This idea applies to all the thoughts of which you are aware, or become aware in the practice periods. The reason the idea is applicable to all of them is that they are not your real thoughts. We have made this distinction before, and will again. You have no basis for comparison as yet. When you do, you will have no doubt that what you once believed were your thoughts did not mean anything.
This is the second time we have used this kind of idea. The form is only slightly different. This time, the idea is introduced with "My thoughts" instead of "These thoughts," and no link is made overtly with the things around you. The emphasis is now on the lack of reality of what you think you think.
This aspect of the correction process began with the idea that the thoughts of which you are aware are meaningless, outside rather than within; and then stressed their past rather than their present status. Now we are emphasizing that the presence of these "thoughts" means that you are not thinking. This is merely another way of repeating our earlier statement that your mind is really a blank. To recognize this is to recognize nothingness when you think you see it. As such, it is the prerequisite for vision.
Close your eyes for these exercises, and introduce them by repeating the idea for today quite slowly to yourself. Then add:
"This idea will help to release me from all that I now believe."
The exercises consist, as before, in searching your mind for all the thoughts which are available to you, without selection or judgment. Try to avoid classification of any kind. In fact, if you find it helpful to do so, you might imagine that you are watching an oddly assorted procession going by, which has little if any personal meaning to you. As each one crosses your mind, say:
"This thought about ____ does not mean anything."
"That thought about ____ does not mean anything."
Today's idea can obviously serve for any thought that distresses you at any time. In addition, five practice periods are recommended, each involving no more than a minute or so of mind-searching. It is not recommended that this time period be extended, and it should be reduced to half a minute or even less if you experience discomfort. Remember, however, to repeat the idea slowly before applying it specifically, and also to add:
"This idea will help to release me from all that I now believe."
A theoretical foundation such as the Text is necessary as a background to make these exercises meaningful. Yet it is the exercises which will make the goal possible. An untrained mind can accomplish nothing. It is the purpose of these exercises to train the mind to think along the lines which the course sets forth.
The exercises are very simple. They do not require more than a few minutes, and it does not matter where or when you do them. They need no preparation. They are numbered, running from 1 to 365. The training period is one year. Do not undertake more than one exercise a day.
The purpose of these exercises is to train the mind to a different perception of everything in the world. The Workbook is divided into two sections, the first dealing with the undoing of what you see now, and the second with the restoration of sight. It is recommended that each exercise be repeated several times a day, preferably in a different place each time, and if possible in every situation in which you spend any long period of time. The purpose is to train the mind to generalize the lessons, so that you will understand that each of them is as applicable to one situation as it is to another.
Unless specified to the contrary, the exercise should be practiced with the eyes open, since the aim is to learn how to see. The only rule that should be followed throughout is to practice the exercises with great specificity. Each one applies to every situation in which you find yourself, and to everything you see in it. Each day's exercises are planned around one central idea, the exercises themselves consisting of applying that idea to as many specifics as possible. Be sure that you do not decide that there are some things you see to which the idea for the day is inapplicable. The aim of the exercises will always be to increase the application of the idea to everything. This will not require effort. Only be sure that you make no exceptions in applying the idea.
Some of the ideas you will find hard to believe, and others will seem quite startling. It does not matter. You are merely asked to apply them to what you see. You are not asked to judge them, nor even to believe them. You are asked only to use them. It is their use which will give them meaning to you, and show you they are true. Remember only this; you need not believe them, you need not accept them, and you need not welcome them. Some of them you may actively resist. None of this will matter, nor decrease their efficacy. But allow yourself to make no exceptions in applying the ideas the exercises contain. Whatever your reactions to the ideas may be, use them. Nothing more than this is required.
Today's idea does not describe the way you see yourself now. It does, however, describe what vision will show you. It is difficult for anyone who thinks he is in this world to believe this of himself. Yet the reason he thinks he is in this world is because he does not believe it.
You will believe that you are part of where you think you are. That is because you surround yourself with the environment you want. And you want it to protect the image of yourself which you have made. The image is part of it. What you see while you believe you are in it is seen through the eyes of the image. It is not vision. Images cannot see.
The idea for today presents a very different view of yourself. By establishing your Source it establishes your identity, and it describes you as you must really be in truth. We will use a somewhat different kind of application for today's idea, because the emphasis for today is on the perceiver, rather than on what he perceives.
For each of the three five-minute practice periods today, begin by repeating today's idea to yourself, and then close your eyes and search your mind for the various kinds of descriptive terms in which you see yourself. Include all of the ego-based attributes which you ascribe to yourself, positive or negative, desirable or undesirable, grandiose or debased. All of them are equally unreal because you do not look upon yourself through the eyes of holiness.
In the earlier part of the mind-searching period, you will probably emphasize what you consider to be the more negative aspects of your perception of yourself. Toward the latter part of the exercise period, however, more self-inflating descriptive terms may well cross your mind. Try to recognize that the direction of your fantasies about yourself does not matter. Illusions have no direction in reality. They are merely not true.
A suitable unselected list for applying the idea for today might be as follows:
"I see myself as imposed on."
"I see myself as depressed."
"I see myself as failing."
"I see myself as endangered."
"I see myself as helpless."
"I see myself as victorious."
"I see myself as losing out."
"I see myself as charitable."
"I see myself as virtuous."
You should not think of these terms in an abstract way. They will occur to you as various situations, personalities, and events in which you figure cross your mind. Pick up any specific situation that occurs to you, identify the descriptive term or terms which you feel are applicable to your reactions to that situation, and use them in applying today's idea. After you have named each one, add:
"But my mind is part of God's. I am very holy."
During the longer exercise periods, there will probably be intervals in which nothing specific occurs to you. Do not strain to think up specific things to fill the interval, but merely relax and repeat today's idea slowly until something occurs to you. Although nothing that does occur should be omitted from the exercises, nothing should be "dug out" with effort. Neither force nor discrimination should be used.
As often as possible during the day, pick up a specific attribute or attributes which you are ascribing to yourself at the time, and apply the idea for today to them, adding the idea to each of them in the form stated above. If nothing particular occurs to you, merely repeat the idea to yourself, with closed eyes.
Perception is not an attribute of God. His is the realm of knowledge. Yet He has created the Holy Spirit as the Mediator between perception and knowledge. Without this link with God, perception would have replaced knowledge forever in your minds. With this link with God, perception will become so changed and purified that it will lead to knowledge. That is its function as the Holy Spirit sees it. Therefore, that is its function in truth.
In God you cannot see. Perception has no function in God, and does not exist. Yet in salvation, which is the undoing of what never was, perception has a mighty purpose. Made by the Son of God for an unholy purpose, it must become the means for the restoration of his holiness to his awareness. Perception has no meaning. Yet does the Holy Spirit give it a meaning very close to God's. Healed perception becomes the means by which the Son of God forgives his brother and thus forgives himself.
You cannot see apart from God because you cannot be apart from God. Whatever you do you do in Him, because whatever you think you think with His Mind. If vision is real, and it is real to the extent to which it shares the Holy Spirit's purpose, then you cannot see apart from God.
Three five-minute practice periods are required today, one as early as possible and another as late as possible. The third may be undertaken at the most convenient and suitable time which circumstances and readiness permit. At the beginning of the practice period, repeat the idea to yourself with your eyes open. Then glance around you for a short time, applying today's idea specifically to what you see. Four or five subjects for this phase of the exercise are sufficient. You might say, for example:
"God is my Source. I cannot see this desk apart from Him."
"God is my Source. I cannot see that picture apart from Him."
Although this part of the exercise period should be relatively short, be sure that you select the subjects for this phase indiscriminately, without self-directed inclusion or exclusion. For the second and longer phase of the exercise period, close your eyes, repeat today's idea again, and then let whatever relevant thoughts occur to you add to the idea in your own personal way. Thoughts such as:
"I see through the eyes of forgiveness,"
"I see the world as blessed,"
"The world can show me myself,"
"I see my own thoughts, which are like God's,"
or any thought related more or less directly to today's idea is suitable. The thoughts need not bear an obvious relationship to the idea, but they should not be in opposition to it.
If you should find your mind wandering; if you begin to be aware of thoughts which are clearly out of accord with today's idea; or if you seem to be unable to think of anything, open your eyes, repeat the first phase; and then try the second phase again. Do not allow any protracted period to occur in which you become preoccupied with irrelevant thoughts. Return to the first phase as often as necessary to prevent this.
In applying today's idea in the shorter practice periods, the form may vary according to the circumstances and situations in which you find yourself during the day. When you are with someone else, for example, try to remember to tell him silently:
"God is my Source. I cannot see you apart from Him."
This form is equally applicable to strangers and to those you know well. Try, in fact, not to make distinctions of this kind at all.
The idea should also be applied throughout the day to various situations and events which may occur, particularly those which distress you in any way. For this kind of application, use this form:
"God is my Source. I cannot see this apart from Him."
If no particular subject presents itself to your awareness, merely repeat the idea in its original form.
Try today not to allow long periods of time to slip by without remembering today's idea, and thus remembering your function.
There is but one interpretation of ALL motivation that makes any sense, and, because it is the Holy Spirit's judgment, it requires no effort at all on your part. Every loving thought is true. EVERYTHING ELSE is an appeal for healing and help. That is what it IS, regardless of the form it takes. Can anyone be justified in responding with anger to a plea for help? No response can BE appropriate EXCEPT the willingness to give it TO him, for this and ONLY this is what he is ASKING for. Offer him anything ELSE, and YOU are assuming the right to attack his reality, by interpreting it AS YOU SEE FIT.
Perhaps the danger of this to your OWN mind is not yet fully apparent. But this by no means signifies that it is not perfectly clear. If you maintain that an appeal for help is something ELSE, you will REACT to something else, and your response will be inappropriate to reality as IT is, but NOT to your perception OF it. This is poor reality testing by definition. There is nothing to prevent you from recognizing ALL calls for help as exactly what they are, EXCEPT YOUR OWN PERCEIVED NEED TO ATTACK. It is only THIS that makes you willing to engage in endless "battles" with reality, in which you DENY the reality of the need for healing by making IT unreal.
You would not do this except for your UNWILLINGNESS to perceive reality, WHICH YOU WITHHOLD FROM YOURSELF. It is surely good advice to tell you not to judge what you do not understand. No-one with a personal investment is a reliable witness, for truth for him has become what he WANTS it to be. If you are unwilling to perceive an appeal for help AS WHAT IT IS, it is because YOU are unwilling to give help, AND RECEIVE IT. The analysis of the ego's "real" motivation is the modern equivalent of the inquisition. For in both, a brother's errors are "uncovered," and he is then attacked FOR HIS OWN GOOD. What can this be, BUT projection? For HIS errors lay in the minds of his INTERPRETERS, for which they punished HIM.
Whenever you fail to recognize a call for help, you are REFUSING help. Would you maintain that you do not NEED it? Yet this IS what you are maintaining when you refuse to recognize a brother's appeal. For only by ANSWERING his appeal, can YOU be helped. Deny him YOUR help, and you will NOT perceive God's answer to YOU. The Holy Spirit does NOT need your help in interpreting motivation, but you DO need HIS. ONLY appreciation is an appropriate response to your brother. Gratitude is due him for both his loving thoughts, and his appeals for help, for both are capable of bringing love into YOUR awareness, IF YOU PERCEIVE THEM TRULY. And ALL your sense of strain comes from your attempts NOT to do just this.
How simple, then, is God's plan for salvation. There is but one response to reality, for reality evokes no conflict at all. There is but one Teacher of Reality, Who understands what it is. He does NOT change His mind about reality, because REALITY does not change. Although YOUR interpretations of reality are meaningless in your divided state, His remain consistently true. He GIVES them to you because they are FOR you.
Do not attempt to "help" a brother in YOUR way, for you cannot help YOURSELVES. But hear his call for the help of God, and you will recognize your OWN need for the Father. Your interpretations of your brother's need is your interpretation of YOURS. By giving help, you are ASKING FOR IT. And if you perceive but one need in yourself, you WILL be healed. For you will recognize God's answer as you want it to be, and if you want it in truth, it will be truly yours. Every appeal you answer in the Name of Christ, brings the remembrance of your Father closer to YOUR awareness. For the sake of YOUR need, then, hear every call for help as what it is, so God can answer YOU.
By applying the Holy Spirit's interpretation of the reactions of others more and more consistently, you will gain an increasing awareness that HIS criteria are equally applicable to YOU. For to RECOGNIZE fear is not enough to escape FROM it, although the recognition IS necessary to demonstrate the NEED for escape. The Holy Spirit must still TRANSLATE it into truth. If you were LEFT with the fear, having RECOGNIZED it, you would have taken a step AWAY from reality, not TOWARD it. Yet we have repeatedly emphasized the need to recognize fear, and face it WITHOUT DISGUISE, as a crucial step in the undoing of the ego. Consider how well the Holy Spirit's interpretation of the motives of others will serve you then.
Having taught you to accept only loving thoughts in others, and to regard everything else as an appeal for help, He has taught you that FEAR is an appeal for help. This is what RECOGNIZING it really means. If you do NOT PROTECT it, HE will re-interpret it. That is the ultimate value TO YOU in learning to perceive attack as a call for love. We have learned surely that fear and attack are inevitably associated. If ONLY attack produces fear, and if you see attack as the call for help that it IS, the REALITY of fear MUST dawn upon you. For fear IS a call for love, in unconscious recognition of what has been denied.
Healing and Atonement are not related; they are identical. There is no order of difficulty in miracles because there are no degrees of Atonement. It is the one complete concept possible in this world, because it is the source of a wholly unified perception. Partial Atonement is a meaningless idea, just as special areas of hell in Heaven is inconceivable. Accept Atonement and you are healed. Atonement is the Word of God. Accept His Word and what remains to make sickness possible? Accept His Word and every miracle has been accomplished. To forgive is to heal. The teacher of God has taken accepting the Atonement for himself as his only function. What is there then he cannot heal? What miracle can be withheld from him?
The progress of the teacher of God may be slow or rapid, depending on whether he recognizes the Atonement's inclusiveness or for a time excludes some problem areas from it. In some cases, there is a sudden and complete awareness of the perfect applicability of the lesson of the Atonement to all situations. This, however, is comparatively rare. The teacher of God may have accepted the function God has given him long before he has learned all that his acceptance holds out to him. It is only the end that is certain. Anywhere along the way, the necessary realization of inclusiveness may reach him. If the way seems long, let him be content. He has decided on the direction he will take. What more is asked of him? And having done what was required, would God withhold the rest?
That forgiveness is healing needs to be understood, if the teacher of God is to make progress. The idea that a body can be sick is a central concept in the ego's thought system. This thought gives the body autonomy, separates it from the mind, and keeps the idea of attack inviolate. If the body could be sick Atonement would be impossible. A body that can order a mind to do as it sees fit could merely take the place of God and prove salvation is impossible. What then is left to heal? The body has become lord of the mind. How could the mind be returned to the Holy Spirit unless the body is killed? And who would want salvation at such a price?
Certainly sickness does not appear to be a decision. Nor would anyone actually believe he wants to be sick. Perhaps he can accept the idea in theory, but it is rarely if ever consistently applied to all specific forms of sickness, both in the individual's perception of himself and of all others as well. Nor is it at this level that the teacher of God calls forth the miracle of healing. He overlooks the mind and body, seeing only the Face of Christ shining in front of him, correcting all mistakes and healing all perception. Healing is the result of the recognition, by God's teacher, of Who it is that is in need of healing. This recognition has no special reference. It is true of all things that God created. In it are all illusions healed.
When a teacher of God fails to heal, it is because he has forgotten Who he is. Another's sickness thus becomes his own. In allowing this to happen, he has identified with another's ego, and has thus confused him with a body. In so doing, he has refused to accept Atonement for himself, and can hardly offer it to his brother in Christ's Name. He will, in fact, be unable to recognize his brother at all, for his Father did not create bodies, and so he is seeing in a brother only the unreal. Mistakes do not correct mistakes, and distorted perception does not heal. Step back now, teacher of God. You have been wrong. Lead not the way, for you have lost it. Turn quickly to your Teacher, and let yourself be healed.
The offer of Atonement is universal. It is equally applicable to all individuals in all circumstances. And in it is the power to heal all individuals of all forms of sickness. Not to believe this is to be unfair to God, and thus unfaithful to Him. A sick person perceives himself as separate from God. Would you see him as separate from you? It is your task to heal the sense of separation that has made him sick. It is your function to recognize for him that what he believes about himself is not the truth. It is your forgiveness that must show him this. Healing is very simple. Atonement is received and offered. Having been received, it must be accepted. It is in the receiving, then, that healing lies. All else must follow from this single purpose.
Who can limit the power of God Himself? Who then can say who can be healed of what, and what must remain beyond God's power to forgive? This is insanity indeed. It is not up to God's teachers to set limits upon Him, because it is not up to them to judge His Son. And to judge His Son is to limit his Father. Both are equally meaningless. Yet this will not be understood until God's teacher recognizes that they are the same mistake. Herein does he receive Atonement, for he withdraws his judgment from the Son of God, accepting him as God created him. No longer does he stand apart from God, determining where healing should be given and where it should be withheld. Now can he say with God, "This is my beloved Son, created perfect and forever so."
Most of the abilities man now possesses are only shadows of his real strengths. The Soul knows, loves, and creates. These are its unequivocal functions. All of the functions of man are equivocal, or open to question or doubt. This is because he can no longer be certain how he will USE them. He is therefore incapable of knowledge, because he is uncertain. He is also incapable of true loving, because he can perceive lovelessly. He cannot create surely, because perception deceives, and illusions are not pure.
Perception did not exist until the Separation had introduced degrees, aspects and intervals. The Soul has no levels, and ALL conflict arises from the concept of levels. Wars arise when some regard others as if they were on a different level. All interpersonal conflicts arise from this fallacy. Only the levels of the Trinity are capable of Unity. The levels which man created by the Separation are disastrous. They cannot BUT conflict. This is because one is essentially meaningless to another. Freud realized this perfectly, and that is why he conceived as forever irreconcilable the different levels of his psyche. They were conflict-prone by definition, because they wanted different things and obeyed different principles.
In our picture of the psyche, there is an unconscious level, which properly consists ONLY of the miracle ability and should be under MY direction; and a conscious level, which perceives or is aware of impulses from both the unconscious and the superconscious. These are the sources of the impulses it receives. Consciousness is thus the level of perception, but NOT of knowledge. Again, to PERCEIVE is NOT to know. (In this connection, Cayce is more accurate than Freud.)
Consciousness was the first split that man introduced into himself. He became a PERCEIVER rather than a creator in the true sense.
Consciousness is correctly identified as the domain of the ego. Jung was right indeed in insisting that the ego is NOT the self, and that the self should be regarded as an achievement. He did not RECOGNIZE (a term we now understand) that the Achievement was God's. In a sense, the ego was a man-made attempt to perceive himself as he wished, rather than as he IS. This is an example of the created/creator confusion we spoke of before. He can only KNOW himself as he IS, because that is all he can be SURE of. Everything else IS open to question.
The ego is the questioning compartment in the post-Separation psyche which man created for himself. It is capable of asking valid questions, but not of perceiving wholly valid answers, because these are cognitive, and cannot BE perceived. The endless speculation about the meaning of mind has led to considerable confusion because the mind IS confused. Only One-Mindedness is without confusion. A separate, or divided, mind MUST be confused. A divided mind is uncertain by definition. It HAS to be in conflict because it is out of accord with itself.
Intrapersonal conflict arises from the same basis as interpersonal. One part of the psyche perceives another part as on a different LEVEL, and does not understand it. This makes the parts strangers to each other, WITHOUT RECOGNITION. This is the essence of the fear-prone condition, in which attack is ALWAYS possible.
Man has every reason to feel anxious, as he perceives himself. This is why he cannot escape fear until he KNOWS that he DID not and CAN not create himself. He can NEVER make this misperception valid, and when he at last PERCEIVES clearly, he is GLAD HE CAN'T. His Creation is beyond his own error variance, and this is why he MUST eventually choose to heal the Separation.
Right-mindedness is not to be confused with the KNOWING mind, because it is applicable only to right perception. You can be right-minded or wrong-minded, and this is subject to degrees, a fact which clearly demonstrates a lack of association with knowledge. (No, Helen, this is PERFECTLY clear and DOES follow the previous section. Neither you nor I is at all confused, even in grammar.)
The term "right-mindedness" is properly used as the correction for wrong-mindedness, and applies to the state of mind which induces accurate perception. It is miraculous because it heals misperception, and healing is indeed a miracle, in view of how man perceives himself. Only the sick NEED healing. The Soul does not need healing, but the mind DOES.
Freud gave a very graphic but upside down account of how the divisions of the mind arose from the bottom UP. Actually, this is impossible, because the unconscious cannot create the conscious. You cannot create something you can't KNOW. Freud was greatly worried about this, being VERY bright, though misguided, and attempted to get around it by introducing a number of "borderline" areas which merely resulted in fuzziness. This was particularly unfortunate, because he was capable of going much higher, if he had not been so afraid. This is why he kept pulling the mind DOWN.
The ego did NOT arise out of the unconscious. A lower-order perception cannot create a higher-order one, (which is the way you perceive the structure of the psyche if you look at it from the bottom UP) because it doesn't understand it. But a higher-order perception CAN create a lower-order one by understanding it in terms of MISperception.
Perception ALWAYS involves some misuse of will, because it involves the mind in areas of uncertainty. The mind is very active because it has will-power. When it willed the Separation it willed to perceive. Until it chose to do this, it willed only to know. Afterwards, it had to will ambiguously, and the only way out of ambiguity IS clear perception.
The ego is as frail as Freud perceived it. The later theorists have tried to introduce a less pessimistic view, but have looked in the wrong direction for their hope. Any attempt to endow the ego with the attributes of the Soul, is merely confused thinking. Freud was more clear-sighted about this, because he knew a BAD thing when he perceived it, but he failed to recognize that a bad thing cannot exist. It is therefore wholly unnecessary to try to get out of it. As you very rightly observed yourself, the thing to do with a desert is to LEAVE.
The mind returns itself to its proper function only when it WILLS TO KNOW. This places it in the Soul's service, where perception is meaningless. The superconscious is the level of the mind which wills to do this. (Freud was particularly distorted on this point, because he was getting too far UP for comfort according to his own perception.) But he WAS right in maintaining that the "parts" of the psyche cannot be correctly perceived either as THINGS or as entirely separate. (He would have thought better if he had said "entirely separated.")
The mind DID divide itself when it willed to create its own levels AND the ability to perceive them. But it could NOT entirely separate itself from the Soul, because it is FROM the Soul that it derives its whole power to create. Even in miscreating, will is affirming its source, or it would merely cease to be. This is impossible, because it IS part of the Soul, which God created, and which is therefore eternal.
The ability to perceive made the body possible, because you must perceive SOMETHING, and WITH something. This is why perception involves an exchange, or a translation, which knowledge does NOT need. The interpretive function of perception, (actually, a distorted form of creation), then permitted man to interpret the body as HIMSELF, which, although depressing, was a way out of the conflict he induced. (This has already been covered in some detail.)
The superconscious, which KNOWS, could not be reconciled with this loss of power, because it was incapable of darkness. This is why it became almost inaccessible to the mind, and entirely inaccessible to the body. It was PERCEIVED as a threat, because light does abolish darkness by establishing the clear fact that it ISN'T THERE. The truth will ALWAYS destroy error in this sense. This is not an ACTIVE process of destruction at all. We have already emphasized the fact that knowing does not DO anything. It can be PERCEIVED as an attacker, but it CANNOT attack.
What man perceives as its attack is his own recognition of the fact that it can always be REMEMBERED, because it has never been destroyed. This is not a literal remembering as much as a re-membering. (That is largely for Bill I wish he would decide to use that talent of his constructively. He has no idea of how powerful it could be. Actually, it does come from the unconscious, and is really a distorted form of miraculous perception which he has reduced to word twisting. Although this can be quite funny, it is still a real waste. Maybe he'd care to let me control it, and still use it humorously himself. He doesn't have to decide it is one OR the other.)
The unconscious should never have been reduced to a "container" for the waste products of conflict. Even as HE perceives his psyche, every level has a creative potential, because nothing man creates can wholly lose this.
God and the Souls He created remain in surety, and therefore KNOW that no miscreation exists. Truth cannot deal with unwilling error, because it does not will to be blocked out. But I was a man who remembered the Soul and its knowledge. Tell Bill that when he refused to misperceive he was indeed behaving as I behaved. And as a man, I did not attempt to counteract error with knowledge, so much as to CORRECT error from the bottom up. I demonstrated both the powerlessness of the body AND the power of the mind, by uniting MY will with that of my Creator, which naturally remembered the Soul and its own real purpose.
I cannot unite your will with God's for you. But I CAN erase all misperceptions from your mind, if you will bring it under my guidance. ONLY your misperceptions stand in your own way. Without them, your own choice is certain. Sane perception INDUCES sane choosing. The Atonement was an act based on true perception. I cannot choose for you, but I CAN help you make your own right choice.
"Many are called but few are chosen" SHOULD read, "ALL are called but few choose to listen. Therefore, they do not choose RIGHT." The "chosen ones" are merely those who choose right SOONER. This is the real meaning of the celestial speed-up. Strong wills can do this NOW. And you WILL find rest for your Souls. God knows you only in peace, and this IS your reality.
(Note that the term "insight", though referring to lofty perception, is not an attribute of knowledge. This is why terms like "lofty" are meaningless in this context. Insight is not the way TO knowledge, but it IS a prerequisite FOR knowledge. Being of God, knowledge has nothing to do with your perceptions at all. That is why it can only be a gift of God TO you.)
There is one more point which must be perfectly clear before any residual fear which may still be associated with miracles becomes entirely groundless. The Crucifixion did NOT establish the Atonement. The Resurrection did. This is a point which many very sincere Christians have misunderstood. Nobody who was free of the scarcity-fallacy could POSSIBLY have made this mistake.
If the Crucifixion is seen from an upside down point of view, it certainly does appear AS IF God permitted, and even encouraged, one of his Sons to suffer BECAUSE he was good. Many very devoted ministers preach this every day. This particularly unfortunate interpretation, which actually arose out of the combined misprojection of a large number of my own would-be followers, has led many people to be bitterly afraid of God.
This particularly anti-religious concept happens to enter into many religions, and this is neither by chance nor coincidence.
The real Christian would have to pause and ask "how could this be?" Is it likely that God Himself would be capable of the kind of thinking which His own Words have clearly stated is unworthy of man?
(There are times when) The best defense, as always, is NOT to attack another's position, but rather to protect the truth. It is not necessary to consider anything acceptable, if you have to turn a whole frame of reference around in order to justify it. This procedure is painful in its minor applications, and genuinely tragic on a mass basis. Persecution is a frequent result, justifying the terrible misperception that God Himself persecuted His own Son on behalf of salvation. The very words are meaningless.
It has always been particularly difficult to overcome this because, although the error itself is no harder to overcome than any other error, men were unwilling to give it up because of its prominent escape value. In milder forms, a parent says "This hurts me more than it hurts you," and feels exonerated in beating a child. Can you believe that the Father REALLY thinks this way?
It is so essential that all such thinking be dispelled that we must be VERY sure that NOTHING of this kind remains in your mind. I was NOT punished because YOU were bad. The wholly benign lesson which the Atonement teaches is wholly lost if it is tainted with this kind of distortion in ANY form.
"Vengeance is Mine sayeth the Lord" is strictly a karmic viewpoint. It is a real misperception of truth, by which man assigns his own evil past to God. The "evil conscience" from the past has nothing to do with God. He did not create it, and He does not maintain it. God does NOT believe in karmic retribution at all. His Divine mind does not create that way. HE does not hold the evil deeds of a man even against HIMSELF. Is it likely, then, that He would hold against any man the evil that ANOTHER did?
Be very sure that you recognize how impossible this assumption really is, and how ENTIRELY it arises from misprojection. This kind of error is responsible for a host of related fallacies, including the misbelief that God rejected man and forced him out of the Garden of Eden, or that I am misdirecting you. I have made every effort to use words which are ALMOST impossible to distort, but man is very inventive when it comes to twisting symbols around.
God Himself is not symbolic; He is FACT. The Atonement, too, is totally without symbolism. It is perfectly clear, because it exists in light. Only man's attempts to shroud it in darkness have made it inaccessible to the unwilling, and ambiguous to the partly willing. The Atonement itself radiates nothing but truth. It therefore epitomizes harmlessness, and sheds ONLY blessing. It could not do this if it arose from anything other than perfect innocence! Innocence is wisdom, because it is unaware of evil, which does not exist. It is, however, PERFECTLY aware of EVERYTHING, that is true.
The Resurrection demonstrated that NOTHING can destroy truth. Good can withstand ANY form of evil, because light abolishes ALL forms of darkness. The Atonement is thus the perfect lesson. It is the final demonstration that all of the other lessons which I taught are true.
Man is released from ALL errors if he believes in this. The deductive approach to teaching accepts the generalization which is applicable to ALL single instances, rather than building up the generalization after analyzing numerous single instances separately. If you can accept the ONE GENERALIZATION NOW, there will be no need to learn from many smaller lessons.
NOTHING can prevail against a Son of God who commends his Spirit into the hands of His Father. By doing this, the mind awakens from its sleep, and the Soul remembers its Creator. All sense of Separation disappears, and level confusion vanishes. The Son of God IS part of the holy Trinity, but the Trinity Itself is One. There is no confusion within ITS levels, because they are of One Mind and One Will. This Single Purpose creates perfect integration, and establishes the (reign of the) Peace of God.
But this vision can be perceived only by the truly innocent. Because their hearts are pure, they defend true perception, instead of defending themselves AGAINST it. Understanding the lesson of the Atonement, they are without the will to attack, and therefore they see truly. This is what the Bible means when it says "(and) when He shall appear (or be perceived) we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him AS HE IS."
Sacrifice is a notion totally unknown to God. It arises solely from fear of the Records. This is particularly unfortunate, because frightened people are apt to be vicious. Sacrificing others in any way is a clear-cut violation of God's own injunction that man should be merciful even as His Father in Heaven is merciful.
It has been harder for many Christians to realize that this commandment (or assignment) also applies to THEMSELVES. Good teachers never terrorize their students. To terrorize is to attack, and this results in rejection of what the teacher offers. This results in learning failures.
I have been correctly referred to in the Bible as "The Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the world." Those who represent the lamb as blood-stained (an all too widespread conceptual error) do NOT understand the meaning of the symbol.
Correctly understood, the symbol is a very simple parable, or teaching device, which merely depicts my innocence. The lion and the lamb lying down together refers to the fact that strength and innocence are NOT in conflict, but naturally live in peace. "Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God" is another way of saying the same thing. Only the innocent CAN see God.
There has been some controversy (in human terms) as to whether seeing is an attribute of the eyes, or an expression of the integrative powers of the brain. Correctly understood, the issue revolves around the question of whether the body or the mind can see (or understand). This is not really open to question at all.
The body is not capable of understanding. Only the mind KNOWS anything. A pure mind knows the truth, and this IS its strength. It cannot attack the body, because it knows EXACTLY what the body IS. This is what "a sane mind in a sane body" really means.
A sane mind is NOT out for blood. It does not confuse destruction with innocence, because it associates innocence with strength, NOT with weakness. Innocence is INCAPABLE of sacrificing anything, because the innocent mind HAS everything and strives only to PROTECT its Wholeness. This is why it CANNOT misproject. It can only honor man, because honor is the NATURAL greeting of the truly loved to others who are LIKE them.
The lamb taketh away the sins of the world only in the sense that the state of innocence or Grace, is one in which the meaning of the Atonement is perfectly apparent. The innocence of God is the true state of the mind of His Son. In this state, man's mind DOES see God, and because he sees Him as he Is, he knows that the Atonement, NOT sacrifice, is the ONLY appropriate gift to His OWN altar, where nothing except perfection truly belongs. The understanding of the innocent is TRUTH. That is why their altars are truly radiant.
(Dictated directly without notes) pp 7-12 Though Christians generally (but by no means universally) recognize the contradiction involved in victimizing others, they are less adept at ensuring their own inability to victimize themselves. Although this appears to be a much more benign error from the viewpoint of society, it is nevertheless inherently dangerous because once a two-edged defense is used, its direction cannot be self-controlled.
Bill recently observed how many ideas were condensed into relatively few pages here. This is because we have not been forced to dispel miscreations throughout. (There is one set of notes not yet transcribed which is devoted to this. These emphasize only the enormous waste of time that is involved.) Cayce's notes, too, could have been much shortened. Their excessive length is due to two factors. The first involves a fundamental error which Cayce himself made, and which required constant undoing. The second is more related to the attitude of his followers. They are unwilling to omit anything he said. This is respectful enough, but not overly-judicious. I would be a far better editor, if they would allow me this position on their staff.
It is obvious that Cayce himself was not able to transcend the misperceptions of the need for sacrifice, or he could not possibly have been willing to sacrifice himself. Anyone who is unable to leave the requests of others unanswered has not entirely transcended egocentricity. I never "gave of myself" in this inappropriate way, nor would I ever have encouraged Cayce to do so.
Cayce could not see the Atonement as totally lacking in sacrifice at ANY level. It WAS obvious to him that the mind cannot be so limited. It was equally apparent to him that the Soul is merely unaffected by such an idea. This left him only the body with which to invest his misperception. This is also why he used his own mind at the "EXPENSE of his body."
Because Cayce was a somewhat erratic listener, he was compelled to correct his own errors at very great length, and not always adequately. Consider the basis from which he started, when he began with "yes, we have the body." It is noteworthy that in all these readings, a large section was actually devoted to the body, even though he usually concluded with the caution that the body cannot be healed by itself. It would have saved an enormous number of words if he had always begun with this.
Cayce and his devotion to me are in no way underestimated by the realization that he worked under very great strain, which is ALWAYS a sign that something is wrong. One of the difficulties inherent in trance states is that it is very difficult to overcome the split which the trance itself induces through the medium of communications made while in the trance state.
Cayce's whole approach put him in a real double-bind, from which he did not recover. When he spoke of a dream in which he saw his own rather immanent reincarnation, he was perfectly accurate. He was sufficiently attuned to real communication to make it easy to correct his errors, and free him to communicate without strain. It is noticeable throughout his notes that he frequently engaged in a fallacy that we have already noted in some detail: namely, the tendency to endow the physical with nonphysical properties. Cayce suffered greatly from this error. He did not make either of the other three. However, you will remember that it is this one which is particularly vulnerable to magical associations. Cayce's accuracy was so great that, even when he did this, he was able to apply it constructively. But it does not follow that this was a genuinely constructive approach.
It should also be noted that, when Cayce attempted to "see" the body in proper perspective, he saw physically discernible auras surrounding it. This is a curious compromise, in which the nonphysical attributes of the self are approached AS IF they could be seen with the physical eye.
Cayce's illiteracy never stood in his way. This is because illiteracy does not necessarily imply any lack of love, and in Cayce's case very definitely did not. He therefore had no difficulty at all in overcoming this seeming limitation. What DID hamper him was a profound sense of personal unworthiness, which, characteristically enough, was sometimes over-compensated for in what might be called a Christian form of grandiosity. Cayce was essentially uncharitable to himself. This made him very erratic in his own miracles, and, because he was genuinely anxious to help others, left himself in a highly vulnerable position.
His son comments both on the rather erratic nature of the Cayce household, and also on the rather uneven nature of Cayce's temper. Both of these observations are true, and clearly point to the fact that Cayce did not apply the Peace of God to himself. Once this had occurred, particularly in a man whose communication channels were open, it was virtually impossible for him to escape external solutions. Cayce was a very religious man, who should have been able to escape fear through religion. Being unable to apply his religion wholeheartedly to himself, he was forced to accept certain magical beliefs which were alien to his own Christianity. This is why he was so different when he was asleep, and even disowned what he said in this state.
The lack of integration which this split state implies is clearly shown in certain off-the-mark detours into areas such as the effects of stones on the mind, and some curious symbolic attempt to integrate churches and glands. (This is hardly more peculiar than some of your own confusion.)
Cayce's mind was imprisoned to some extent by an error against which you have been cautioned several times. He looked to the past for an EXPLANATION of the present, but he never succeeded in separating the past FROM the present. When he said "mind is the builder," he did not realize that it is only what it is building NOW that really creates the future. The past, in itself, does not have the ability to do this. Whenever we move from one instant to the next, the previous one no longer exists. In considering the body as the focus for healing, Cayce was expressing his own failure to accept this AS ACCOMPLISHED. He did not fail to recognize the value of the Atonement for others, but he did fail to accept its corrective merit for himself.
As we have frequently emphasized, man CANNOT control his own errors. Having created them, he does believe in them. Because of his failure to accept his own perfect freedom FROM the past, Cayce could not really perceive others as similarly free. This is why I have not wholly endorsed the Cayce documents for widespread use.
I am heartily supportive of the ARE's endeavor to make Cayce's singular contributions immortal, but it would be most unwise to have them promulgated as a faith until they have been purged of their essential errors. This is why there have been a number of unexplained set backs in their explication. It is also one of the many reasons why the Cayce material, a major step in the speedup, must be properly understood before it can be meaningfully validated.
Cayce's son has been wise in attempting to deal with reliability, which in Cayce's case is very high. There is a way of validating the material, and Hugh Lynn is perfectly aware that this must be done eventually. He is also aware of the fact that he is unable to do it. In the present state of the material, it would be most unwise even to attempt it. There is too much that IS invalid. When the time comes that this can be corrected to the point of real safety, I assure you it will be accomplished. In tribute to Cayce, I remind you that no effort is wasted, and Cayce's effort was very great.
It would be most ungrateful of me if I allowed his work to produce a generation of witch doctors. I am sorry that Cayce himself could not rid himself of a slight tendency in this direction. But fortunately I have a fuller appreciation of him than he had.
I am repeating here a Biblical injunction of my own, already mentioned elsewhere, that if my followers eat any deadly thing it shall not hurt them. This is what Cayce could NOT believe, because he could not see that, as a Son of God, he WAS invulnerable.
Miracles are a blessing from parents to children. This is just another way of phrasing the previous point about "from those who have more to those who have less." Children do NOT belong to parents, but they DO need to share their greater abundance. If they are deprived, 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 to him to return, because it blesses and honors him even though he may be absent in spirit.
The miracle acknowledges all men as your brothers and Mine. It is a way of perceiving the Universal Mark of God in them.
(Tell Bill that this is the true "strawberry mark" of Brotherhood. This is just a sign of special concern for him, because he keeps worrying about this.)
You might add that his false idea about his own exclusion from Universal Love is fallacious in your terms, and arrogant in his. HIS real specialness does NOT stem from exclusion, but from inclusion. ALL My Brothers are special. He should stop interpreting this as "all except Bill " This is ridiculous!
Tell him that the implied lack of love that his version contains is WAY off the Mark, and misses the level of right thinking entirely. He MUST heal his perception in this respect. He MUST work a miracle on behalf of himself here (See the point about miracles as a perception corrector) before he can effect miracles as creative energizers, which they are.
(Tell B. that 50,000,000 Frenchmen CAN be wrong, because the notion is too fragmented. What CAN'T be wrong is the Universal Sonship of which he is a part.)
God WOULD be mocked if ANY of his creations lacked holiness. The Creation IS whole. The mark of Wholeness is Holiness, not holes. THE SONSHIP HAS NO HOLES ANYWHERE.
Wholeness is the perceptual content of the miracle. It thus corrects (or atones for) the faulty perception of lack.
We now turn to the fundamental distinction between miracles and projection. The stimulus MUST precede the response, and must also (determine) (influence) the kind of response that is evoked. The relationships of S and R are EXTREMELY intimate. (The behavioristic terminology is because this part deals with behavior.)
Behavior IS response, so that the question "response to what?" becomes crucial.
Stimuli of all kinds are identified through perception. You perceive the stimulus and behave accordingly. It follows, then, that:
As ye perceive
So will ye behave
(Helen Schucman raises point that Biblical language is hardly behavioristic terminology. Answer: No, but they needn't be OUT of accord with each other, either.)
Consider the Golden Rule again. You are asked to behave toward others as you would have them behave toward you. This means that the perception of both must be accurate, since the Golden Rule is the Order for appropriate behavior. You can't 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 hence variability in behavioral appropriateness.
All forms of self image debasement are FUNDAMENTAL perceptual distortions. They inevitably produce either self-contempt or projection, and usually both.
Since you and your neighbor are equal members of the same family, as you perceive both, so will you 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.
Bill and you need considerable clarification of the channel role. Look carefully at Mrs. Albert. She is working miracles every day, because she knows who she is. I emphasize again that your tendency to forget names is not hostility, but a fear of involvement or RECOGNITION. You had misinterpreted human encounters as opportunities for magic rather than for miracles and so you tried to PROTECT THE NAME. This is a very ancient and primitive way of trying to protect a person.
NOTE The very old Jewish practice of changing the name of a person who is very ill, so that when the list is given to the Angel of Death, the person with that name will not be found.
This is a good example of the curiously literal regression which can occur in very bright people when they become afraid. You and Bill both do it. Actually, it is a device closely related to the phobia, in the sense that they both narrow fear to a simple aspect of a much larger problem in order to enable them to avoid it.
A similar mechanism works when you get furious about a comparatively minor expression by someone to whom you are ambivalent. A good example of this is your response to Jonathan, who DOES leave things around in very strange ways. Actually, he does this because he thinks that by minor areas of disorganization he can protect his stability. I remind you that you have done this yourself for years, and should understand it very well. This should be met with great charity, rather than with great fury.
The fury comes from your awareness that you do not love Jonathan as you should, and you narrow your lack of love by centering your hate on trivial behavior in an attempt to protect him from it. You also call him Jonathan for the same reason (see previous reference).
Note that a name is a human symbol that "stands for" a person. Superstitions about names are very common for just that reason. That is also why people sometimes respond with anger when their names are spelled or pronounced incorrectly.
Actually, the Jewish superstition about changing the names was a distortion of a revelation about how to alter or avert death. What the revelation's proper content was that those "who change their mind" (not name) about destruction (or hate) do not need to die. Death is a human affirmation of a belief in hate. That is why the Bible says "There is no death," and that is why I demonstrated that death does not exist. Remember that I came to FULFILL the law by RE-INTERPRETING it. The law itself, if properly understood, offers only protection to man. Those who have not yet "changed their minds" have entered the "hellfire" concept into it.
Remember, I said before that because "nature abhors a vacuum", it does NOT follow that the vacuum is filled with hell fire. 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.
Returning to Mrs. Albert (not Andrews), she corrected your error about her name without embarrassment and without hostility, because she has NOT made your own mistake about names.
She is not afraid, because she knows she is protected. She made the correction ONLY because you were inaccurate, and the whole question of embarrassment did not occur to her.
She was also quite unembarrassed when she told you that everything has to be done to preserve life, because you never can tell when God may come and say "Get up, Dave," and then he will.
She did not ask what YOU believed first, and afterwards merely added "and it's true, too." The RIGHT answer to the SCT item is: WHEN THEY TOLD ME WHAT TO DO, I "referred the question to the only REAL authority."
(Helen Schucman note: If you ask somebody what he believes before you tell him what you believe, then you are implying that you will say what he approves. This is not "the real authority.")
You took a lot of notes on "Those who are ashamed of Me before men, them will I be ashamed of before God." This was rather carefully clarified, even though the quotation is not quite right, but it doesn't matter.
The important thing is that elsewhere in the Bible it also says "Those who represent (or plead for) Me to men will be represented (or pleaded for) BY Me before God." (Note: This quotation is also not the correct Biblical phrasing, but it IS what it means.) Note that one who represents also "witnesses for." The quotation thus means that you represent or "witness for" the authority in whom you believe.
Your witnessing DEMONSTRATES your belief, and thus strengthens it.
I assure you that I will "witness for" anyone who lets me, and to whatever extent he himself permits it.
Those who witness for me are expressing, through their miracles, that they have abandoned 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. They are affirmations of Sonship, which is a state of completion and abundance.
B's very proper emphasis on "changing your mind" needs clarification.
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.
While the ballot itself is a secret one, and the right to vote is fully protected, voting ALWAYS entails both election AND rejection. If two candidates are voted for, for the same position, the machine cancels the ballot automatically.
This is necessary, because a split vote does not represent ANY REAL allegiance.
Free will is the attribute of the mind, NOT the Soul. The Soul always remains changeless, because it never leaves the sight of God.
The Creation of the Soul is already fully accomplished. The mind, if it votes to do so, becomes a medium by which the Soul can create along the line of its own creation. If it does not freely elect to do so, it retains this creative ability, but places itself under tyrannous rather than authoritative control. As a result, what it creates is imprisonment, 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 elected to be guided by Christ in HIS service. The abundance of Christ is the natural result of choosing to follow him.
P.S. The reason you have been late recently (for work) because you were taking dictation is merely because you didn't remember to ask me when to stop. This is an example of the "indiscriminate or uncontrolled" miracle-working we already spoke of. It is well-meant but ill-advised.
I prompted that call from Jack (taxi man - couldn't pick Helen Schucman up, etc.) to show you that this is not necessary. Also, the other man needed the money more today.
NOTE that you managed to fill your scribal role with no interruptions, and were also on time.
NOTE also that you closed the book and put it aside WITHOUT consulting me. ASK "Is that all?" ANSWER: No: add the following: These notes are serving, among other things, to replace the "handwriting on the wall" which you once saw next to your own altar, which read "You have been weighed in the balance and found wanting."
Scribes MUST learn Christ-control, to replace their former habits, which DID produce scarcity rather than abundance. From errors of this kind, the sense of deprivation IS inevitable, but very easily corrected.
The following is in relation to question about sex. Tell Bill "the one more river" is related to sex. You might even explain it to him as a "tidal wave", a term which he will understand. YOU won't.
Both of you are involved with unconscious distortions (above the miracle level), which are producing a dense cover over miracle-impulses which makes it hard for them to reach consciousness. Sex and miracles are both WAYS OF RELATING. The nature of any interpersonal relationship is limited or defined by what you want it to DO which is WHY you want it in the first place. Relating is a way of achieving an outcome.
Indiscriminate sexual impulses resemble indiscriminate miracle impulses in that both result in body image misperceptions. The first is an expression of an indiscriminate attempt to reach communion through the body. This involves not only the improper self identification, but also disrespect for the individuality of others. Self-control is NOT the whole answer to this problem, though I am by no means discouraging its use. It must be understood, however, that the underlying mechanism must be uprooted (a word you both should understand well enough by now not to regard it as frightening).
ALL shallow roots have to 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 corollaries on which the reversal of the Golden Rule, referred to twice before, is balanced. As these false underpinnings are uprooted (or given up), equilibrium is experienced as unstable. But the fact is that NOTHING is less stable than an orientation which is upside down. Anything that holds it this way is hardly conducive to greater stability.
The whole danger of defenses lies in their propensity to hold misperceptions rigidly in place. This is why rigidity is regarded AS stability by those who are off the mark.
NOTE The only final solution - (no, Helen, this has nothing to do with the Nazi use of the term.) You just got frightened again. One of the more horrible examples of inverted or upside down thinking (and history is full of horrible examples of this) is the fact that the Nazis spelled their appalling error with capital letters. I shed many tears over this, but it is by no means the only time I said "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do."
All actions which stem from reverse thinking are literally the behavioral expressions of those who know not what they do. Actually, Jean Dixon was right in her emphasis on "Feet on the ground and fingertips in the Heaven," though she was a bit too literal for your kind of understanding. Many people knew exactly what she meant, so her statement was the right miracle for them.
For you and Bill, it would be better to consider the concept in terms of reliability and validity. 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, because consistency always held up better mathematically than test-re-test comparisons, which were ALWAYS on shaky ground. You can check this against Jack's notes if you wish, but I assure you its true. Split-half reliability is statistically a MUCH stronger approach. The reason for this is that correlation which is the technique applied to test-re-test comparisons, measures only the EXTENT OF association, and does not consider the Direction at all.
But two halves of the same thing MUST go in the same direction, if there is to be accuracy of measurement. This simple statement is really the principle on which split half reliability, a means of estimating INTERNAL consistency, rests.
Note, however, that both approaches leave out a very important dimension. Internal consistency criteria disregard time, because the focus is on one-time measurements. Test-retest comparisons are BASED on time intervals, but they disregard direction.
It is possible, of course, to use both, by establishing internal consistency AND stability over time. You will remember that Jack once told his class that the more sophisticated statisticians are concentrating more and more on reliability, rather than validity. The rationale for this, as he said, was that a reliable instrument DOES measure something. He also said, however, that validity is still the ultimate goal, which reliability can only serve.
I submit (I'm using Jack's language in this section, because it always had a special meaning for you. So did Jack.) Your confusion of sex and statistics is an interesting example of this whole issue. Note that night you spent in the scent of roses doing a complex factorial analysis of covariance. It's a funny story to others, because they see a different kind of level confusion than the one you yourself were making. You might recall that YOU wanted that design, and Jack opposed it. One of the real reasons why that evening was so exhilarating was because it represented a "battle of intellects", (both good ones, by the way), each communicating exceptionally clearly but on opposite sides. The sexual aspects were naturally touched off in both of you, because of the sex and aggression confusion.
(It is especially interesting that after the battle ended on a note of compromise with your agreeing with Jack, he wrote in the margin of your notes "virtue is triumphant." (Helen Schucman note re submission-dominance, feminine-masculine roles, entered into this.) While this (remark) was funny to both of you at the time, you might consider its truer side. The virtue lay in the complete respect each of you offered to the other's intellect. Your mutual sexual attraction was also shared. The error lay in the word "triumphant." This had the "battle" connotation, because neither of you was respecting ALL of the other. There is a great deal more to a person than intellect and genitals. The omission was the Soul.)
I submit (after a long interruption) that if a mind (Soul) is in valid relationship with God, it CAN'T be upside down. Jack and the other very eminent methodologists have abandoned validity in favor of reliability because they have lost sight of the end and are concentrating on the means.
Remember the story about the artist who kept devoting himself to inventing better and better ways of sharpening pencils. He never created anything, but he had the sharpest pencil in town. (The language here is intentional. Sex is often utilized on behalf of very similar errors. Hostility, triumph, vengeance, self-debasement, and all sort of expressions of the lack of love are often VERY clearly seen in the accompanying fantasies. 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 test DOES measure something, what USE is the test unless you discover what the "something" is? And if validity is more important than reliability, and is also necessarily implied BY it, why not concentrate on VALIDITY and let reliability fall naturally into place.
Intellect may be a "displacement upward", but sex can be a "displacement outward." How can man "come close" to others through the parts of him which are really invisible? The word "invisible" means "cannot be seen or perceived."What cannot be perceived is hardly the right means for improving perception.
The confusion of miracle impulse with sexual impulse is a major source of perceptual distortion, because it INDUCES rather than straightening out the basic level-confusion which underlies all those who seek happiness with the instruments of the world. A desert is a desert is a desert. You can do anything you want in it, but you CANNOT change it from what it IS. It still lacks water, which is why it IS a desert (Bring up that dream about the Bluebird. While Helen Schucman was looking for this dream, she came across another. The message was to bring both, as an excellent example of how extremely good Helen Schucman had become over the intervening 25 years at sharpening pencils. Note that the essential content hasn't changed; it's just better written.) The thing to do with a desert is to LEAVE.
Miracles arise from a miraculous state of mind. By being One, this state of mind goes out to ANYONE, even without the awareness of the miracle worker himself. The impersonal nature of miracles is because Atonement itself is one, uniting all creations with their Creator.
The miracle is an expression of an inner awareness of Christ and 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.
The miracles you are told NOT 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 own Grace, but only Christ is in a position to know where Grace can be BESTOWED.
A miracle is never lost. It touches many people you may not even know, and sometimes produces undreamed of changes in forces of which you are not even aware. This is not your concern. It will also always bless YOU. This is not your concern, either. But it IS the concern of the Record. The Record is completely unconcerned with reliability, being perfectly valid because of the way it was set up. It ALWAYS measures what it was supposed to measure.
I want to finish the instructions about sex, because this is an area the miracle worker MUST understand.
Inappropriate sex drives (or misdirected miracle-impulses) result in guilt if expressed, and depression if denied. We said before that ALL real pleasure comes from doing God's will. Whenever it is NOT done an experience of lack results. This is because NOT doing the will of God IS a lack of self.
Sex was intended as an instrument for physical creation to enable Souls to embark on new chapters in their experience, and thus improve their record. The pencil was NOT an end in itself. (See earlier section.) It was an aid to the artist in his own creative endeavors. As he made new homes for Souls and guided them through the period of their own developmental readiness, he learned the role of the father himself. The whole process was set up as a learning experience in gaining Grace.
The pleasure which is derived from sex AS SUCH is reliable only because it stems from an error which men shared. AWARENESS of the error produces the guilt. DENIAL of the error results in projection. CORRECTION of the error brings release.
The only VALID use of sex is procreation. It is NOT truly pleasurable in itself. "Lead us not into Temptation" means "Do not let us deceive ourselves into believing that we can relate in peace to God or our brothers with ANYTHING external."
The "sin of onan" was called a "sin" because it involved a related type of self-delusion; namely, that pleasure WITHOUT relating can exist.
To repeat an earlier instruction, the concept of either the self or another as a "sex-OBJECT" epitomizes this strange reversal. As Bill put it, and very correctly, too, it IS objectionable, but only because it is invalid. Upside down logic produces this kind of thinking.
Child of God, you were created to create the good, the beautiful, and the holy. Do not lose sight of this. You were right in telling Bill to invite Me to enter anywhere temptation arises. I will change the situation from one of inappropriate sexual attraction to one of impersonal miracle-working. The concept of changing the channel for libidinal expression is Freud's greatest contribution, except that he did not understand what "channel" really means.
The love of God, for a little while, must still be expressed through one body to another. That is 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.
NOTE Scribes have a particular role in the Plan of Atonement, because they have the ability to EXPERIENCE revelations themselves, and also to put into words enough of the experience to serve as a basis for miracles.
(This refers to experiences at the visionary level, after which Helen Schucman wrote "If you will tell me what to do, I will to do it." She had not known that the word "to" was inserted, and had merely intended to write "I will do it." This recognition had a terrific impact on Helen Schucman.)
This is why you EXPERIENCED that revelation about "I will to do" VERY personally, but also WROTE IT: What you wrote CAN be useful to miracle workers other than yourself. We said before that prayer is the medium of miracles. The miracle prayer IS what you wrote, i.e. "If you will tell me what to do, I will to do it." *
This prayer is the door that leads out of the desert forever.
*(Correction next day. This is not a complete statement, because it does not exclude the negative. We have already told you to add "and NOT to do what you would not have me do." in connection with miracles. The distinction has also been made here between "miracle-mindedness" as a STATE, and "miracle-doing" as its expression.
The former needs YOUR careful protection, because it is a state of miracle-READINESS. This is what the Bible means in the many references to "Hold yourself ready" and other similar injunctions.
Readiness here means keep your perception right side up, (or valid), so 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. But the other two, which are the voluntary aspects of miracle-mindedness, ARE up to you.
To channelize DOES have a "narrowing down" connotation, though NOT in the sense of lack. The underlying state of mind, or Grace is a total commitment. Only the DOING aspect involves the channel at all. This is because doing is always specific.
As Jack said, "A reliable instrument must measure something," but a channel is also valid. It must learn to do ONLY what it is supposed to do. Change the prayer to read:
If you will tell me what to do,
ONLY THAT I will to do.
NOTE Helen Schucman objects to doggerel sound of this, and regards it as very inferior poetry. ANSWER: It's hard to forget, though.
The Revelation is literally unspeakable, because it is an experience of unspeakable love. The word "Awe" should be reserved only for revelations, to which it is perfectly and correctly applicable. It is NOT appropriately applied to miracles, because a state of true awe is worshipful. It implies that one of a lesser order stands before the Greater One. This is the case only when a Soul stands before his Creator. Souls are perfect creations, and should be struck with awe in the presence of the Creator of Perfection.
The miracle, on the other hand, is a sign of love among equals. Equals cannot be in awe of each other, because awe ALWAYS implies inequality. Awe is not properly experienced even to me. That is why in that short introductory vision, I knelt beside you, FACING the light.
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 own devotion that entitles me to yours. But you will notice that I have knelt at your altar as readily as I would ever have you kneel at mine.
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 to 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. Now, we know that time does not exist. Actually, the statement is much 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 is too great for man to encompass. I bridge the distance as an Elder Brother to man, on the one hand, and 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 I can SHARE it.
This appears to contradict another statement: "I and my Father are one." It doesn't. There are still separate parts in the statement, in recognition of the fact that the Father is GREATER. Actually, the original statement was "are of one KIND."
The Holy Spirit is the Bringer of Revelations, not miracles. Revelations are INDIRECTLY inspired by me, because I am close to the Holy Spirit, and alert to revelation-readiness in my brothers. I can thus BRING DOWN to them more than they can DRAW down to themselves. Jean Dixon's description is perhaps a better statement of my position. Because my feet are on the ground and my hands are in heaven, I can bring down the glories of Heaven to my brothers on earth.
The Holy Spirit is the Highest Communication Medium. Miracles do not involve this type of communication, because they are TEMPORARY communicative devices. When man can return to his original form of communication with God by direct REVELATION, the need for miracles is over. The Holy Spirit mediates higher to lower order communication, keeping the direct channel from God to man open for revelation. Revelation is NOT reciprocal. It is always FROM God TO man. This is because God and man are NOT equal. The miracle is reciprocal because it ALWAYS involves equality.
In the longitudinal (or horizontal) plane, the true equality of all men in the Sonship appears to involve almost endless time. But we know that time is only an artifact introduced as a learning aid.
After taking the first corrective step, i.e., "Knowing it IS fear," you might benefit temporarily by adding another next step BEFORE going on with the corrective process. Try saying to yourself that you MUST have willed not to love somehow or somewhere, or that fear which arises from behavior-will conflict could not have happened. Then follow previous instructions.
If you consider what the process really means, it is nothing more than a series of pragmatic steps in the larger process of accepting the Atonement as THE remedy. From this viewpoint, the steps can be reworded as follows:
1.) Know first this is fear.
2.) Fear arises from lack of love.
3.) The ONLY remedy for lack of love is perfect love.
4.) Perfect love IS the Atonement.
The final procedural step (3) is inherent in the last statement (4). We have emphasized that the miracle, or the EXPRESSION of Atonement, is always a sign of real respect from the worthy TO the worthy. This worth IS re-established by the Atonement.
It is obvious, then, that when you are afraid you have placed yourself in a position where you NEED Atonement BECAUSE you have DONE something loveless because you WILLED without love. This is precisely the situation for which the Atonement was offered. The need for the remedy inspired its CREATION.
As long as you recognize only the NEED for the remedy, you will remain fearful. However, as soon as you REMEDY it, you have also abolished the fear. This is how TRUE healing occurs.
Everyone experiences fear, and nobody enjoys it. Yet, it would take very little Right-thinking to know why it occurs. Neither you nor Bill have thought about it very much, either. ( I object at this point to the use of plural verb with a properly singular subject - - Helen Schucman - - and remember that last time in a very similar sentence, He said it correctly and I remembered it with real pleasure. This real grammatical error makes me suspicious of the genuineness of these notes. ANSWER: What it really shows is that YOU are not very receptive. The reason it came out that way, is because you are projecting (in the inappropriate way) your own anger, which has nothing to do with these notes. YOU made the error, because you are not feeling loving, so you want me to sound silly, so you won't have to pay attention. Actually, I am trying to get through against considerable opposition, because you are not very happy, and I wish you were. I thought I'd take a chance, even though you are so resistant, because I MIGHT be able to make you feel better. You may be unable not to attack at all, but do try to listen a little, too.)
Very few people appreciate the real power of the mind. Nobody remains fully aware of it all the time. This is inevitable in this world, because the human being has many things he must do, and cannot engage in constant thought-watching. However, if he hopes to spare himself from fear, there are some things he must realize, and realize them fully, at least some of the time.
The mind is a very powerful creator, and it never loses its creative force. It never sleeps. Every instant it is creating, and ALWAYS as you will. Many of your ordinary expressions reflect this. For example, when you say "don't give it a thought", you are implying that if you do not think about something, it will have no effect on you. This is true enough.
On the other hand, many other expressions are clear expressions of the prevailing LACK of awareness of thought-power. For example, you say, "just an idle thought", and mean that the thought has no effect. You also speak of some actions as "thoughtless", implying that if the person HAD thought, he would not have behaved as he did. You also use phrases like "thought provoking", which is bland enough, but the term "a provoking thought" means something quite different.
While expressions like "think big" give some recognition to the power of thought, they still come nowhere near the truth. You do not expect to grow when you say it, because you don't really believe it. It is hard to recognize that thought and belief combine into a power-surge that can literally move mountains.
It appears at first glance that to believe such power about yourself is merely arrogant, but that is not the real reason why you don't believe it.
People prefer to believe that their thoughts cannot exert real control because they are literally AFRAID of them. Therapists try to help people who are afraid of their own death wishes by depreciating the power of the wish. They even attempt to "free" the patient by persuading him that he can think whatever he wants, without ANY real effect at all.
There is a real dilemma here, which only the truly right-minded can escape. Death wishes do not kill in the physical sense, but they DO kill spiritually. ALL destructive thinking is dangerous. Given a death wish, a man has no choice except to ACT upon his thought, or behave CONTRARY TO it. He can thus choose ONLY between homicide and fear. (See previous notes on will conflicts.) (NOTE I avoided this term in the last series of notes intentionally, because it seemed too Rankian. Apparently, there was a reason why this word should have been used last time. It is used in this section for a very good reason.)
The other possibility is that he depreciates the power of his thought. This is the usual psychoanalytic approach. This DOES allay guilt, but at the cost of rendering thinking impotent. If you believe that what you think is ineffectual, you may cease to be overly afraid of it, but you are hardly likely to respect it, either. The world is full of endless examples of how man has depreciated himself because he is afraid of his own thoughts. In some forms of insanity, thoughts are glorified, but this is only because the underlying depreciation was too effective for tolerance.
The truth is that there ARE no "idle thoughts." ALL thinking produces form at some level. The reason why people are afraid of ESP, and so often react against it, is because they KNOW that thought can hurt them. Their OWN thoughts have made them vulnerable.
You and Bill, who complain all the time about fear, still persist in creating it most of the time. I told you last time that you cannot ask ME to release you from it, because I KNOW it does not exist. YOU don't. If I merely intervene between your thoughts and their results, I would be tampering with a basic law of cause and effect, in fact the most fundamental one there is in this world. I would hardly help if I depreciated the power of your own thinking. This would be in direct opposition to the purpose of this course.
It is certainly much more useful to remind you that you do not guard your thoughts at all carefully, except for a relatively small part of the day, and somewhat inconsistently even then. You may feel at this point that it would take a miracle to enable you to do this, which is perfectly true. Human beings are not used to miraculous thinking, but they CAN be TRAINED to think that way.
All miracle-workers HAVE to be trained that way. I have to be able to count on them. This means that I cannot allow them to leave their mind unguarded, or they will not be able to help me. Miracle-working entails a full realization of the power of thought, and real avoidance of miscreation. Otherwise, the miracle will be necessary to set the mind ITSELF straight, a circular process which would hardly foster the time-collapse for which the miracle was intended. Nor would it induce the healthy respect that every miracle-worker must have for true cause and effect.
Miracles cannot free the miracle-worker from fear. Both miracles AND fear come from his thoughts, and if he were not free to choose one, he would also not be free to choose the other. Remember, we said before that when electing one person, you reject another.
It is much the same in electing the miracle. By so doing, you HAVE rejected fear. Fear cannot assail unless it has been created. You and Bill have been afraid of God, of me, of yourselves, and of practically everyone you know at one time or another. This can only be because you have miscreated all of us, and believe in what you have created. (We spent a lot of time on this before, but it did not help very much.) You would never have done this if you were not afraid of your own thoughts. The vulnerable are essentially miscreators, because they misperceive Creation.
You and Bill are willing to accept primarily what does NOT change your minds too much, and leaves you free to leave them quite unguarded most of the time. You persist in believing that when you do not consciously watch your mind, it is unmindful.
It is time to consider the whole world of the unconscious, or unwatched mind. This will frighten you, because it is the source of fright. You may look at it as a new theory of basic conflict, if you wish, which will not be entirely an intellectual approach, because I doubt if the truth will escape you entirely.
The unwatched mind is responsible for the whole content of the unconscious, which lies above the miracle-level. All psychoanalytic theorists have made some contribution to the truth in this connection, but none of them has seen it in its true entirety. (The correct grammar here is a sign of your better cooperation. Thank you.) Jung's best contribution was an awareness of individual vs. collective unconscious levels. He also recognized the major place of the religious spirit in his schema. His archetypes were also meaningful concepts. But his major error lay in regarding the deepest level of the unconscious as shared in terms of CONTENT. The deepest level of the unconscious is shared as an ABILITY. As MIRACLE-MINDEDNESS, the content, (or the particular miracles which an individual happens to perform) does not matter at all. They will, in fact, be entirely different, because, since I direct them, I make a point of avoiding redundancy. Unless a miracle actually heals, it is not a miracle at all.
The content of the miracle-level is not recorded in the individual's unconscious, because if it were, it would not be automatic and involuntary, which we have said repeatedly it should be. However, the content IS a matter for the record, which is NOT within the individual himself.
All psychoanalysts made one common error, in that they attempted to uncover unconscious CONTENT. You cannot understand unconscious activity in these terms, because "content" is applicable ONLY to the more superficial unconscious levels to which the individual himself contributes. This is the level at which he can readily introduce fear, and usually does.
Freud was right in calling this level pre-conscious, and emphasizing that there is a fairly easy interchange between preconscious and conscious material. He was also right in regarding the censor as an agent for the protection of consciousness from fear. HIS major error lay in his insistence that this level is necessary at all in the psychic structure. If the psyche contains fearful levels from which it cannot escape without splitting, its integration is permanently threatened. It is essential not to control the fearful, but to ELIMINATE it.
Here, Rank's concept of the will was particularly good, except that he preferred to ally it only with man's own truly creative ability, but did not extend it to its proper union with God's. His "birth trauma", another valid idea, was also too limited, in that it did not refer to the Separation, which was really a FALSE idea of birth. Physical birth is not a trauma in itself. It can, however, remind the individual of the Separation, which was a very real cause of fear.
The idea of "will-THERAPY" was potentially a very powerful one, but Rank did not see its real potential because he himself used his mind partly to create a theory OF the mind, but also partly to attack Freud. His reactions to Freud stemmed from his own unfortunate acceptance of the deprivation-fallacy, which itself arose from the Separation. This led him to believe that his own mind-creation could stand only if the creation of another's fell. In consequence, his theory emphasized rather than minimized the two-edged nature of defenses. This is an outstanding characteristic of his concepts, because it was outstandingly true of him.
He also misinterpreted the birth-trauma in a way that made it inevitable for him to attempt a therapy whose goal was to ABOLISH FEAR. This is characteristic of all later theorists, who do not attempt, as Freud did, to split off the fear in his own form of therapy.
No one as yet has fully recognized either the therapeutic value of fear, or the only way in which it can be truly ended. When man miscreates, he IS in pain. The cause and effect principle here is temporarily a real expeditor. Actually, Cause is a term properly belonging to God, and Effect, which should also be capitalized, is HIS Sonship. This entails a set of cause and effect relationships which are totally different from those which man introduced into the Miscreation.
The fundamental opponents in the real basic conflict are Creation and miscreation. All fear is implicit in the second, just as all love is inherent in the first. Because of this difference, the basic conflict IS one between love and fear.
So much, then, for the true nature of the major opponents in the basic conflict. Since all such theories lead to a form of therapy in which a re-distribution of psychic energy results, it is necessary to consider OUR concept of libido next. In this respect, Freud was more accurate than his followers, who were essentially more wishful. Energy CAN emanate from both Creation AND miscreation, and the particular ratio between them which prevails at a given point in time DOES determine behavior AT that time. If miscreation did NOT engender energy in its own right, it would be unable to produce destructive behavior, which it very patently DOES.
Everything that man creates has energy because, like the Creation of God, they (it) come FROM energy, and are endowed by their creator with the power to create. Miscreation is still a genuine creative act in terms of the underlying IMPULSE, but NOT in terms of the CONTENT of the creation. This, however, does not deprive the creation of its OWN creative power. It DOES, however, GUARANTEE that the power will be misused, or USED FEARFULLY.
To deny this is merely the previously mentioned fallacy of depreciation. Although Freud made a number of fallacies of his own, he DID avoid this one in connection with libido. The later theorists denied the split-energy concept, not by attempting to heal it, but by re-interpreting it instead of redistributing it.
This placed them in the illogical position of assuming that the split which their therapies were intended to heal had not occurred. The result of this approach is essentially a form of hypnosis. This is quite different from Freud's approach, which merely ended in a deadlock.
A similar deadlock occurs when both the power of Creation and of miscreation coexist. This is experienced as conflict only because the individual feels AS IF both were occurring AT THE SAME LEVEL. He BELIEVES in what he has created in his own unconscious and he naturally believes it is real BECAUSE he has created it. He, thus, places himself in a position where the fearful becomes REAL.
Nothing but level-confusion can result as long as this belief is held in ANY form. Inappropriate denial and equally inappropriate identification of the REAL factors in the basic conflict will NOT solve the problem itself. The conflict CANNOT disappear until it is fully recognized that miscreation is NOT real, and therefore there IS no conflict. This entails a full realization of the basic fact that, although man has miscreated in a very real sense, he need neither continue to do so, nor to suffer from his past errors in this respect.
A REDISTRIBUTION of psychic energy, then, is NOT the solution. Both the idea that both kinds MUST exist, and the belief that ONE kind is amenable for use or misuse, are real distortions. The ONLY way is to STOP MISCREATING NOW, and accept the Atonement for miscreations of the past. Only this can re-establish true single-mindedness. The structure of the psyche, as you very correctly noted yourself, follows along the lines of the particular libido concept the theorist employs. (I still think it was the other way around - - Helen Schucman. Answer: This confusion arises out of the fact that you DID change the order - - several times in fact. Actually, it didn't matter, because the two concepts DO flow from each other. It was a TERRIFIC waste of time, and one in which I hardly care to become engaged myself. PLEASE!)
Freud's psyche was essentially a good and evil picture, with very heavy weight given to the evil. This is because every time I mentioned the Atonement to him, which was quite often, he responded by defending his theory more and more against it. This resulted in his increasingly strong attempts to make the illogical sound more and more logical.
I was very sorry about this, because his was a singularly good mind, and it was a shame to waste it. However, the major purpose of his incarnation was not neglected. He DID succeed in forcing recognition of the unconscious into man's calculations about himself, a step in the right direction which should not be minimized. Freud was one of the most religious men I have known recently. Unfortunately, he was so afraid of religion that the only way he could deal with it was to regard IT (not himself) as sick. This naturally prevented healing.
Freud's superego is a particularly interesting example of the real power of miscreation. It is noteworthy throughout the whole development of his theories that the superego never allied itself with freedom. The most it could do in this direction was to work out a painful truce in which both opponents LOST. This perception could not fail to force him to emphasize discontent in his view of civilization.
The Freudian id is really only the more superficial level of the unconscious, and not the deepest level at all. This, too, was inevitable, because Freud could not divorce miracles from magic. It was therefore his constant endeavor, (even preoccupation) to keep on thrusting more and more material between consciousness and the real deeper level of the unconscious, so that the latter became increasingly obscured. The result was a kind of bedlam, in which there was no order, no control, and no sense. This was exactly how he FELT about it.
The later theoretical switch to the primacy of anxiety was an interesting device intended to deny both the instinctive nature of destructiveness, and the force of the power of miscreation. By placing the emphasis on the RESULT, the generative nature of the power was minimized.
Destructive behavior IS instinctual. The instinct for creation is NOT obliterated in miscreation. That is why it is always invested with reality. *One of the chief ways in which man can correct his magic-miracle confusion is to remember that he did not create himself. He is apt to forget this when he becomes egocentric, and this places him in a position where belief in magic is virtually inevitable. His instincts for creation were given him by his own Creator, who was expressing the same instinct in His Creation. Since the creative ability rests solely in the mind, everything which man creates is necessarily instinctive.
(This goes after basic conflict theory.) (Dictated without notes by Helen Schucman)
We have already said that the basic conflict is one between love and fear, and that the proper organization of the psyche rests on a lack of level confusion. The section on psychic energy should be re-read very carefully, because it is particularly likely to be misinterpreted until this section is complete.
It has already been said that man CANNOT control fear, because he himself created it. His belief in it renders it out of his control by definition. For this reason, any attempt to resolve the basic conflict through the concept of mastery of fear is meaningless. In fact, it asserts the power of fear by the simple assumption that it need be mastered at all.
The essential resolution rests entirely on the mastery of love. In the interim, conflict is inevitable. The reason for this is the strangely illogical position in which man had placed himself. Since we have frequently emphasized that correction must be applied within the level that error occurs, it should be clear that the miracle MUST be illogical because its purpose is to correct the illogical and restore order.
Two concepts which CANNOT coexist are nothing and everything. To whatever extent one is believed in, the other HAS BEEN abolished. In the conflict, fear is really nothing, and love is really everything. (This recognition is really the basis for the castration complex.) This is because whenever light penetrates darkness, it DOES abolish it. The unwillingness to be seen, or submit error to light, is spuriously associated with active doing. In this incarnation, this can take the form of oedipal involvement and concomitant castration anxiety.
However, in more long range and meaningful terms, the oedipal complex is a miniature of the true Separation fear, and the castration complex is a way of denying that it ever occurred. Like all pseudo-solutions, this kind of distorted thinking is very creative, but false. The Separation HAS occurred. To deny this is merely to misuse denial. However, to concentrate on error is merely a further misuse of legitimate psychic mechanisms. The true corrective procedure, which has already been described as the proper use of the spiritual eye (or true vision), is to accept the error temporarily, BUT ONLY as an indication that IMMEDIATE correction is mandatory. This establishes a state of mind in which the Atonement can be accepted without delay.
It is worth repeating that ultimately there is no compromise possible between everything and nothing. The purpose of time is essentially a device by which all compromise in this respect can be abolished. It seems to be abolished by degrees precisely because time itself involves a concept of intervals which do not really exist. The faulty use of creation has made this necessary as a corrective device.
"And God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son so that whosoever believeth on Him shall not perish but have Eternal Life" needs only one slight correction to be entirely meaningful in this context. It should read "And God so loved the world that he gave it TO His only begotten Son." It should be noted that God HAS begotten only ONE Son. If you believe that all of the Souls that God created ARE His Sons, and if you also believe that the Sonship is One, then every Soul MUST be a Son of God, or an integral part of the Sonship. You do not find the concept that the whole is greater than its parts difficult to understand. You should therefore not have too great difficulty with this. The Sonship in its Oneness DOES transcend the sum of its parts. However, it loses this special state as long as any of its parts are missing. This is why the conflict cannot ultimately be resolved UNTIL all of the individual parts of the Sonship have returned. Only then, in the true sense, can the meaning of wholeness be understood.
The concept of minus numbers has always been regarded as a mathematical rather than an actual expedient. (This is a major limitation on mathematics as presently understood.) Any statement which implies degrees of difference in negation is essentially meaningless. What can replace this negative approach is a recognition of the fact that as long as one part (which is the same as a million or ten or eight thousand parts) of the Sonship is missing, it is NOT complete.
In the Divine psyche, the Father and the Holy Spirit are not incomplete at all. The Sonship has the unique faculty of believing in error, or incompleteness, if he so elects. However, it is quite apparent that so to elect IS to believe in the existence of nothingness. The correction of this error is the Atonement.
We have already briefly spoken about readiness. But there are some additional awarenesses which might be helpful. Readiness is nothing more than the prerequisite for accomplishment. The two should not be confused. As soon as a state of readiness occurs, there is always some will to accomplish, but this is by no means undivided. The state does not imply more than the potential for a shift of will. Confidence cannot develop fully until mastery has been accomplished. We began this section with an attempt to correct the fundamental human error that fear can be mastered. The Correction was that ONLY love can be mastered. When I told you that you were "ready for Revelation", I did not mean that you had in any way mastered this form of communication. However, you yourself attested to your readiness by insisting that I would not have said so if it had not been true. This IS an affirmation of readiness. Mastery of love necessarily involves a much more complete confidence in the ability than either of you has attained. But the readiness at least is an indication that you believe this is possible. This is only the beginning of confidence.
In case this be misunderstood as a statement that an enormous amount of time will be necessary between readiness and mastery, I would again remind you that time and space are under My control. Dictated without notes by Helen Schucman)
One of the chief ways in which man can correct his magic-miracle confusion is to remember that he did not create himself. He is apt to forget this when he becomes egocentric, and this places him in a position where belief in magic is virtually inevitable. His instincts for creation were given him by his own Creator, who was expressing the same instinct in His Creation. Since the creative ability rests solely in the mind, everything which man creates is necessarily instinctive.
It also follows that whatever he creates is real in his own eyes, but not necessarily in the sight of God. This basic distinction leads us directly into the real meaning of the Last Judgment. (I am aware of the fact that you would much rather continue with the parallels involved in other theories of basic conflict. However, this would merely be a delay which we will engage in only if you regard it as essential.)