Message of the Crucifixion

The Alternative to Projection

The Relinquishment of Attack

The Only Answer

The Lessons of the Holy Spirit

Chapter 7

The Gifts of the Kingdom

The Last Step

The Law of the Kingdom

The Reality of the Kingdom

Healing as a Recognition of Truth

Healing and the Changelessness of Mind

From Vigilance to Peace

The Totality of the Kingdom

The Unbelievable Belief

The Extension of the Kingdom

The Confusion of Pain and Joy

The State of Grace

Chapter 8

The Journey Back

The Direction of this Curriculum

The Difference between Imprisonment and Freedom

The Holy Encounter

The Gift of Freedom

The Undivided Will of the Sonship

The Treasure of God

The Body as a Means of Communication

The Body as Means or End

Healing as Corrected Perception

Chapter 9

The Acceptance of the Atonement

The Acceptance of Reality

The Answer to Prayer

The Correction of Error

The Holy Spirit's Plan for Forgiveness

The Unhealed Healer

The Acceptance of Your Brother

The Two Evaluations

Grandeur verses Grandiosity

Chapter 10

The Idols of Sickness

At Home in God

The Decision to Forget

The God of Sickness

The End of Sickness

The Denial of God

Chapter 11

God or the Ego

The Gifts of Fatherhood

The Invitation to Healing

From Darkness to Light

The Inheritance of God's Son

The Dynamics of the Ego

Waking to Redemption

The Condition of Reality

The Problem and the Answer

Chapter 12

The Holy Spirit's Curriculum

The Judgment of the Holy Spirit

The Way to Remember God

The Investment in Reality

Seeking and Finding

The Sane Curriculum

The Vision of Christ

Looking Within

The Attraction of Love for Love

Chapter 13

The Guiltless World

Guiltlessness and Invulnerability

The Guiltless Son of God

The Fear of Redemption

The Function of Time

The Two Emotions

Finding the Present

Attainment of the Real World

From Perception to Knowledge

The Cloud of Guilt

Release from Guilt

The Peace of Heaven

Chapter 14

Teaching for Truth

The Conditions of Learning

The Happy Learner

The Decision for Guiltlessness

Your Function in the Atonement

The Circle of Atonement

The Light of Communication

Sharing Perception with the Holy Spirit

The Holy Meeting Place

The Reflection of Holiness

The Equality of Miracles

The Test of Truth

Chapter 15

The Holy Instant

The Two Uses of Time

The End of Doubt

Littleness versus Magnitude

Practicing the Holy Instant

The Holy Instant and Special Relationships

The Holy Instant and the Laws of God

The Needless Sacrifice

The Only Real Relationship

The Holy Instant and the Attraction of God

The Time of Rebirth

Christmas as the End of Sacrifice

Chapter 16

The Forgiveness of Illusions

True Empathy

The Power of Holiness

The Reward of Teaching

The Illusion and the Reality of Love

The Choice for Completion

The Bridge to the Real World

The transition from illusions to truth

The End of Illusions

Chapter 17

Forgiveness and the Holy Relationship

Bringing Fantasy to Truth

The Forgiven World

Shadows of the Past

The Two Pictures

The Healed Relationship

Setting the Goal

The Call for Faith

The Conditions of Peace

Chapter 18

the Passing of the Dream

The Substitute Reality

The Basis of the Dream

Light in the Dream

The Little Willingness

The Happy Dream

Beyond the Body

I Need do Nothing

The Little Garden

Analogy of the separated body from the Whole (God)

The Two Worlds

The following is an analogy of dark clouds as hidden guilt

The real world

Chapter 19

The Attainment of Peace

Healing and Faith

Sin verses Error

The Unreality of Sin

The Obstacles to Peace

The Attraction of Guilt

Extreme ego analogy relating to guilt and sin fed by fear

The Holy Spirit's messengers

The Attraction of Pain

The Incorruptible Body

The Lifting of the Veil

Chapter 20

The Vision of Holiness

Holy Week

The Gift of Lilies

Sin as an Adjustment

Entering the Ark

Heralds of Eternity

The Temple of the Holy Spirit

The Consistency of Means and End

The Vision of Sinlessness

Chapter 21

Reason and Perception

The Forgotten Song

The Responsibility for Sight

Faith, Belief, and Vision

The Fear to Look Within

The Function of Reason

Reason versus Madness

The Last Unanswered Question

Analogy of reason verses the insanity of the ego

The Inner Shift

Chapter 22

Salvation and the Holy Relationship

The Message of the Holy Relationship

Analogy of the infancy of the holy relationship

Your Brother's Sinlessness

Reason and Forms of Error

The Branching of the Road

Weakness and Defensiveness

The Light of the Holy Relationship

Chapter 23

The War against Yourself

The Irreconcilable Beliefs

The Laws of Chaos

Salvation without Compromise

Above the Battleground

Chapter 24

the Goal of Specialness

Specialness as a Substitute for Love

The Treachery of Specialness

The Forgiveness of Specialness

Specialness versus Sinlessness

The Christ in You

Salvation from Fear

The Meeting Place

Analogy of specialness as substitute for God and your brother

The body as an image of specialness

Chapter 25

The Justice of God

The Link to Truth

The Savior from the Dark

Perception and Choice

The Light You Bring

The State of Sinlessness

The Special Function

The Rock of Salvation

Justice Returned to Love

The Justice of Heaven

Chapter 26

The Transition

The Sacrifice of Oneness

Many Forms; One Correction

The Borderland

Where Sin has Left

The Little Hindrance

The Appointed Friend

Review

The Laws of Healing

The Immediacy of Salvation

For They Have Come

The End of Injustice

Chapter 27

The Healing of the Dream

The Picture of Crucifixion

The Fear of Healing

Beyond All Symbols

The Quiet Answer

The Healing Example

The Witnesses to Sin

The Dreamer of the Dream

Analogy of a dreamworld (separation)

The Illustration of Cause and Effect

The Hero of the Dream

The cause

The Illustration of Cause and Effect Continued

Chapter 28

The Undoing of Fear

The Present Memory

Reversing Effect and Cause

The journey out of fear

The Agreement to Join

The Greater Joining

The Alternate to Dreams of Fear

The Secret Vows

The Ark of Safety

Chapter 29

The Awakening

The Closing of the Gap

The Coming of the Guest

God's Witnesses

Dream Roles

The Changeless Dwelling Place

Forgiveness and the End of Time

Seek Not Outside Yourself

The Antichrist

The Forgiving Dream

Judgment and the need for idols to maintain separation

The idol maker and the idols analogy

The real world without idols and judgment

Chapter 30

The New Beginning

Rules for Decision

Freedom of Will

Beyond All Idols

The Truth Behind Illusions

Idols as toys—separation analogy

The Only Purpose

The Justification for Forgiveness

The New Interpretation

Changeless Reality

Chapter 31

The Final Vision

The Simplicity of Salvation

Walking with Christ

Review

Review continued

The Self-Accused

Review continued

The Real Alternative

Review continued

Self-Concept versus Self

Recognizing the Spirit

The Savior's Vision

Choose Once Again

Appendix

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My Journey through a Course in Miracles

J.G. Morphis

Copyright © 2023 John Morphis

All rights reserved

First Edition

NEWMAN SPRINGS PUBLISHING

320 Broad Street

Red Bank, NJ 07701

First originally published by Newman Springs Publishing 2023

ISBN 979-8-89061-103-1 (Paperback)

ISBN 979-8-89061-104-8 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Preface

Raised in the Catholic religion with a very strong maternal influence regards the church, I became rather disillusioned with Catholicism in my teens. While my belief in God and Christ was very strong, I could not envision a path to reach them through the Catholic religion. I strayed away from the church and meandered aimlessly for the next ten to fifteen years. I sought truth in many forms and found no palpable answers.

In my late twenties, I was introduced to ACIM through some spiritual seminars, and it was then that I believed that I had found the truth that I had been seeking.

I proceeded to read the entire text and become completely confused, and while I seemed to grasp some of the concepts, I was also rather fearful of what the text revealed. I felt that I really didn't understand the basic concepts presented in the text; never mind the workbook lessons or the Manual for Teachers.

While I was intrigued with the concepts overall, I could not put them in an orderly fashion or begin to organize them in my mind.

I reluctantly laid the book aside and continued on toward life with maybe a mildly different perspective. Life goes on, and so do all the complications and travails that follow along the way. Because life goes on, so does growth, both spiritually and mentally, through experience.

Once again I returned to the ACIM, and this time, I slowly and methodically read the entire text again, underlining nearly every passage. This was how important I perceived the truth in this book. However, I was still immersed in a fog without really understanding the entire message that was being given to me.

I began the workbook lessons to better understand what the text was revealing. This resulted in a failed attempt at completing them. I could not concentrate on the workbook lessons because I felt that I was not achieving the results that the lessons purport to reveal. I think I made it up to lesson 265 before I just gave up.

There is a passage in the text which says something to the effect that each person in his/her own time will recognize that there must be a better way. And when this occurs, this will allow the Holy Spirit to begin the task of opening your mind to the truth.

On my third reading of the text, it all of sudden made complete sense to me, and I was astounded at how simple it really was to grasp (or so I thought). Still it required extensive study and meditation. I began to follow up study of the text with the workbook lessons.

I will not elaborate on my further adventures with ACIM study and my repetitious practicing of the workbook lessons. Suffice it to say that I was in my late twenties when this journey began, and now I am nearing seventy years on the planet. I will continue forward with this journey until such time as I am no longer physically able to continue.

This course is not a requisite, and it is not for everybody. While the truth is the truth, it seems as though we have devised many ways and forms to reach for it. I personally believe that each of us finds the truth in his/her own way and time.

The whole purpose of this manuscript is simply to assist future students of ACIM to get a better grasp at the outset and to, perhaps, clarify some portions of the work that are difficult to understand.

This is the message of A Course in Miracles:

If you examine the initial chapter of the text, The Meaning of Miracles, herein is the entire blueprint of the text laid out. Literally every aspect of these fifty meanings of miracles is addressed in the text. It took me almost forty years to figure this out! This chapter also addresses the Atonement and its conditions.

As you proceed further along through chapters 2 through 4, the origins of the separation from God are addressed, as well as the consequences for the separation, not by God, but by us. Also discussed is the Atonement and the conditions of its attainment. The principles of miracle workers. Cause and effect are briefly touched upon. The meaning of the Last Judgment. Perception versus knowledge. Consciousness as the domain of the ego. The illusions of the ego. The ego-body illusion and ego autonomy.

Chapter 5 illustrates the fact that the Holy Spirit is the voice for God. It explains the unification of Christ and the Holy Spirit as one mind, helping us to recognize that the Holy Spirit is the manifestation of Christ in our minds. The Holy Spirit as the guide to salvation through teaching. It expounds on the ego's use of guilt to maintain a state of fear.

Chapter 6 outlines the true message of the crucifixion, whereby Christ transcends the ego and all its works and places sole emphasis on resurrection. This chapter also illustrates how the Holy Spirit can use what we have made for the purposes of salvation. Explanation of the split mind. Perception and projection.

Chapter 7 delves into the actions of the Holy Spirit in reference to our spiritual growth and the function of healing. This chapter also explores the logic of the ego and how the mind correlates to its existence. The Holy Spirit explains the Atonement as the undoing of the ego. Further explanation of projection and its effects.

Chapter 8 leads us to the curriculum's direction. Uniting with our brother and finding your true self. Recognizing a holy encounter and what it entails. Understanding how we view the body and what it should actually be used for. Healed perception.

Chapter 9 directs us to acceptance of the Atonement and its conditions. Recognition of the ego as insanity. Acceptance of your brother. Accepting reality. The medium of prayer. The Holy Spirit's plan for forgiveness. The manifestations of the ego.

Chapter 10 deals with dissociation and the idols of sickness. Manifestations of the ego. The god of sickness. The religion of the ego.

Chapter 11 confronts the question, God or the ego? Two thought systems. Conflict. Further expose on the illusions of the ego and a vast number of its devices. Enabling your mind to learn what salvation is.

Chapter 12 provides an explanation of how we use dissociation. How to learn to give up all impure thoughts to the Holy Spirit. How the mind sees a divided world outside itself but not within. Recognizing truth. Every loving thought is true, everything else is a call for healing and help. Remembering God. The ego's search for love. Using miracles in all situations.

Chapter 13 explains the origins of guilt and the method of release. Living in the past versus attainment of the real world. Your fear of attack compared to your fear of redemption. Time versus eternity. The difference between love and fear. The consequences of guilt and the release from guilt.

Chapter 14 presents the curriculum of the Holy Spirit. How the Holy Spirit teaches for truth and the conditions of learning from the Holy Spirit. Your function in the Atonement. Learning that you know nothing and must be taught anew.

Chapter 15 is devoted to the Holy Spirit's most powerful learning device, the holy instant. Also covers the holy instant and the laws of God. The ego's use of time and its goal of death. The ego's illusion of love. The holy instant and special relationships. The special love relationship. Practicing the holy instant.

Chapter 16 defines and illustrates the special relationship. The ego's use of guilt in the special relationship. How the special relationship translates into the unholy relationship. Specialness and sacrifice in the special relationship.

Chapter 17 centers on forgiveness and the holy relationship. It also includes Atonement principles centered on separation origins. Setting goals. Means and end defined.

Chapter 18 revolves around substitutions that we use especially in relation to the original error of separation. Separation origins. Substitution as a defense of separation. Substitution of fear for love. Dream states as substitutes for reality.

Chapter 19 tackles understanding sin versus error. The obstacles to peace. The attraction of guilt and pain. The attraction of death. The belief the body is valuable for what it offers. The belief that the body is really salvation. Failure to understand that the body, of itself, has no goals. The illusion of sin. The fear of God. The strength of union with your brother in the holy relationship.

Chapter 20 deals with the ego's use of sin as an adjustment. The ego believes that all relationships require adjustments. The world believes in sin, but the belief is not outside you, it is in your mind. Recognition that the power to be hurt comes from you. You give power as the laws of this world dictate. The belief that when you give, you lose.

Chapter 21 discusses reason and perception. The function of reason. Helplessness as sin's condition. Analogy of reason versus the insanity of the ego's thought system.

Chapter 22 explains salvation and the holy relationship. The difference between vision and what the brain is used for. The analogy of the infancy of the holy relationship. Defending illusions. Reason and forms of error. Understanding that there is no sin.

Chapter 23 is about the war against yourself. The belief that the body, the ego's chosen home, is also yours. The chaotic laws of the ego that rule this world and to which we adhere. The fear of God that translates to the fear of life. Salvation and compromise.

Chapter 24 delves into the goal of specialness. Specialness as the original error that led to the separation from God. Specialness as a substitute for love. Specialness versus sinlessness. The body as an image of specialness.

Chapter 25 centers on the forgiveness of illusions. The mind of Christ working through you as one mind. Perception and fear. The continuous pursuit of failure versus the recognition of spirit. Perception and choice. Sinlessness explained. The laws of God versus perception. The Holy Spirit and salvation.

Chapter 26 is about the transition. Sacrifice explained. The principles of gain and loss and how they apply to ego-related thinking. The miracle of justice. The laws of healing. The borderland to the real world.

Chapter 27 discusses the healing of the dream. Understanding that sacrifice is total. The picture of the crucifixion that you use to accuse your brother. Understanding that a brother's attack justifies a fear of healing in your mind. The symbol of your brother as nothing. Solving all problems in the holy instant. Healing by example. The body as a witness to sin. The dream world analogy. The body as the hero of the dream. The illustration of cause and effect.

Chapter 28 is all about the journey out of fear. The illustration of cause and effect continued. The little gap in conjunction with the secret vows. Reversing cause and effect. Forgiveness as the means whereby the truth is temporarily represented.

Chapter 29 explains the awakening. The closing of the gap. The arrival of the guest (Holy Spirit). Your brothers as God's witnesses. Slaves of idols. The Antichrist. The real world.

Chapter 30 paves the way for the new beginning. The rules for decision. Changing thought patterns. Beyond all idols.

Chapter 31 tackles the Final vision. Review of all concepts. Walking with Christ. Recognizing choice.

In conclusion, A Course in Miracles offers a unique vision of salvation and is narrated by Jesus Christ in the first person. Christ is adamant in His narrative that there are many ways to God, and the truth, and that this is but one of those choices.

Religion is spoken of and alluded to in the text of ACIM. It is neither condemned nor praised. In fact, many biblical passages are reference and explained. I have highlighted these references in bold italics.

All commentary by the author (me) is in bold script in parentheses. These are my personal observations and little reminders to myself to help me navigate more-difficult-to-understand passages of the text of ACIM. If they help you to better understand the text, so be it.

Some passages and sentences have been written in bold script. This is to put extra emphasis on these statements as they relate to the theme being presented.

My intent with this abridged manuscript of the text of ACIM is to help future students seek out the actual volume and begin their own journey.

Perhaps not fully explained in this forward is the necessity for the workbook and the 365 lessons that directly follows the text. The lessons are what initiates the thought reversal that leads to a complete change in the way we view both the world and our brothers.

I have interposed various lessons that pertain to specific portions of the narrative. They are taken from the workbook and are, by no means, all the lessons. The selections I have chosen are merely a daily meditation without the complete explanation behind each lesson. One would have to read the full scope of the lesson in the workbook to capture it in its entirety.

While I continually repeated practicing the lessons, I finally realized that only by incorporating them into my beliefs and assimilating them into everyday situations and interactions could they really have any effect. At some point our Christ mind must be recognized.

A very important passage in the text relates that we have the same mind as Christ and therefore, we are able to heal in the same way as Christ did. The chapter dealing with the unhealed healer clearly discusses this.

Finally, there is the Manual for Teachers. This book covers many of the concepts in the text and offers a good picture of what substantiates a miracle worker. Many of the concepts alluded to in the narrative are further explained.

While the preface for ACIM states that there is no order in which the text, workbook, or Manual for Teachers should be studied, it has been my experience that without first studying the concepts presented in the narrative, the other sections of the ACIM may be rather difficult to fully comprehend.

Miracles honor you because you are lovable. They dispel illusions about yourself and perceive the light in you. They thus atone for all your errors by freeing you from your nightmares. By releasing your mind from the imprisonment of your illusions, they restore your sanity. (from page three of the narrative)

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to gratefully acknowledge the Foundation for Inner Peace and the 1985 publication of A Course in Miracles, which was instrumental in the completion of this book.

Introduction

This is a course in miracles. It is a required course. When first I read these words some thirty-eight years ago, it was the beginning of a journey to the truth for me.

My best friend and I both had purchased the volumes and began to read and read and read. It made absolutely no sense and was a very difficult read. Soon thereafter, we both put the book aside. It would be several years later that I would again, this time by myself, endeavor to read the text.

Circumstances in my life at the time were complicated, and I was quite literally at my wits end. When I turned again to the course, it all of a sudden began to make sense, and I could understand its message. I read the entire text underlining practically every line with ink. Consequently, after finishing the text, I began the workbook, the 365 lessons aimed at thought reversal and an embracing of the Holy Spirit.

Apparently, I was not yet ready for the vision that the workbook attempts to impart by following the lessons and I never finished them.

Time passed and my world continued unbroken as before but perhaps with a dim inkling of something greater than myself. Once again I reread the text and began the workbook. This time I actually finished all the lessons but was left with mostly confusion.

At this point I began again with the text and wrote several versions of what I thought that it was trying to convey. This led to a more involved reading of the text and once again following the lessons of the workbook.

As I worked through the lessons, I began to assess some of the issues in my personal relationships and after applying some of what I had learned from the workbook, I started to make some progress with anger and guilt that had insinuated itself into my personal relationships.

I am currently in the process of working through the workbook for a fourth time. After intense and ongoing study of the text and workbook, I felt the need to compile a manuscript dedicated to the teachings of A Course in Miracles for anyone who desires to familiarize themselves with the teaching.

As I mentioned earlier, the course is a difficult read and what I have actually compiled is my own abridged version of the text from A Course in Miracles.

This abridged version is in no way meant to undermine or supersede the original text from A Course in Miracles. It is merely a condensed version of the original text with my own personal insights interjected in different areas throughout the manuscript.

Bear in mind that these are my own personal insights and conjecture and should be received as such. These insights have been arrived at by my own thorough study and are aimed at offering my suggestions of the meanings that I have arrived at based upon what the course has taught to me. If it makes your understanding of it helpful, then so be it.

I have compiled it in hopes that it will lead other potential students to read the original text perhaps using this version as an outline or study guide.

I offer it as merely my gateway to A Course in Miracles.

What is says:

The text lays the groundwork for the journey into fear that we have chosen. It offers the answer to release from this journey through the vision of the Holy Spirit. However, in my opinion, it is the workbook that defines the journey out of fear with the help of the Holy Spirit.

It offers solutions for a way back to God with the help of the comforter Christ left the world upon His ascension to Heaven.

The workbook is essential because it is the beginning of the thought reversal that the Holy Spirit uses to undo all errors.

Future miracle workers; refer to The Manual for Teachers in the course for additional valuable insights and further explanations of the teachings of A Course in Miracles.

Notes:

For those unfamiliar with the course, it must be noted that the text from ACIM is authored by Jesus Christ and is narrated in the first person (ref. How It Came, from the preface of ACIM).

I have taken the liberty of compiling my manuscript in the third person for obvious reasons.

Additionally, the text is written in the masculine sense. For those persons who find this offensive, feel free to substitute your own pronouns accordingly.

All my personal insights and commentary are in parentheses, in bold. Certain passages from The Manual for Teachers are quoted in gray script in parentheses.

Various explained verses from the Bible are in bold italics.

The use of (HS) in bold is to acknowledge that the Holy Spirit is being referred to. It is at times vaguely confusing as to Who is being referred to. That is the justification of this acronym.

My personal edition of A Course in Miracles was published in 1985, and I realize that updates and possibly further editing has been completed in later versions. Keep this in mind in your reading.

Lastly, the punctuation in my version of A Course in Miracles leaves something to be desired, and perhaps this is the reason that the reading of the original text has been difficult. I have adjusted the punctuation accordingly in my narrative.

All information taken from the course is documented in the appendix. The acronym ACIM will be used to refer to the A Course in Miracles.

I wish you the peace of God.

Chapter 1

ACIM Narrative

The Meaning of Miracles

Principles of Miracles

There is no order of difficulty in miracles. One is not harder or bigger than another. They are all the same. All expressions of love are maximal.

Miracles as such do not matter. The only thing that matters is their Source, which is far beyond evaluation.

Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love. The real miracle is the love that inspires them. In this sense everything that comes from love is a miracle.

All miracles mean life, and God is the Giver of life. His voice will direct you very specifically. You will be told all you need to know.

Miracles are habits and should be involuntary. They should not be under conscious control. Consciously selected miracles can be misguided.

Miracles are natural. When they do not occur, something has gone wrong.

Miracles are everyone's right, but purification is necessary first.

Miracles are healing because they supply a lack; they are performed by those who temporarily have more for those who temporarily have less.

Miracles are a kind of exchange. Like all expressions of love, which are always miraculous in the true sense, the exchange reverses the physical laws. They bring more love both to the giver and the receiver.

The use of miracles as spectacles to induce belief is a misunderstanding of their purpose.

Prayer is the medium of miracles. It is a means of communication of the created with the Creator. Through prayer love is received, and through miracles love is expressed.

Miracles are thoughts. Thoughts can represent the lower or bodily level of experience, or the higher or spiritual level of experience. One makes the physical and the other creates the spiritual.

Miracles are both beginnings and endings, and so they alter the temporal order. They are always affirmations of rebirth, which seem to go back, but really go forward. They undo the past in the present and thus release the future.

Miracles bear witness to the truth. They are convincing because they arise from conviction. Without conviction they deteriorate into magic, which is mindless and therefore destructive, or rather, the uncreative use of mind.

Each day should be devoted to miracles. The purpose of time is to enable you to learn how to use time constructively. It is thus a teaching device and a means to end time. Time will cease when it is no longer useful in facilitating learning.

Miracles are teaching devices for demonstrating it is as blessed to give as to receive. They simultaneously increase the strength of the giver and supply strength to the receiver.

Miracles transcend the body. They are sudden shifts into invisibility, away from the bodily level. That is why they heal.

A miracle is a service. It is the maximal service you can render to another. It is a way of loving your neighbor as yourself. You recognize your own and your neighbor's worth simultaneously.

Miracles make minds one in God. They depend on cooperation because the Sonship is the sum of all that God created. Miracles therefore reflect the laws of eternity, not of time.

Miracles reawaken the awareness that the spirit, not the body, is the altar of truth. This is the recognition that leads to the healing power of the miracle.

Miracles are natural signs of forgiveness. Through miracles you accept God's forgiveness by extending it to others.

Miracles are associated with fear only because of the belief that darkness can hide. You believe that what your physical eyes cannot see does not exist. This leads to a denial of spiritual sight.

Miracles rearrange perception and place all levels in true perspective. This is healing because sickness comes from confusing the levels.

Miracles enable you to heal the sick and raise the dead because you made sickness and death yourself and can therefore abolish both. You are a miracle, capable of creating in the likeness of your Creator. Everything else is your own nightmare and does not exist. Only the creations of light are real.

Miracles are part of an interlocking chain of forgiveness which when completed, is the Atonement. Atonement works all the time and in all the dimensions of time.

Miracles represent freedom from fear. Atoning means undoing. The undoing of fear is an essential part of the Atonement value of miracles.

A miracle is a universal blessing from God through Christ to His brothers. It is the privilege of the forgiven to forgive.

Miracles are a way of earning release from fear. Revelation induces a state in which fear has already been abolished. Miracles are thus a means and revelation is an end.

Miracles praise God through you. They praise Him by honoring His creation, affirming their perfection. They heal because they deny body-identification and affirm spirit-identification.

By recognizing spirit, miracles adjust the levels of perception and show them in proper alignment. This places spirit at the center where it can communicate directly.

Miracles should inspire gratitude, not awe. You should thank God for what you really are. The children of God are holy, and the miracle honors their holiness, which can be hidden but never lost.

Christ inspires all miracles, which are really intercessions. They intercede for your holiness and make your perceptions holy. By placing you beyond the physical laws they raise you into the sphere of celestial order. In this order, you are perfect.

Miracles honor you because you are lovable. They dispel illusions about yourself and perceive the light in you. They thus atone for all your errors by freeing you from your nightmares. By releasing your mind from the imprisonment of your illusions, they restore your sanity.

Miracles restore the mind to its fullness. By atoning for lack they establish perfect protection. The spirit's strength leaves no room for intrusions.

Miracles are expressions of love, but they may not always have observable effects.

Miracles are examples of right thinking, aligning your perception with truth as God created it.

A miracle is a correction introduced into false thinking by Christ. It acts as a catalyst, breaking up erroneous perception and reorganizing it properly. This places you under the Atonement principle, where perception is healed. Until this has occurred, knowledge of the Divine Order is impossible.

The Holy Spirit is the mechanism of miracles. He recognizes both God's creations and your illusions. He separates the true from the false by His ability to perceive totally rather than selectively.

The miracle dissolves error because the Holy Spirit identifies error as false or unreal. This is the same as saying that by perceiving light, darkness automatically disappears.

The miracle acknowledges everyone as your brother and Christ's. It is a way of perceiving the universal mark of God.

Wholeness is the perceptual concept of miracles. They thus, correct, or atone for the faulty perception of lack.

A major contribution of miracles is their strength in releasing you from your false sense of isolation, deprivation, and lack.

The miracles arise from a miracle state of mind or a state of miracle-mindedness.

The miracle is an expression of an inner awareness of Christ and the acceptance of His Atonement.

A miracle is never lost. It may touch people you have not even met and produce undreamed-of changes in situations of which you are not even aware.

The Holy Spirit is the highest communication medium. Miracles do not involve this type of communication, because they are temporary communication devices. When you return to your original form of communication with God by direct revelation, the need for miracles is over.

The miracle is a learning device that lessens the need for time. It establishes an out-of-pattern time interval not under the usual laws of time. In this sense it is timeless.

The miracle is the only device at your immediate disposal for controlling time. Only revelation transcends it, having nothing to do with time at all.

The miracle makes no distinctions among degrees of misperception. It is a device for perception-correction, effective quite apart from either the degree or direction of the error. This is its true indiscriminateness.

The miracle compares what you have made with creation, accepting what is in accord with it as true, and rejecting what is out of accord as false. (1,2,3,4)

Revelation, Time, and Miracles

Revelation reflects the original form of communication between God and His creations. Revelation induces complete but temporary suspension of doubt and fear. It reflects the original form of communication between God and His creations, involving the extremely personal sense of creation sometimes sought in special relationships. Physical closeness cannot achieve it. Miracles, However, are genuinely interpersonal and result in true closeness to others.

Revelation unites you with God. Miracles unite you directly with your brother. Neither emanates from consciousness, but both are experienced there. Consciousness is the state that induces action, though it does not inspire it. You are free to believe what you choose and what you do attests to what you believe.

Revelation is intensely personal and cannot be meaningfully translated. Revelation induces only experience. Miracles, on the other hand, induce action.

In this phase of learning, working miracles is important because freedom from fear cannot be thrust upon you. Revelation is literally unspeakable because it is an experience of unspeakable love. Awe should be reserved for revelation, to which it is perfectly and correctly applicable. It is not appropriate for miracles because a state of awe is worshipful, implying that one of a lesser order stands before his Creator.

The miracle is, therefore, a sign of love among equals. Equals should not be in awe of one another because awe implies inequality. It is, therefore, an appropriate reaction to Christ. An elder brother is entitled to respect for his greater experience and obedience for his greater wisdom. He is also entitled to love because he is a brother, and to devotion if he is devoted.

There is nothing about Christ that you cannot attain. He has nothing that does not come from God. The difference between you and Christ now is that He has nothing else.

"No man cometh unto the Father but by Me" does not mean that Christ in any way is separate or different from you except in time, and time does not really exist. The statement is more meaningful in terms of vertical rather than a horizontal axis. It represents a vertical plane—in the process of rising, Christ stands below the Father, but above us. Christ is higher because without Him the distance between God and man would be too great for us to encompass.

Christ's devotion to his brothers has placed Him in charge of the Sonship, which He renders complete because He shares it. Christ's devotion to us has placed Him in charge of the Sonship.

This may appear to contradict the statement Christ and the Father are one, but there are two parts to the statement in recognition that the Father is greater.

Revelations are directly inspired by Christ because He is close to the Holy Spirit and alert to the revelation-readiness of His brothers. He can thus bring down to them more than they can draw down to themselves. The Holy Spirit mediates higher to lower communication, keeping the direct channel from God to you open for revelation.

Revelation is not reciprocal, it proceeds from God to you, but not from you to God.

Miracles reunite you with your brother. Miracles minimize the need for time. The miracle substitutes for learning that might have taken thousands of years. It does so by the underlying recognition of perfect equality of giver and receiver on which the miracle rests. Thus, does the miracle collapse time. (4,5,6)

Atonement and Miracles

Christ is in charge of the Atonement, which He undertook to begin. When you offer a miracle to any of your brothers, you do it to yourself and Christ. The reason that you come before Christ is that He does not need miracles for His own Atonement, but He stands at the end in case you fail temporarily.

Christ's part in the Atonement is that He cancels out all errors that you could not otherwise correct. When you have been restored to the recognition of your original state, you naturally become part of the Atonement yourself. As you share Christ's unwillingness to accept error in yourself and others, you must join the crusade to correct it. Listen to His (Christ's) Voice, learn to undo error, and act to correct it.

The power to work miracles belongs to you. Christ will provide the opportunities to do them (every interaction with any brother is an opportunity), but you must be ready and willing. Doing them will bring conviction in the ability because conviction comes through accomplishment. The ability is the potential, the achievement its expression, and the Atonement, which is the natural profession of the children of God, is the purpose.

Heaven and Earth shall pass away literally means they will no longer exist as separate states.

Christ's word, which is the resurrection and the life, shall not pass away because life is eternal. The forgiven are the means of the Atonement, being filled with spirit, they forgive in return. Those who are released must join in releasing their brothers, for this is the plan of the Atonement.

Miracles are the way in which minds that serve the Holy Spirit unite with Christ for the salvation or release of all God's creations.

Christ is the only one who can perform miracles indiscriminately, because He is the Atonement. You have a role in the Atonement which Christ will dictate to you. Ask of Christ which miracles you should perform. This spares you needless effort because you will be acting under direct communication.

The impersonal nature of the miracle is the essential ingredient because it enables Christ to direct its application, and under His guidance miracles lead to the highly personal experience of revelation.

Lead us not into temptation means recognize your errors and choose to abandon them by following the guidance of Christ.

Error cannot threaten truth, which can always withstand it. Only the error is actually vulnerable. You are free to establish your kingdom where you see fit, but the right choice is inevitable if you remember this:

Spirit is in a state of grace forever. Your reality is only spirit; therefore, you are in a state of grace forever.

Atonement undoes all errors in this respect, and thus, uproots the source of fear. Whenever you experience God's reassurances as threat, it is always because you are defending misplaced or misdirected loyalty. When you project this to others you imprison them, but only to the extent to which you reinforce errors they have already made.

You respond to what you perceive—As you perceive, so shall you behave. You cannot follow the golden rule unless you perceive correctly. The golden rule asks that you do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This means the perception of both must be accurate (right-minded perception). You cannot behave appropriately unless you perceive correctly.

Miracles arise from a mind that is ready for them. Being united, this mind goes out to everyone, even without the awareness of the miracle worker himself. The impersonal nature of miracles is because the Atonement itself is one, uniting all creations with their Creator.

As an expression of what you really are, the miracle places the mind in a state of grace. The mind naturally recognizes the Host within and the stranger without. When you bring in the stranger, he becomes your brother.

That the miracle may have effects on your brother that you may not recognize is not your concern. The miracle will always bless you. Miracles you are not asked to perform have not lost their value. They are still expressions of your own state of grace, but the action aspect of the miracle should be controlled by Christ because of His complete awareness of the whole plan.

The impersonal nature of miracle-mindedness ensures your grace, but only Christ is in a position to know where they can be bestowed. Since the miracle aims at restoring the awareness of reality, it should not be useful if it were bound by laws that govern the error it aims to correct. (6,7,8)

The Escape from Darkness

The escape from darkness involves two stages:

First—Recognizing that darkness cannot hide. This usually entails fear.

Second—Recognition that there is nothing that you want to hide even if you could. Brings escape from fear.

Holiness can never be hidden in darkness, but you can deceive yourself about it and this deception makes you fearful because you realize in your heart that it is deception, and you exert enormous efforts to establish its reality.

The miracle sets reality where it belongs. Reality belongs only to spirit and the miracle acknowledges only truth. It thus dispels illusions about yourself and puts you in communion with yourself and God.

The miracle joins in the Atonement by placing the mind in the service of the Holy Spirit. This establishes the proper function of the mind and corrects its errors, which are merely lacks of love. Your mind can be possessed by illusions, but Spirit is eternally free. If a mind perceives without love, it perceives an empty shell and is unaware of the spirit within. But the Atonement restores spirit to its proper place.

Darkness is lack of light as sin is lack of love. Darkness has no unique properties of its own. It is an example of the scarcity belief, from which only error can proceed.

Truth is always abundant. Those who perceive and acknowledge that they have everything, have no needs at all.

The Atonement's purpose: Restoration of everything that we are and have to our awareness.

The emptiness engendered by fear must be replaced by forgiveness. This is what the Bible means by, There is no death. This is how Christ demonstrated that death does not exist. Christ came to fulfill this law by reinterpreting it (His resurrection).

The law itself, if properly understood, offers only protection. Those who have not changed their minds about it have brought the hell-fire concept into it (some religious beliefs blame God for the death of His Son. Because they blame God, they have brought hate for what God is perceived to have done. They fear the judgment for their guilt that God will bring unto them, which is interpreted as hell).

Christ assures you that He will witness for anyone who lets Him, and to whatever extent you permit Him to. Your witnessing demonstrates your belief and thus, strengthens it. Those who witness for Christ are expressing through their miracles that they have abandoned their belief in deprivation in favor of the abundance they have learned belongs to them. (8,9)

Wholeness and Spirit

The miracle is much like the body in that they are learning aids for facilitating a state in which they are no longer necessary. When the spirit's original state of direct communication is reached, neither the body nor the miracle serves any more purpose. While you believe you are a body, however, you can choose between loveless and miraculous channels of expression.

You can make an empty shell, but you cannot express nothing at all. You can wait, delay, paralyze, reduce creativity to almost nil, but you cannot abolish it. You can destroy your body, but you cannot destroy your potential. You did not create yourself.

The basic decision of the miracle-minded is not to wait on time any longer than is necessary. Time can waste as well as being wasted. The miracle worker, therefore, accepts the time-control factor gladly.

He recognizes that every collapse of time brings everyone closer to the ultimate release from time in which the Son and Father are one. Equality does not imply equality now.

When everyone recognizes that he has everything, individual contributions to the Sonship will no longer be necessary. When the Atonement has been completed, all talents will be shared by all the Sons of God. God is not partial.

Except ye become as little children means, that unless you fully recognize your complete dependence upon God, you cannot know the real power of the Son in his true relationship with the Father.

The specialness of God's Sons does not stem from exclusion but from inclusion. All Christ's brothers are special. If they believe they are deprived of anything, their perception becomes distorted. When this occurs, the whole family of God, or the Sonship is impaired in its relationships.

Ultimately, we all will return to God because it is God's will. The miracle calls us to return because it blesses and honors us.

God is not mocked is not a warning but a reassurance. God would be mocked if any of His creations lacked Holiness. The creation is whole, and the mark of wholeness is holiness.

Whatever is true is eternal and cannot change or be changed. Spirit is therefore unalterable because it is already perfect, but the mind can elect what it chooses to serve. Only the choice is limited because it cannot serve two masters. If it elects to do so, the mind can become the medium by which spirit creates along the line of its own creation. If it does not freely elect to do so, it retains creative potential but places itself under tyrannous rather than Authoritative control. As a result, it imprisons because such are the dictates of tyrants.

The miracle is the sign that the mind has chosen to be led by Christ in Christ's service. (9,10)

The Illusion of Needs

Peace can only be acquired by complete forgiveness. No learning is acquired by anyone unless he wants to learn it and believes in some way that he needs it. While lack does not exist in the creation of God, it is very apparent in what you have made.

It is, in fact, the essential difference between them. Lack implies that you would be better off in a state somehow different from the one you are in. Until the separation, which is the meaning of the fall, nothing was lacking. There were no needs at all. Needs arise only when you deprive yourself.

You act according to the particular order of needs you establish. This, in turn, depends upon the perception of what you think you are. The sense of separation from God is the only lack we need correct.

Distortion of the perception of truth led to the separation from God. The separation then led to the perception of lacking. Having made this fundamental error, the order of needs followed, and we then fragmented ourselves into different levels with different needs (the separation defined).

As you integrate you become one and your needs become one accordingly. Unified goals lead to unified action because this produces a lack of conflict.

The idea of the orders of need requires correction at its own level before the error of perceiving levels at all can be corrected. You cannot behave effectively while you function on different levels.

However, while you do, correction must be introduced vertically from the bottom up. This is because you think you live in space, where concepts such as up and down are meaningful. Ultimately, space is as meaningless as time. Both are merely beliefs (correction begins at the source of error).

The real purpose of this world is to use it to correct your unbelief. You can never control the effects of fear yourself, because you made fear, and you believe in what you made. In attitude, then, though not in content, you resemble your Creator, Who has perfect faith in his creations because He created them.

Belief produces the acceptance of existence. That is why you can believe what no one else thinks is true. It is true for you because it was made by you (basis for making of the ego and body through belief).

All aspects of fear are untrue because they do not exist at the creative level and therefore, do not exist at all. To whatever extent you are willing to submit your beliefs to this test, to that extent are your perceptions corrected. In sorting out the false from the true, the miracle proceeds along these lines:

Perfect love casts out fear. If fear exists, then there cannot be perfect love. But "Only perfect love exists. If there is fear, it produces a state that does not exist."

Believe this and you will be free. Only God can establish this solution and this faith is His gift. (11,12)

Distortion of Miracle Impulses

Your distorted perceptions produce a dense cover over miracle impulses making it hard for them to reach your awareness. The confusion of miracle impulses with physical impulses is a major perceptual distortion. Physical impulses are misdirected miracle impulses.

All real pleasure comes from doing God's Will. This is because not doing it is a denial of Self. Denial of Self results in illusions, while correction of the error brings release from it. Do not deceive yourself into believing that you can relate in peace to God or to your brothers with anything external.

Child of God, you were created to create the good, the beautiful and the holy. Do not forget this. The Love of God, for a little while, must still be expressed through one body to another because vision is still so dim. You can use your body best to help you enlarge your perception so you can achieve real vision, of which the physical eye is incapable. Learning to do this is the body's only true usefulness.

Fantasy is a distorted form of vision. Fantasies of any kind are distortions because they always involve twisting perception into unreality. Actions stemming from distortions are literally reactions of those who know not what they do. Fantasy is an attempt to control reality according to false needs. Fantasies are a means of making false associations and attempting to obtain pleasure from them. Although you can perceive false associations, you can never make them real except to yourself (fantasy defined).

You believe in what you make. If you offer miracles, you will be equally strong in your belief in them. The strength of your conviction will then sustain the belief of the miracle receiver.

Reality is lost through usurpation, which produces tyranny. So long as a single slave remains to walk the earth, your release is not complete. Complete restoration of the Sonship is the only goal of the miracle minded.

This is a course in mind training. All learning involves attention and some study at some level. Some later parts of the course rest too heavily on these earlier sections not to require their careful study. You will also need them for preparation. Without this, you may become much too fearful of what is to come to make constructive use of it.

A solid foundation is necessary because of the confusion between fear and awe to which Christ has already referred, and which is often made. Christ has stressed that awe is not an appropriate reaction to Him because of His and your inherent equality. Some of the later steps in this course, however, involve a more direct approach with God Himself. It would be unwise to start on these steps without careful preparation, or awe will be confused with fear, and the experience will be more traumatic than beatific.

The means are being carefully explained to you. Revelation may occasionally reveal the end to you, but to reach it the means are needed (means and end; miracle and revelation). (12,13)

Chapter 2

The Separation and the Atonement

The Origins of Separation

To extend is a fundamental aspect of God which He gave to His Son. God created us with the same loving will to create. You have not only been fully created but have also been created perfect. Your creativity cannot be lost but it can be used inappropriately by projecting.

Projection occurs when a lack is perceived in you, and you believe that you can fill it with your own ideas instead of truth (projection defined).

Origins of separation from God

What is perfect can be rendered imperfect or lacking (distortion of the truth).

You believe that what God created can be changed by your own mind.

Distortions of the creations of God including yourself.

You can create yourself and that the direction of creation is up to you.

These related distortions represent a picture of what actually occurred in the separation, or the detour into fear. None of this existed before the separation nor does it actually exist now.

Everything God created is like Him. Extension, as undertaken by God, is similar to the inner radiance that the children of the Father inherit from Him. Its real source is eternal. (14)

This is as true of the Son as of the Father. This requires God's endowment of the Son with free will because all loving creation is freely given in one continuous line, in which all aspects are of the same order (extension of God's Thought).

The Garden of Eden, or the preseparation condition, was a state in which nothing was needed.

When Adam listened to the lies of the serpent (temptation), all he heard was untruth. You do not have to continue to believe what is not true unless you choose to do so.

The Bible says that God caused a deep sleep to fall onto Adam. There is no reference in the Bible that Adam reawakened (beginning of the nightmare of our world?). Only after a deep sleep fell upon Adam could he experience nightmares. The world has not yet experienced any comprehensive reawakening or rebirth. Such a rebirth is impossible so long as you continue to project or miscreate.

All fear stems from the misperception that you have the ability to usurp the power of God. Of course, you neither can nor have been able to do this. Here is the real basis for your escape from fear. The acceptance of Atonement is the escape. You realize that your errors never occurred.

Whatever lies you may believe are of no concern to the miracle, which can heal any of them with equal ease. The miracle makes no distinction among misperceptions, it solely distinguishes between truth on the one hand and error on the other.

Some miracles may seem to be of greater magnitude than others. But remember the first principle in this course; there is no order of difficulty in miracles.

Peace is an attribute in you, and it cannot be found externally. Illness is some form of external searching. Health is inner peace. It enables you to remain unshaken by lack of love from without and capable, through your acceptance of miracles, of correcting the conditions preceding from lack of love in others. (14,15)

The Atonement as Defense

You can do anything Christ asks of you. He has asked you to perform miracles and has made it clear that miracles are natural, corrective, healing, and universal. There is nothing they cannot do, but they cannot be performed in the spirit of doubt or fear.

When you are afraid of anything, you acknowledge its power to hurt you. You believe in what you value. If you are afraid you will inevitably value wrongly and by endowing all thoughts with equal power, you will inevitably destroy peace. That is why the