It has been on my list for years now. Calling me. Why do I resist it again and again? I have the book – maybe two or three of them- I keep wanting to do the material. I have downloaded apps, bought books, time and time – and lost them every time, lol… Then I think of it again. I search YouTube- again and again I resist it…. 2026 this is my main goal. Here is a link to a pdf of the book – Please forgive me if this is not in lined with copy right etc – It is for my reference to read and not loose the link and hopefully inspire others to join me. Buy the book in addition, I hope to find (one of) my copies(s).
click: 1 ACIM Text A 10
for my reference to read later- I will do this. Join me. <3 copy & paste intro- 12/27/25 PJLJ
“It is the Word of God, to be kept holy forever…”
“This time there will be no failure, no loss of truth, no
misunderstanding and no misrepresentation
I will direct its growth as it reaches from the paper on which
it was written into the hearts for which it was intended.”
(Special Message 12/31/75)
As preface to this edition of A Course In Miracles, we acknowledge
our realization of the truth of the words spoken to us through Helen
Schucman as those of Jesus,“the Way, the Truth and the Life.”
To you and all our brothers, we offer this edition of his A Course
In Miracles.
The task of editing, deciding which material would be excluded from
the original dictation and that to be included in the published version, was
entrusted to William Thetford.The edit of the Text used herein is Bill’s, as
he was directed by Jesus.The Workbook and Manual are as close to the un
edited generation of “scribed” dictation from Jesus to Helen as is available
to us at this time.
Similarly, the CAPITALIZATION and hyphenation of some of the
words,along with the use of parenthesis and punctuation,remain consistent
with the style of the “scribes” used in the source material.
We recognize and honor the original intent of our Savior Jesus to be
known as author with Helen as a “just” scribe whose name is not to be
associated with authorship, but with the willingness to hear his voice and
take notes.
“Do not attempt to break God’s copyright,
because His Authorship alone can copy right.”
(UR Text, 12/11/65)
May this be to you, as it is NOW for us, the opening of your mind
and heart to the Love of God. It is with His love and our gratitude that we
offer thanks to all who have played their part in making this edition of
A Course In Miracles available.
And now our thanks to all. May you realize the Peace of God as
eternally yours, abiding in you now, and in this realization may you
recognize the Kingdom of Heaven wherein you have always been at home.
God bless us everyone!
ONE INTRODUCTION TO MIRACLES . . . . . . . . . . .1
Principles of Miracles . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1
Distortions of Miracle Impulses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18
Introduction to Miracles
This is a course in miracles.It is a required course.Only the time you
take it is voluntary. Free will does not mean that you can establish the
curriculum. It means only that you may elect what you want to take
at a given time.The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of
love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at
removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s Presence, Which is
your natural inheritance.The opposite of love is fear, but what is all
encompassing can have no opposite.
This course can therefore be summed up very simply in
this way:
Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the Peace of God.
………
PRINCIPLES OF MIRACLES
1. There is no order of difficulty among miracles. One is not
“harder” or “bigger” than another. They are all the same. All
expressions of love are maximal.
2.Miracles as such do not matter.The only thing that matters is
There is no order of difficulty among 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
3.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
4. ll 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.
5.Miracles are habits and should be involuntary.They should not
be under conscious control. Consciously selected miracles can
be misguided.
6.Miracles are natural.When they do NOT occur something has
gone wrong
7.Miracles are everyone’s right, but purification is necessary first.
8.Miracles are healing because they supply a lack in that they are
performed by those who temporarily have more for those who
temporarily have less.
9.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 wrong;or,
better, is a misunderstanding of their purpose. They are really
used FOR and BY believers. - Prayer is the medium of miracles. Prayer is the natural
communication of the created with the Creator.Through prayer
love is received, and through miracles love is expressed. - Miracles are thoughts. Thoughts can represent lower-order
or higher-order reality. This is the basic distinction between
intellectualizing and thinking. One makes the physical and the
other creates the spiritual, and we believe in what we make
or create. - Miracles are both beginnings and endings.They thus 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 truth. They are convincing because
they arise from conviction.Without conviction they deteriorate
2
PRINCIPLES OF MIRACLES
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 man to learn to use it constructively.Time is thus a
teaching device, and a means to an end. It will cease when it is
no longer useful in facilitating learning. - Miracles are teaching devices for demonstrating that it is more
blessed to give than to receive.They simultaneously increase the
strength of the giver and supply strength to the receiver. - Miracles are the transcendence of the body. They are sudden
shifts into invisibility, away from a sense of lower-order reality.
That is why they heal. - A miracle is a service. It is the maximal service one individual
can render another. It is a way of loving your neighbor as
yourself. The doer recognizes his own and his neighbor’s
inestimable worth simultaneously. - Miracles make minds one in God.They depend on cooperation,
because the Sonship is the sum of all the Souls God created.
Miracles therefore rest on 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 expressions of total forgiveness. Through
miracles, man accepts God’s forgiveness by extending it to others. - Miracles are associated with fear only because of the fallacious
belief that darkness can HIDE.Man believes that what he cannot
see does not exist, and his physical eyes cannot see in the dark.
This is a very primitive solution, and has led to a denial of the
Spiritual eye. * The escape from darkness involves two stages:
A. The recognition that darkness CANNOT hide. This step
usually entails fear.
B. The recognition that there is nothing you WANT to hide,
even if you COULD.This step brings ESCAPE from fear. - Miracles rearrange perception,and place the levels of perception
*
The term “Spiritual eye” is later replaced by the Holy Spirit and the physical eye
becomes the ego.The emphasis on the two ways of seeing,however,remains throughout.
3
1 INTRODUCTION TO MIRACLES
in true perspective. This heals at ALL levels, because sickness
comes from confusing the levels.
When you have become willing to hide nothing, you will
not only be willing to enter into communion, but will also
understand peace and joy.Your commitment is not yet total,
and that is why you still have more to learn than to teach.When
your equilibrium stabilizes, you will be able to teach as much as
you learn, which will give you the proper balance. Meanwhile,
remember that no effort is wasted, for unless you remember
this, you cannot avail yourselves of MY efforts, which ARE
limitless. Only eternity is real.Why not use the illusion of time
constructively? - Miracles enable man to heal the sick and raise the dead because
he made sickness and death himself, and can abolish both. YOU
are a miracle, capable of creating in the likeness of your Creator.
Everything else is only 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.This process works all the
time, and in all the dimensions of time.
I am in charge of the process of Atonement, which I undertook
to begin.When you offer a miracle unto any of my brothers, you
do it unto YOURSELF and me.The reason YOU come before
ME is that I do not need miracles for my own Atonement, but I
stand at the end in case you fail temporarily.The purpose of my
part in the Atonement is the canceling out of all lacks of love
which men could not otherwise correct.The word “sin” should
be changed to “lack of love,” because “sin” is a man-made word
with threat connotations which he made up himself. No REAL
threat is involved anywhere. Nothing is gained by frightening
yourselves, and it is very destructive to do so. - Miracles represent FREEDOM from fear. “Atoning” really
means “undoing.”The undoing of fear is an essential part of the
Atonement value of miracles.
The purpose of the Atonement is to restore
EVERYTHING to you; or rather, to restore it to your
AWARENESS.You were GIVEN everything when you were
4
PRINCIPLES OF MIRACLES
created, just as everyone was.When you have been restored to
the recognition of your original state,you naturally become part
of the Atonement yourself. As you share MY inability to
tolerate lack of love in yourself and others, you MUST join the
Great Crusade to correct it. The slogan for the Crusade is
“Listen, learn, and DO;”– Listen to my voice, learn to undo
error, and DO something to correct it.
The power to work miracles BELONGS to you. I will
provide the opportunities to do them, but YOU must be ready
and willing, since you are already able. Doing them will bring
conviction in the ability, since conviction really comes through
accomplishment.The ability is the potential; the achievement is
its expression; and the Atonement is the Purpose. - A miracle is a universal blessing from God through me to ALL
my brothers. It is the privilege of the forgiven to forgive.
The disciples were specifically told to be physicians of
the Lord and to heal others. They were also told to HEAL
THEMSELVES, and were promised that I would never leave
them or forsake them. Atonement is the natural profession of
the Children of God, because they have professed me.“Heaven
and earth shall pass away” simply means that they will not
continue to exist as separate states. My word, which is the
Resurrection and the Light, shall not pass away because Light is
eternal. YOU are the work of God, and His work is wholly
lovable and wholly loving.This is how a man MUST think of
himself in his heart, because this is what he IS. - Miracles are a means of organizing different levels of
consciousness.
Miracles come from the below or subconscious level.
Revelations come from the above or superconscious level.The
conscious level is in between, and reacts to either sub- or
superconscious impulses in varying ratios. Consciousness is the
level which engages in the world, and is capable of responding
to both. Having no impulses from itself, and being primarily a
mechanism for inducing response, it can be very wrong.
Revelation induces complete but temporary suspension
of doubt and fear. It represents the original form of
5
1 INTRODUCTION TO MIRACLES
communication between God and His Souls, involving an
extremely personal sense of closeness to Creation, which man
tries to find in physical relationships. Physical closeness
CANNOT achieve this. The subconscious impulses properly
induce miracles, which are genuinely interpersonal, and result
in real closeness to others. This can be misunderstood by a
PERSONALLY willful consciousness as impulses toward
physical gratification.
Revelation unites Souls directly with God. Miracles unite
minds directly with each other. Neither emanates from
consciousness, but both are EXPERIENCED there. This is
essential, since consciousness is the state which induces action,
though it does NOT inspire it. Man is free to believe what he
chooses, and what he DOES attests to what he believes. The
deeper levels of the subconscious ALWAYS contain the impulse
to miracles, but man is free to fill its more superficial levels,
which are closer to consciousness, with the impulses of this
world, and to identify himself with them. This results in
DENYINGhimself access to the miracle level underneath.In his
actions, then, his relationships also become superficial, and
miracle-inspired relating becomes impossible. - 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 do not depend on revelation; they INDUCE it.
Revelation is intensely personal, and cannot actually be
translated into conscious content at all.That is why any attempt
to describe it in words is usually incomprehensible. Revelation
induces ONLY experience. Miracles, on the other hand, induce
ACTION. Miracles are more useful now, because of their
interpersonal nature. In this phase of learning, working miracles
is more important because freedom from fear cannot be thrust
upon you. - Miracles praise God through men. They praise God by
honoring His Creations, affirming their perfection. They heal
because they deny body-identification and affirm Soul
identification.By perceiving the Spirit,they adjust the levels and
6
PRINCIPLES OF MIRACLES
see them in proper alignment. This places the Spirit at the
center, where Souls can communicate directly. - Miracles should inspire gratitude, not awe. Man should thank
God for what he really is.The Children of God are very holy,
and the miracle honors their holiness. God’s Creations never
lose their holiness, although it can be hidden. The miracle
uncovers it, and brings it into the light where it belongs.
Holiness can never be really hidden in darkness, but man can
deceive himself about it.This illusion makes him fearful,because
he knows in his heart it IS an illusion, and he exerts enormous
efforts to establish its reality. The miracle sets reality where it
belongs. Eternal reality belongs only to the Soul, and the
miracle acknowledges only the truth. It thus dispels man’s
illusions about himself, and puts him in communion with
himself AND God. - Christ inspires all miracles, which are really intercessions.They
intercede for man’s holiness, and make his perceptions holy. By
placing him beyond the physical laws, they raise him into the
sphere of celestial order. In THIS order, man IS perfect.
The Soul never loses its communion with God. Only the mind
NEEDS Atonement. The miracle joins in the Atonement of
Christ by placing the mind in the service of the Spirit. This
establishes the proper function of the mind,and corrects its errors. - Miracles honor man BECAUSE he is lovable. They dispel
illusions about him, and perceive the Light in him.They thus
atone for his errors by freeing him from his own nightmares.
They release him from a prison in which he has imprisoned
HIMSELF, and by freeing his mind from illusions, they restore
his sanity. Man’s mind CAN be possessed by illusions, but his
Spirit is eternally free. If a mind perceives without love it
perceives an empty shell, and is unaware of the Spirit within it.
But the Atonement restores the Soul to its proper place. The
mind that serves the Spirit is invulnerable. - Miracles restore the mind to its fullness. By atoning for lack,
they establish perfect protection.The strength of the Soul leaves
no room for intrusions.The forgiven are filled with the Soul,
and they forgive in return.It is the duty of the released to release
7
1 INTRODUCTION TO MIRACLES
their brothers.
The forgiven ARE the means of Atonement.Those released
by Christ must join in releasing their brothers, for this is the
Plan of the Atonement. Miracles are the way in which minds
which serve the Spirit unite with Christ for the salvation, or
release, of all God’s Creations. - Miracles are expressions of love,but it does NOT follow that they
will always have observable effects. I am the only one who can
perform miracles indiscriminately, because I AM the Atonement.
You have a ROLE in the Atonement,which I will dictate TO you.
Ask ME which miracles you should perform. This spares you
exhaustion, because you will act under direct communication. - Christ-controlled miracles are part of the Atonement, but
Christ-guidance is personal.The impersonal nature of miracles
is an essential ingredient,because this enables ME to control their
distribution. Christ-guidance leads to the highly PERSONAL
experience of Revelation.This is why it involves PERSONAL
choice.A guide does NOT control, but he DOES direct, leaving
the following up to you.“Lead us not into temptation” means
“guide us out of our own errors.”“Take up thy cross and follow
me”means “recognize your errors and choose to abandon them
by following my guidance.”
Remember that error cannot really threaten truth, which
can ALWAYS withstand it. ONLY the error is really vulnerable.
You are free to establish your kingdom where you see fit, but
the right choice is inevitable if you remember this:
“The Soul is in a state of grace forever.
Man’s reality is ONLY his Soul.
Therefore man is in a state of grace forever.”
Atonement undoes all errors in this respect,and thus uproots
the REAL source of fear. Whenever God’s reassurances are
experienced as threat, it is ALWAYS because you are defending
misplaced and misdirected loyalty. That is what projection
always involves. Error is lack of love. When man projects this
onto others, he DOES imprison them, but only to the extent
that he reinforces errors they have ALREADY made.This makes
8
PRINCIPLES OF MIRACLES
them vulnerable to the distortions of others, since their OWN
perception of themselves is distorted. The miracle worker can
ONLY bless, and thus undoes their distortions, and frees them
from prison. - Miracles are examples of right thinking. Reality contact at all
levels becomes strong and accurate, thus permitting correct
delineation of intra – and interpersonal boundaries.As a result,
the doer’s perceptions are aligned with truth as God created it. - A miracle is a correction factor introduced into false thinking
by me.It acts as a catalyst, shaking up erroneous perception, and
reorganizing it properly.This places man under the Atonement
principle,where his perception is healed.Until this has occurred,
revelation of the Divine order is impossible. - The Spiritual eye is the mechanism of miracles because what It
perceives IS true.It perceives both the Creations of God and the
creations of man. Among the creations of man, It can also
separate the true from the false by Its ability to perceive totally,
rather than selectively. It thus becomes the proper instrument
for reality testing, which always involves the necessary distinction
between the false and the true. - The miracle dissolves error because the Spiritual eye identifies
error as false, or unreal. This is the same as saying that by
perceiving light, darkness automatically disappears.
Darkness is lack of light, as sin is lack of love. It has no
unique properties of its own. It is an example of the “scarcity”
fallacy, from which ONLY error can proceed. Truth is always
abundant.Those who perceive and acknowledge that they have
everything have no need for driven behavior of ANY kind. - The miracle acknowledges all men as your brothers and mine.It
is a way of perceiving the universal mark of God in them.The
specialness of God’s Sons does NOT stem from exclusion, but
from inclusion. ALL my 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, every member of the
family of God must return. The miracle calls him to return,
because it blesses and honors him even though he may be
9
1 INTRODUCTION TO MIRACLES
absent in spirit.
“God is not mocked”is not a warning,but a reassurance on
this point. God WOULD be mocked if any of His Creations
lacked holiness. The Creation IS whole, and the mark of
wholeness is holiness. - Wholeness is the perceptual content of miracles. It thus corrects,
or atones for, the faulty perception of lack anywhere.
Here we begin to make the fundamental distinction
between miracles and projection.The stimulus MUST precede
the response,and will also determine the kind of response that is
evoked. Behavior IS response, so that the question “response to
what?” becomes crucial. Since stimuli are identified through
perception, you first perceive the stimulus and then behave
accordingly. It follows, then, that:
“As ye perceive,
So shall ye behave.”
The Golden Rule asks you to behave toward others as you
would have them behave toward you. This means that the
perception of BOTH must be accurate.The Golden Rule is the
rule for appropriate behavior.You cannot behave appropriately
unless you perceive accurately, because appropriate behavior
DEPENDS on lack of level confusion. The presence of level
confusion ALWAYS results in variable reality testing,and therefore
in variability in behavioral appropriateness. Since you and your
neighbor are equal members of the same family, as you perceive
both, so you will behave toward both.The way to perceive for
Golden Rule behavior is to look out from the perception of your
OWN holiness,and perceive the holiness of others.
The emptiness engendered by fear should be replaced by
love, because love and its absence are in the same dimension, and
correction cannot be undertaken except WITHIN a dimension.
Otherwise, there has been a confusion of levels. Death is a
human affirmation of a belief in “fate,” or level confusion.That is
why the Bible says,“There IS no death,”and why I demonstrated
that death does not exist. I came to fulfill the law by
REINTERPRETING it.The law itself, if properly understood,
10
PRINCIPLES OF MIRACLES
offers only protection to man. It is those who have not yet
“changed their minds” who entered the “hellfire” concept
into it.
I assure you that I will witness for anyone who lets me, and
to whatever extent he permits it. YOUR witnessing demonstrates
YOUR belief,and thus strengthens it.Those who witness for me
are expressing, through their miracles, that they have abandoned
the belief in deprivation in favor of the abundance they have
learned BELONGS to them. - A MAJOR contribution of miracles is their strength in releasing
man from his misplaced sense of isolation, deprivation and lack.
Miracles are affirmations of Sonship, which is a state of
completion and abundance.Whatever is true and real is eternal,
and CANNOT change or BE changed.The Soul is therefore
unalterable because it is ALREADY perfect, but the mind can
elect the level it chooses to serve.The ONLY limit which is put
on its choice is that it CANNOT serve two masters.
The mind, if it elects to do so, becomes a medium by
which the Soul creates along the line of its own Creation. If it
does not freely elect to do so, it retains its creative POTENTIAL,
but places itself under tyrannous rather than genuinely
authoritative control. As a result it imprisons, because such are
the dictates of tyrants.To change your mind means to place it at
the disposal of TRUE Authority.
The miracle is thus a sign that the mind has chosen to be led
by Christ in His service.The abundance of Christ is the natural
result of choosing to follow Him. ALL shallow roots must be
uprooted, because they are not deep enough to sustain you.The
illusion that shallow roots can be DEEPENED, and thus made to
hold, is one of the distortions on which the REVERSAL of the
Golden Rule rests.As these false underpinnings are given up, the
equilibrium is temporarily experienced as unstable.However,the
fact is that NOTHING is less stable than an orientation that is
upside down.Nor can anything which holds it that way be really
conducive to greater stability. - Miracles arise from a miraculous state of mind. By being
one, this state of mind goes out to ANYONE,even without
11
1 INTRODUCTION TO MIRACLES
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. - The miracle is an expression of an inner awareness of Christ,
and the acceptance of His Atonement.The mind is then in a
state of grace, and naturally becomes gracious, both to the Host
within and the stranger without. By bringing in the stranger, he
becomes your brother. - A miracle is never lost. It touches many people you do not even
know, and sometimes produces undreamed of changes in forces
of which you are not even aware.That is not your concern.The
miracle will always bless YOU.
The 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 Christ
controlled 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
grace can be BESTOWED. - Miracle-mindedness means miracle-readiness. Readiness means
that you should always keep your perceptions straight, so that
you will ALWAYS be ready, willing and able. These are the
essentials for “listen, learn and do.” You must be READY to
listen, WILLING to learn, and ABLE to do. Only the last is
involuntary, because it is the APPLICATION of miracles which
must be Christ-controlled. The other two, which are the
VOLUNTARY aspects of miracle-mindedness,ARE up to you. - Awe is an inappropriate response to miracles. 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. It implies that one
of a lesser order stands before a greater one. This is the case
ONLY when a Soul stands before its Creator. Souls are perfect
creations, and experience awe only in the Presence of the
Creator of perfection.
The miracle, on the other hand, is a sign of love among
12
PRINCIPLES OF MIRACLES
equals. Equals cannot be in awe of one another because awe
implies inequality. It is therefore an inappropriate reaction to
me. An elder brother is entitled to respect for his greater
experience, and a reasonable amount of obedience for his
greater wisdom. He is also entitled to love because he IS a
brother, and also to devotion if he is devoted. It is only my
devotion that entitles me to yours.There is nothing about me
that YOU cannot attain.I have nothing that does not come from
God. The main difference between us as yet is that I have
NOTHING ELSE. This leaves me in a state of true holiness,
which is only a POTENTIAL in you.
“No man cometh unto the Father but by me”is among the
most misunderstood statements in the Bible. It does NOT mean
that I am in any way separate or different from you EXCEPT IN
TIME, which does not really exist at all.Actually, the quotation
is more meaningful if it is considered on a vertical rather than a
horizontal axis. Regarded along the vertical, man stands below
me and I stand below God. In the process of “rising up,” I AM
higher.This is because, without me, the distance between God
and man would be too great for you to encompass.
I bridge the distance as an elder brother to man on the one
hand, and as a Son of God on the other. My devotion to my
brothers has placed me in charge of the Sonship, which I can
render complete only to the extent to which I can SHARE it.
This may appear to contradict the statement “I and my Father
are one,” but there are still separate parts in the statement, in
recognition that the Father is greater. (The original statement
was “are of one kind”). The Holy Spirit is the Bringer of
Revelations. Revelations are INDIRECTLY inspired by me,
because I am close to the Holy Spirit, and alert to the
revelation-readiness of my brothers. I can thus BRING down to
them more than they can DRAW down to themselves. - The Holy Spirit is the Highest Communication Medium.
Miracles do not involve this type of communication because
they are TEMPORARY communication devices. When man
returns to his original form of communication with God, the
need for miracles is over. The Holy Spirit mediates higher to
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1 INTRODUCTION TO MIRACLES
lower communication, keeping the direct channel from God to
man open for revelation.Revelation is not reciprocal.It is always
FROM God TO man. The miracle IS reciprocal because it
involves equality. - The miracle is a learning device which lessens the need for
time. In the longitudinal or horizontal plane, the recognition of
the true equality of all the members of the Sonship appears to
involve almost endless time. However, the sudden shifts from
horizontal to vertical perception which the miracle entails
introduces an interval from which the doer and the receiver
BOTH emerge much farther along in time than they would
otherwise have been.
The miracle thus has the unique property of shortening
time by rendering the space of time it occupies unnecessary.
There is NO relationship between the time a miracle TAKES
and the time it COVERS. It substitutes for learning that might
have taken thousands of years. It does this by the underlying
recognition of perfect equality and holiness between the doer
and the receiver on which the miracle rests.
We said before that the miracle abolishes time. It does this
by a process of COLLAPSING it, and thus abolishing certain
INTERVALS within it.It does this,however,WITHIN the larger
temporal sequence.It establishes an out-of-pattern time interval
which is NOT under the usual laws of time.Only in this sense is
it timeless. By collapsing time it literally saves time, much as
daylight saving time does. It rearranges the distribution of light. - The miracle is the only device which man has at his immediate
disposal for controlling time. Only revelation TRANSCENDS
time, having nothing to do with time at all.
The miracle is much like the body, in that both are
learning aids which aim at facilitating a state in which they
are unnecessary. When the Soul’s original state of direct
communication is reached, neither the body nor the miracle
serves any purpose.While he believes he is in a body, however,
man can choose between loveless and miraculous channels of
expression. He can make an empty shell, but he CANNOT
express nothing at all. He can wait, delay, paralyze himself,
14
PRINCIPLES OF MIRACLES
reduce his creativity to almost nothing, and even introduce a
developmental arrest or even a regression. But he CANNOT
abolish his creativity. He can destroy his medium of
communication,but NOT his potential.
Man was NOT created by his own free will alone.Only what
HE creates is his to decide. The basic decision of the miracle
minded is not to wait on time any longer than is necessary.Time
can waste as well as be wasted. The miracle-worker, therefore,
accepts the time-control factor gladly, because he recognizes that
every collapse of time brings all men closer to the ultimate
RELEASE from time,in which the Son and the Father ARE one.
Equality does not imply homogeneity 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.All His children
have His total Love, and ALL his gifts are freely given to
everyone alike.“Except ye become as little children”means that,
unless you fully recognize your complete dependence on God,
you cannot know the real power of the Son in his true
relationship with the Father.
You who want peace can find it only by complete
forgiveness.You never really WANTED peace before, so there
was no point in being told how to achieve it. No learning is
acquired by anyone unless he wants to learn it, and believes in
some way that he NEEDS it.While the concept of lack does not
exist in the Creation of God, it is VERY apparent in the
creations of man. It is, in fact, the essential difference. A need
implies lack by definition. It involves the recognition that you
would be better off in a state which is somehow different from
the one you are in.
Until the “separation,” which is a better term than the
“fall,” nothing was lacking.This meant that man had no needs at
all. If he had not deprived himself, he would never have
experienced them.After the separation, needs became the most
powerful source of motivation for human action.All behavior is
essentially motivated by needs,but behavior itself is not a Divine
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1 INTRODUCTION TO MIRACLES
attribute. The body is the mechanism for behavior.The belief
that he COULD be better off is the reason why man has this
mechanism at his disposal.
Each one acts according to the particular hierarchy of
needs he establishes for himself. His hierarchy, in turn, depends
on his perception of what he IS; that is, what he LACKS.A sense
of separation from God is the ONLY lack he really needs to
correct.This sense of separation would never have occurred if
he had not distorted his perception of truth, and thus perceived
HIMSELF as lacking. The concept of ANY sort of need
hierarchy arose because, having made this fundamental error, he
had already fragmented himself into levels with different needs.
As he integrates HE becomes one, and his needs become
one accordingly.
Unified need produces unified action because it produces a
lack of ambivalence.The concept of a need hierarchy, a corollary
to the original error that man can be separated from God,
requires correction at its own level,before the error of perceiving
levels at all can be corrected. Man cannot behave effectively
while he operates at split levels. However, while he does,
correction must be introduced from the bottom UP. This is
because he now operates in space, where concepts such as “up”
and “down”are meaningful.Ultimately,space is as meaningless as
time.The concept is really one of space-time BELIEF.
The physical world exists only because man can use it to
correct his UNBELIEF, which placed him in it originally. He
can never control the effects of fear himself because he MADE
fear, and believes in what he made. In attitude, then, though
NOTin content,he resembles his own Creator,Who has perfect
faith in His creations BECAUSE He created them. Belief in a
creation produces its existence.That is why a man can believe in
what no-one else thinks is true. It is true for him because it was
made BY him.
Every aspect of fear proceeds from upside-down perception.
The more truly creative devote their efforts to correcting
perceptual distortions.The neurotic devotes his to compromise.
The psychotic tries to escape by establishing the certain truth of
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PRINCIPLES OF MIRACLES
his own errors. It is most difficult to free him by ordinary
means,because he is more consistent in his own denial of truth.
The miracle, however, makes no such distinctions. It corrects
errors BECAUSE they are errors. Thus, the next point to
remember about miracles is: - The miracle makes NO distinction among degrees of
misperception. It is a device for perception-correction, effective
quite apart from either the degree or the direction of the error.
This is its TRUE indiscriminateness.
Christ-controlled miracles are selective ONLY in the sense
that they are directed towards those who can use them for
THEMSELVES. Since this makes it inevitable that they will
extend them to others, a strong chain of Atonement is welded.
However,Christ-control takes no account at all of the magnitude
of the miracle itself, because the concept of size exists in a plane
that is itself unreal. Since the miracle aims at RESTORING the
awareness of reality it would hardly be useful if it were bound by
the laws which govern the error it aims to correct. Only man
makes this kind of mistake. It is an example of the foolish
consistency which his own false beliefs have engendered.
The power and strength of man’s creative will must be
understood before the real meaning of denial can be appreciated
and relinquished. It is NOT mere negation. It is a positive
miscreation.While the miscreation is NECESSARILY believed in
by its maker, it does not exist at all at the level of true creation. - The miracle compares what man has made with the higher level
creation, accepting what is in ACCORD as true and rejecting the
discordant as false. All aspects of fear are untrue because they DO
NOTexist at the higher creative levels,and therefore do not exist
at all.To whatever extent a man is willing to submit his beliefs to
this test, to that extent are his perceptions corrected.
In sorting out the false from the true, the miracle proceeds
along the following lines;
“If perfect love casts out fear,
And if fear exists,
Then there is NOT perfect love.”
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1 INTRODUCTION TO MIRACLES
But
“Only perfect love REALLY exists.
If there IS fear,
It creates a state which does not exist.”
Believe this, and you WILL be free. Only God can establish this
solution and THIS faith IS His gift.
DISTORTIONS OF MIRACLE IMPULSES
You are involved in unconscious distortions which are producing a
dense cover over miracle impulses, and which make it hard for them
to reach consciousness.The nature of any interpersonal relationship
is limited or defined by what you want it to DO.Relating is a way of
achieving an outcome.The danger of defenses lies in their propensity
for holding misperceptions rigidly in place. All actions which stem
from reverse thinking are literally the behavioral expressions of those
who know not what they do.A rigid orientation can be extremely
reliable, even if it is upside-down. In fact, the more consistently
upside-down it is, the MORE reliable it is.
However, validity is still the ultimate goal, which reliability can
only serve. Hostility, triumph, vengeance, self-debasement, and all
kinds of expressions of lack of love are often very clearly seen in the
fantasies which accompany them. But it is a PROFOUND error to
imagine that because these fantasies are so frequent, or occur so
reliably, that this implies validity. Remember that while validity
implies reliability, the relationship is NOT reversible. You can be
wholly reliable and ENTIRELY wrong.While a reliable instrument
DOES measure something, what USE is it unless you discover what
the “something” is? This course, then, will concentrate on validity,
and let reliability fall naturally into place.
The confusion of miracle impulses with physical impulses is a
major source of perceptual distortion because it INDUCES, rather
than straightens out, the basic level confusion which underlies the
perception of all those who seek happiness with the instruments of
this world. Inappropriate physical impulses (or misdirected miracle
impulses) result in conscious guilt if expressed and depression if
denied. ALL real pleasure comes from doing God’s Will. This is
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DISTORTIONS OF MIRACLE IMPULSES
because NOT doing It is a denial of self. DENIAL of error results in
projection. CORRECTION of error brings release.“Lead us not into
temptation” means “do not let us deceive ourselves into believing
that we can relate in peace to God or to our brothers with
ANYTHING external.”
Child of God, you were created to create the good, the
beautiful, and the holy. Do not lose sight of this.The love of God, for
a little while, must still be expressed through one body to another
because the real vision is still so dim. Everyone can use his body best
by enlarging man’s perception so he can see the REAL vision. THIS
vision is invisible to the physical eye. The ultimate purpose of the
body is to render itself unnecessary. Learning to do this is the only
real reason for its creation.
Fantasies of any kind are distorted forms of thinking because
they ALWAYS involve twisting perception into unreality. Fantasy is a
debased form of vision.Vision and revelation are closely related,while
fantasy and projection are more closely associated because both
attempt to control external reality according to false internal needs.
Twist reality in ANY way, and you are perceiving destructively.
Reality was lost through usurpation,which in turn produced tyranny.
I told you that you are now restored to your former role in the plan
of Atonement,but you must still choose freely to devote yourselves to
the greater restoration. As long as a single slave remains to walk the
earth, your release is not complete. COMPLETE restoration of the
Sonship is the only true goal of the miracle-minded.
NO fantasies are true. They are distortions of perception, by
definition. They are a means of making false associations, and
obtaining pleasure from them. Man can do this only because he IS
creative. But although he can perceive false associations, he can never
make them real EXCEPT TO HIMSELF. Man believes in what he
creates. If he creates miracles, he will be equally strong in his belief in
THEM.The strength of HIS conviction will then sustain the belief
of the miracle receiver.And fantasies become totally unnecessary as
the wholly satisfying nature of reality becomes apparent to both.