"Adam's "sin" could have touched none of you, had you not believed that it was the FATHER Who drove him out of Paradise. For it is in that belief that knowledge of the Father was lost, for it is only those who do not understand Him that COULD believe it."

This statement suggests that in fact someone named "Adam", in heaven, was the first to come up with the tiny mad idea. Notice that it says that ADAMS SIN could have touched NONE of you, ie no other brother besides this one individual. And that this one individual seemed to be the first who left paradise. And it was only our own belief in the same idea that made us join him. So we can seemingly attribute the invention of the tiny mad idea to Adam, just as is similarly written in the bible in relation to Adam eating of the tree of the knowledge of life and death etc. Adam was the first to enter the "original sin".

Even though the bible's account of this story may be slightly too literal and augmented, nevertheless ACIM does seem to indicate there was a "garden of eden" (heaven), there was a kind of misuse of knowledge leading to the realm of fragmentation and hierarchies of illusion (tree with branches and leaves), the symbol of eating of its fruit (temptation to believe the mad idea), temptation by the serpent/devil (ego belief etc), expulsion from heaven (the son left God and blamed it on God abandoning him even though he did it to himself), the "fall of man" (the separation) etc. It's all there in the course. It was just somewhat mis-described in the bible, but based on the same facts.

"The Garden of Eden, which is described as a literal garden in the Bible, was not originally an actual garden at all. It was merely a mental state of complete need-lack. Even in the literal account, it is noteworthy that the pre-Separation state was essentially one in which man needed nothing. The Tree of Knowledge, again an overly-literal concept, (as is clearly shown by the subsequent reference to "eating of the fruit of the tree") is a symbolic reference to some of the misuses of knowledge referred to in the section immediately preceding this one. "

"This section is inserted here because it deals with a more fundamental misuse of knowledge, referred to in the Bible as the cause of the Fall (or Separation)."

"We have discussed the fall or Separation before, but its meaning must be clearly understood, without symbols. The Separation is NOT symbolic. It is an order of reality, or a system of thought that is PERFECTLY real in time, though not in Eternity. All beliefs are real to the believer.""Until the Separation, which is a better term than the Fall, nothing was lacking. This meant that man had no needs at all. If he had not deprived himself, he would never have experienced them. "

"When the "lies of the serpent" were introduced, they were specifically called lies because they are not true. When man listened, all he heard was untruth. He does not have to continue to believe what is not true, unless he chooses to do so. All of his miscreations can disappear in the well known "twinkling of an eye", because it is a visual misperception. "

In the separation from God we made what seems to be a world, opposite to God - space and time and bodies etc. But we're told this world is unreal. What does "unreal" mean? Because while we're told it's unreal we're also told we believe in it, and that by believing in it it becomes real to us.

Being unreal is a way to say it's not ultimately true and isn't how God creates. So in a sense, it is dream-like. But people DO have dreams, and the mind IS dreaming of a world of space and time. This dream can seem very real and solid and effectual to the dreamer.

As such even though the world is ultimately unreal, which would seem to write off anything that seems to happen in it, while we are still in it believing in it we do still have experience of it AS IF it were real. In fact we can make it extremely real to ourselves and have a horrible nightmare.

"anything else is only his own nightmare, and does not exist."

"The mind can make the belief in Separation VERY real and VERY fearful. And this belief IS the devil. It is powerful, active, destructive, and clearly in opposition to God, because it literally denies His Fatherhood. Never underestimate the power of this denial. Look at your lives and see what the devil has made. But KNOW that this making will surely dissolve in the light of truth, because its foundation IS a lie."

But nightmares do in fact seem very real and frightening and full of suffering and stress to the believer. To the believer, even if they are hallucinating, even if what they experence is total fantasy and not possible in God's laws, it nevertheless can seem VERY real and true to a mind that belives in it.

How do we overcome this nightmarish experience of a world in which everything suffers and dies? What is NEEDED? What is called for? If the problem is that the mind is believing in it and giving it power, then the mind has to withdraw that power and stop believing in it. And by not believing in it, the mind will ultimately stop seeing it.

"What if you recognized this world is a hallucination? What if you REALLY understood you made it up? What if you realized that those who SEEM to walk about in it, to sin and die, attack and murder and destroy themselves, are WHOLLY unreal? Could you have FAITH in what you see, if you ACCEPTED this? AND WOULD YOU SEE IT? Hallucinations disappear when they are RECOGNIZED for what they are. This IS the healing and the remedy."

Here the course doesn't say that the remedy or approach we're supposed to take is to just write the world off with labels like "unreal, illusion, nothing, doesn't exist" ESPECIALLY when the mind IS honestly still believing in it and giving it reality. That's a form of denial. Instead it says we are to use RECOGNITION to realize that the world isn't real and isn't true, WHILE still in it. That's different from PRETENDING TO BE OUTSIDE IT.

A hallucinated world will disappear only when RECOGNIZED that it is a dream and not a reality. This is what "awareness of dreaming" is about. Awareness of dreaming isn't denial. It's in fact a state in which you are still asleep and dreaming, but you have the awareness of what you're doing.

We're not supposed to keep bypassing the world in an attempt to overcome or escape it. In fact, Jesus's remedy for us is to CHANGE PERCEPTION so that we will come to first see this world from a different vantage point. That does require us to "love the world" and to find peace in the world. Before we can leave it. As the course says:

"First you will dream of peace, then you will awaken to it."

If we try to skip the dream of peace, or the happy dream, or the forgiven world, and just try to jump from false perception to knowledge, we're doing a bypass.

"Knowledge is not the remedy for false perception since, being another level, they can never meet. The one correction possible for false perception must be true perception. It will not endure. But for the time it lasts it comes to heal. For true perception is a remedy with many names. Forgiveness, salvation, Atonement, true perception, all are one. They are the one beginning with the end to lead to Oneness far beyond themselves. True perception is the means by which the world is saved from sin, for sin does not exist. And it is this that true perception sees."

Those who use non-dual-seeming statements like "the world doesn't exist so it doen't matter what you do", "the body isn't real so don't bother healing it" etc... are trying to use truths from the level of KNOWLEDGE, to correct the problem. But Jesus says this will not really work. THE ONE CORRECTION for false perception is true perception. We can't skip having true perception. We have to find a way to forgive this world and everything in it first instead of trying to jump ahead to being what is only really experienced AFTER we complete the curriculum.

"Miracles are thought-creations. Thought can create lower-order or higher-order realities. This is the basic distinction between intellectualization and thinking. One creates the physical, and the other the spiritual, and we believe in what we create."

"We have discussed the fall or Separation before, but its meaning must be clearly understood, without symbols. The Separation is NOT symbolic. It is an order of reality, or a system of thought that is PERFECTLY real in time, though not in Eternity. All beliefs are real to the believer."

"You have expressed surprise at hearing how VERY different is reality from what YOU see. You do not realize the magnitude of that ONE error. It was so vast and so COMPLETELY incredible, that from it, a world of total unreality HAD to emerge."

"You looked upon the unreal and found despair. But by SEEKING the unreal, what else COULD you find? The UNreal world IS a thing of despair, for it can never be."

"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."

"The separation is merely a faulty formulation of reality, WITH NO EFFECT AT ALL. The miracle, without a function in Heaven, IS needful here. ASPECTS of reality can still be seen, and they will replace aspects of UNREALITY. Aspects of reality can be seen IN EVERYTHING and EVERYWHERE. Yet only God can gather them together by crowning them AS ONE with the final gift of eternity."

"18. A miracle is a service. It is the maximal service that one soul can render another. It is a way of loving your neighbor as yourself. The doer recognizes his own and his neighbor's inestimable value simultaneously."

This touches on the essence of A Course in Miracles and the Golden Rule. Jesus is literally telling us that YOU ARE ONE WITH OTHERS. This means you are literally IN THEM. And therefore the way that you treat them is the SAME as the way you treat yourself.

There is no exception to this. You treat BOTH yourself and others the same way at the same time. To recoil for another is to recoil from yourself. To not love another is to not love yourself. To hate another is to hate yourself. There is no escaping this because fundamentally, by the Law of God, you ARE them.

"One brother is all brothers. One mind is all minds. Such is the truth."

So per the Golden Rule, that means that every person you encounter, you should love them, IF you want to be loved and if you love yourself. You should SEE YOUR SELF in them. Because both you AND them are Christ. And your love of them IS your love of yourself, directly. What you give to them you receive. What you transmit to them, you transmit to the part of you that is in them.

The "part of you" that is "in them" is the target of everything you give to them, so you have a VESTED INTEREST - a shared interest, in treating them well in order for YOU to be treated well. This is not a play on words or an option. This is how minds share and relate. This is how they were created. This is the dynamics of the laws of God which are always applying.

It is always the ego that suggests, the way you treat another is NOT the way you are treating yourself. Or that you can attack without being attacked. Or you can be murderous without experiencing the consequences. Or you can judge without being judged. Or you can hate without being hated. Or you can be right and they can be wrong and there is no equality between you.

These are all LIES because they fly in the face of the inescapable LAW. It can SEEM as if you can treat someone differently to how you treat yourself, but all of that MUST be an illusion. Because the only truth is that ALL of God's children are perfect EQUALS. Making them perfect brothers in the sonship. And this is permanent fact.

Any kind of inequality is an illusion. And that not only means that you and your brother are SEPARATELY EQUAL as individuals, like two identical twins standing next to each other. It in fact means that you SHARE EVERYTHING, which means you OVERLAP with each other, are ONE with each other, JOINED with each other, IN each other. You literally are in your brother's mind with him. Even if that means part of you seems to be "over there" in another person, from a separated point of view.

This is really the only thing to be learned. How to love yourself AND others equally. How to recognize that you are ONE with all people. To realize that, you cannot GET AWAY WITH anything. You cannot hurt without being hurt. You cannot attack without being attacked. Scapegoating and blame are delusional and denial. When you attack anyone you are hurting yourself, and you have to ask yourself, do you want to keep hurting yourself?

Anger and attack towards "others" drives a RIFT into your mind between the part of your mind which seems to be isolated to "inside your body" and the part of you which seems to be "inside other people's bodies". The more you attack what you THINK is a "separate them", the more you are SPLITTING OFF part of you which is in "you" (as a body identified self) and the part of you which is ONE WITH THEM. Which means you are directly attacking yourself and splitting your mind.

The split mind is divided by bodily boundaries, and as you focus on the ways in which you are NOT ONE, by emphasizing the solidity and reality and restriction of bodily obstacles, it simply SPLITS your mind and causes you to disassociate from yourself. And now you think you are literally two selves, with one part of you trapped in your body and the other part of you trapped in another person's body. You've now made an ego for both of you. And now you want to attack another to steal back from them the part of your SELF that you believe they have kept from you. As discussed in "the laws of chaos", everyone is looking for the self they think they lost.

So this seems to be a catch. The catch is, that if you choose to attack someone, you WILL be attacked, and you will suffer consequences, directly inflicted BY YOURSELF upon yourself. This is the secret of salvation, that you are doing it to yourself. And the only way to alleviate this suffering is to LOVE the other person. If you love them you will be loved. If you hate them you will be hated. By yourself. You cannot escape this "clause". It is the law of God. It is the Golden Rule. It is both a curse if ignored, and a clue to how to be happy if embraced.

The Golden Rule doesn't just mean that if you might treat someone as you would have them treat you, they MIGHT elect to treat you in a similar fashion. If there is any possibility that cause and effect breaks down and they MIGHT NOT treat you how you are treating them, then the law is breakable, and it is not a law, and it has devolved to the level of physical behaviors. The true nature of the Golden Rule is the oneness you always have with everyone in the mind, whereby you LITERALLY are DIRECTLY treating yourself the way you are treating them, because you are IN THEM.

"Do unto others because you ARE doing unto yourself." is what it should say.

If there is a person you hate, you will drive a separation between you. In this separation you will believe that person is completely separate from you, and you want to have as much distance and dis-association between you as possible. You do not want to be associated with them. You want to destroy them and have them not exist. And in this intensity of hatred and rage and attack and anger, you believe THEY ARE NOT YOU. And as such you can hurl as much blame and condemnation upon them as you can muster, and it seems to be 100% about their faults, and 0% about yours. This is a state of insanity.

This is a great way to split your mind, leading to states of personal suffering, unlove, a total lack of peace, and literal self destruction. Those who murder are trying to kill themselves. And those who attack are undermining their own integrity. And those who hate do not love themselves. Just as those who are sick have made themselves sick in an attempt to accuse OTHERS of sin as well as themselves.

"You but accuse your brothers of your own sin."

"Damaged bodies remain accusers."

The only solution, and the only option, and the only law which you HAVE to abide by, and cannot escape, is the law of God, that how you DO treat others IS how you are treating yourself, because YOU ARE ONE WITH THEM. And being literally part of that person, anything you hurl at them you are hurling at yourself. And you WILL experience the consequences. So really, your hands are tied and you do not have any loopholes or ways to get out of it.

Either you love BOTH you and your brother, or you hate both you and your brother. Either you love both you and your brother, or you attack both you and your brother. Either you attempt to make both you and your brother sick, or you HEAL both you and your brother. When you suffer you suffer along with him. The truth that applies to you applies to them equally and to the same degree. And not simply because they are your equal, but because THEY ARE YOU.

"Healing is when two minds recognize their oneness and become glad."When this is recognized as true, when cause and effect are reunited so that anything you cause you also experience the effects of instantly, and when there is no way to attack without attacking yourself, you now have shared interests and the only option is to love. The only sane choice is to love. If you don't love you will hurt yourself and others. If you do love you will uplift and heal yourself and others. And "when I heal I am not healed alone."

It is by recognizing that you have a vested interest in loving others, because it allows you to be loved, that you will automatically steer clear of attack upon yourself. You will realize that you CANNOT attack another person WITHOUT suffering the consequences. And there is no way to hurt them without being hurt. So your only sane choice is to love unconditionally, so that you will be loved. Otherwise a failure to recognize your oneness leads to it seeming plausible, justifiable and warranted, that you can attack without consequence. And then you are on the slippery slope to hell.

This pretty much explains why you have the freedom to deny God.

"If you will accept yourself as God created you, you will be incapable of suffering. But to do this, you must acknowledge Him as your Creator. This is not because you will be punished otherwise. It is merely because your acknowledgment of your Father IS the acknowledgment of yourself as you ARE. Your Father created you wholly without sin, wholly without pain, and wholly without suffering of any kind. If you deny Him, you bring sin, pain, and suffering into your OWN mind, because of the power He gave it. Your mind is capable of creating worlds, but it can also DENY what it creates, because it is free.

You do not realize how much you have denied yourself, and how much God, in His love, would not have it so. Yet He would not interfere with you, because He would not know His Son if he were not free. To interfere with you would be to attack HIMSELF, and God is not insane. When you denied HIM, you WERE insane. Would you have Him SHARE your insanity? God will never cease to love His Son, and His Son will never cease to love Him. That was the condition of His Son's Creation, fixed forever in the Mind of God. To know that is sanity. To deny it is insanity. God gave HIMSELF to you in your Creation, and His gifts ARE eternal. Would you deny yourself to Him?"

Note also that "separation" as in the theoretical idea that you CAN BE separate (which is impossible), is totally different from "THE separation", which is another name for the fall of man, the tiny mad idea. We DID in fact have the idea, we DID believe it, and we DID "fall". This is why there appears to be a facebook. BUT, the fall is not actual real separation, it's just belief in it and a denial that actual separation is impossible.

"The Separation (not ACTUAL separation, but the state of believing it's possible) 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."

So we did have the tiny mad idea, we did go into it through belief (which is really denial), and we did find ourselves in a "lower order reality". But this state in which we SEEM separate is not ACTUAL separation or real separation, which is impossible. It's just us MISTAKEDLY believing that it's possible and happening.

THE separation, the fall from Heaven, did occur. But it was not an actual separation.

"The separation was not a loss of perfection, but a failure in communication. "

The failure to communicate (to receive, to give equally), resulted in a state of denial, not listening, being unaware of perfection, a breakdown in the experience of oneness. It did not change anything perfect, it just closed the communication channels to a degree.

"What God DOES know is that His communication channels are not open to Him, so that He cannot impart His joy and know that His Children are wholly joyous. This is an ongoing process, not in time, but in eternity. God's extending outward, though not His completeness, is blocked when the Sonship does not communicate with Him as one. So He thinks, "My Children sleep, and must be awakened.""

"Those who communicate fear are promoting attack, and attack always BREAKS communication, and therefore makes communion impossible."

"Into eternity, where all is one, there crept a tiny mad idea, at which the Son of God remembered not to laugh. In his forgetting did the thought become a serious idea, and possible of both accomplishment and real effects. Together, we can laugh them BOTH away, and understand that time can NOT intrude upon eternity. It IS a joke to think that time can come to circumvent eternity, which MEANS there is no time."

"Adam's "sin" could have touched none of you, had you not believed that it was the FATHER Who drove him out of Paradise. For it is in that belief that knowledge of the Father was lost, for it is only those who do not understand Him that COULD believe it."

"When the "lies of the serpent" were introduced, they were specifically called lies because they are not true. When man listened, all he heard was untruth. He does not have to continue to believe what is not true, unless he chooses to do so. All of his miscreations can disappear in the well known "twinkling of an eye", because it is a visual misperception.

Man's spiritual eye can sleep, but as will shortly appear in the notes (reference Bob, elevator operator) a sleeping eye can still see. One translation of the Fall, a view emphasized by Mary Baker Eddy, and worthy of note, is that "a deep sleep fell upon Adam". While the Bible continues to associate this sleep as a kind of anaesthetic utilized for protection of Adam during the creation of Eve, Mrs. Eddy was correct in emphasizing that nowhere is there any reference made to his waking up. While Christian Science is clearly incomplete, this point is much in its favor."

"What seems to be the opposite of life is merely sleeping. When the mind elects to be what it is not, and to assume an alien power which it does not have, a foreign state it cannot enter, or a false condition not within its Source, it merely seems to go to sleep a while. It dreams of time; an interval in which what seems to happen never has occurred, the changes wrought are substance-less, and all events are nowhere. When the mind awakes, it but continues as it always was."

"We have discussed the fall or Separation before, but its meaning must be clearly understood, without symbols. The Separation is NOT symbolic. It is an order of reality, or a system of thought that is PERFECTLY real in time, though not in Eternity. All beliefs are real to the believer.

The fruit of only ONE tree was "forbidden" to man in his symbolic garden. But God could not have forbidden it, or it could not have BEEN eaten. If God knows His children, and I assure you he does, would he have put them in a position where their own destruction was possible?"

"Eating of the tree of knowledge is a symbolic expression for incorporating into the self the ability for self-creation. This is the ONLY sense in which God and His souls are NOT co-creators. The belief that they ARE is implicit in the "self concept," a concept now made acceptable by its WEAKNESS, and explained by a tendency of the self to create an IMAGE of itself."

"Until the Separation, which is a better term than the Fall, nothing was lacking. This meant that man had no needs at all. If he had not deprived himself, he would never have experienced them.

After the Separation, needs became the most powerful source of motivation for human action. All behavior is essentially motivated by needs, but behavior itself is not a Divine attribute. The body is the mechanism for behavior."

"The intrusion of the ability to perceive, which is inherently judgmental, was introduced only after the Separation. No one has been sure of anything since then."

"You who prefer specialness to sanity could not obtain it in your right minds. You were at peace until you asked for special favor. And God did not give it. For the request was alien to Him, and you could not ask this of a Father who truly loved His Son. Therefore, you made of Him an UNloving father, demanding of Him what only such a father COULD give. And the peace of God's Son was shattered, for he no longer understood his Father. He feared what he had made, but still more did he fear his REAL father, having attacked his glorious equality WITH Him.

In peace he needed nothing, and asked for nothing. In war he DEMANDED everything, and FOUND nothing. For how could the gentleness of love respond to his demands, EXCEPT by departing in peace, and returning to the Father? If the son did not wish to REMAIN in peace, he could not remain at all. For a darkened mind cannot live in the light, and it must seek a place of darkness, where it can believe it is where it is NOT. God did not ALLOW this to happen. But you DEMANDED that it happen, and therefore believed that it was so."

"Whenever projection in its inappropriate sense is utilized, it ALWAYS implies that some emptiness (or lack of everything) must exist, and that it is within man's ability to put his own ideas there INSTEAD of the truth. If you will consider carefully what this entails, the following will become quite apparent:

First, the assumption is implicit that what God has Created can be changed by the mind of Man.

Second, the concept that what is perfect can be rendered imperfect (or wanting) is intruded.

Third, the belief that man can distort the Creations of God (including himself) has arisen, and is tolerated.

Fourth, that since man can create himself, the direction of his own creation is up to him.

These related distortions represent a picture of what actually occurred in the Separation. None of this existed before, nor does it actually exist now."

"The Garden of Eden, which is described as a literal garden in the Bible, was not originally an actual garden at all. It was merely a mental state of complete need-lack. Even in the literal account, it is noteworthy that the pre-Separation state was essentially one in which man needed nothing."

"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."

So you see, we are IN a state of sleep, dreaming, denying, pretending not to be as God created us, imagining things are true which are not, being unwilling, and trying to give it reality through belief. But none of it is true, or really happening, what it represents (an actual separation) is fictional, and it's just an illusion masquerading as a separation.

"You are safe in God, dreaming of exile, but perfectly capable of waking to reality."

Read this carefully from ACIM.

"The Separation HAS occurred. To deny this is merely to misuse denial."

These are Jesus's words. They are correct. It does not say that impossible separation from God has been made possible. It does not say that we in fact DID separate from God. It says that something called "the separation" HAS happened. There is a major difference between THE separation, and the general impossible potential for actual separation.

There is a very popular myth in ACIM circles that we're supposed to just assert that "nothing happened." Jesus is saying this is NOT appropriate and is a misuse of denial. Did you ever notice that for example you actually are having SOME KIND of experience of a world, a world in which you have a body, you type posts on facebook, you respond to people and so on? Technically speaking if these "things" were UTTERLY impossible, in the strictest sense, there is no way that you would even be able to dream of them happening. You wouldn't be ABLE to sit there right now reading these words, whether they're real or not.

There is a view of many people that the separation - confused with separation in general - did NOT happen, and therefore the logical conclusion is that "there is no facebook". This is CLEARLY A DENIAL. It makes no sense at all. It does not explain how it is clearly obviously possible for there to be some kind of a facebook, some kind of a body, some kind of a physical life.

No-one who believes that "it never happened" has ever been able to satisfactorily explain HOW ITS POSSIBLE that we can be sitting here typing little text messages to each other. They don't have an explanation because they believe we're supposed to just sort of turn a blind eye to all this stuff, slap a label of "not real" on it, PRETEND ITS NOT THERE (denial), and carry on trying to assert its unreality.

Jesus is telling you that this is a MISUSE OF DENIAL. Because in fact, per his words, "THE SEPARATION HAS OCCURRED." This isn't a real separation, it is fictional. But a fictional separation HAS occurred. A belief in, a dream of, an illusion of, an impossible separation, HAS occurred in thought, in the mind. It HAS in fact produced a whole other "order of thought" in the mind.

"We have discussed the fall or Separation before, but its meaning must be clearly understood, without symbols. The Separation is NOT symbolic. It is an order of reality, or a system of thought that is PERFECTLY real in time, though not in Eternity. All beliefs are real to the believer."

Read it carefully. The separation is NOT symbolic. Jesus says it is an ORDER OF REALITY. And that while it "lasts" ie in time, it is PERFECTLY REAL. This is NOT something that most ACIM students are very happy about, do not want to admit to, and will run away from at high speed. It seems to fly in the face of what so many people are saying, that "it never happened". Well, if it could not have possibly happened in ANY WAY, you literally would not be reading these words right now. And you are. Whether its a dream or an hallucination it doesn't matter, you ARE reading.

In the separation we did in fact produce a second order of thought and gave it a sense of reality. "Whatever you accept into your mind becomes real to you." It doesn't mean it is ULTIMATELY real, or that it really has permanent existence. It is truly an illusion of a possibility. But Jesus is clear the mind is perfectly equipped to sleep and to dream. These are NATURAL CAPABILITIES.

In fact, God gave our minds free will. And part of that TOTAL FREEDOM, is that you can freely try to use your mind to deny its own freedom. Yes, you have that freedom. It doesn't mean that anything real or possible can necessarily come from it, and it hasn't, but you CAN TRY TO. And when you do try to, your mind DOES SEEM to go to sleep, entering a state in which it dreams. This is entirely WITHIN THE LAWS OF GOD.

"Your Father created you Wholly without sin, wholly without pain, and wholly without suffering of any kind. If you deny Him, you bring sin, pain, and suffering into your OWN mind, because of the power He gave it. Your mind is capable of creating worlds, but it can also DENY what it creates, because it is free."

This means God has given you the POTENTIAL, the freedom, to choose, per your own free will, whether to accept reality or not. You are CAPABLE of denying reality. This denial doesn't remove reality because denial is a pretense that you're doing something impossible. But while you are IN denial, your mind IS in a certain state. You ARE IN "the separation." This is why we DID produce a state of mind which Jesus refers to as "the separation". We DID have a mad idea, we DID fall asleep, we DID dream of spacetime, and we DID make bodies and facetime.

Denying any of this is not in line with the course. This isn't to say that these things we dream of are ultimately real, but they ARE real to the dreamer. They don't have permanence because they are denials of permanence, making them temporary, and reversible. But while they are HAPPENING, while the mind IS sleeping and dreaming, we ARE in fact CAUSING the mis-creation, the production, of states of mind, which entail a denial of reality.

"What seems to be the opposite of life is merely sleeping. When the mind elects to be what it is not, and to assume an alien power which it does not have, a foreign state it cannot enter, or a false condition not within its Source, it merely seems to go to sleep a while. It dreams of time; an interval in which what seems to happen never has occurred, the changes wrought are substanceless, and all events are nowhere. When the mind awakes, it but continues as it always was."

In order to return TO ultimate reality, the denial has to be undone. But the denial is, itself, an actual state of mind. It's something you're holding in your thought. You are having a dream of being separate. "You are safe in God, dreaming of exile". It is not helpful to claim that you are NOT DREAMING. "you MUST change your mind and help others change theirs. It is pointless to refuse to tolerate change or changing because you believe that you can demonstrate by doing so that the Separation never occurred. The dreamer who doubts the reality of his dream while he is still dreaming it is not really healing the level-split."

"To you the miracle CANNOT seem natural, because what you have done to hurt your minds, has made THEM so UNnatural that they do not remember what is natural to them."

"For you HAVE hurt yourself, and made your Self your enemy."

Jesus does not really ask that we "deny the dream is real" while STILL dreaming it. Because this is an false denial. The proper denial should END dreaming entirely. If you are still dreaming, then you are still giving reality to an order of thought.

"The Separation is NOT symbolic. It is an order of reality, or a system of thought"

This order of reality is being maintained by the mind and it HAS some reality while it is being maintained. That is why the world seems real. It is a kind of subjective reality but it's still a reality. Jesus asks us instead to ACKNOWLEDGE THAT THERE HAS BEEN A SUBJECTIVE SEPARATION - at least a state of denial and belief, a state of TRYING to oppose God - and that we must admit to this before we can heal it.

"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."

He doesn't say "just assert that it never happened." He doesn't say "just assert that separation is impossible." He says that you are supposed to ACCEPT THE ERROR TEMPORARILY, to acknowledge that your mind is in an unnatural state, so that you can change your mind into a more natural state. Eventually the unnatural state will diminish and be replaced by, or reveal, a more natural state. And by CHANGING YOUR MIND, which is always your freedom, you can revert it back to the service of spirit.

Remember that "The Separation HAS occurred. To deny this is merely to misuse denial."

We HAVE chosen poorly, we HAVE used psychic mechanisms - mind power - thought and belief - to mis-create an illusory world. We did not create a NOTHING. We mis-created a distortion of reality. That HAS happened. But it can be undone. This far more accurately acknowledges your ACTUAL EXPERIENCE that you drive a car and eat food and go to the bathroom. There is SOME reality to this, some possibility to this, otherwise you literally could not even dream of it.

The dream is not nothing, it is a way of thinking that's out of alignment with God's will. That's why we NEED atonement. "Thus he becomes uncertain of his life, for what it is has been denied by him. It is for this denial that you need Atonement. Your denial made no change in what you are. But you have split your mind into what knows and does not know the truth."

"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."

So Jesus is really saying that we did in fact enter a state of mind in which the mind does in fact experience strange illusory worlds as if they are real. A state of insanity. And we have given reality to this and it HAS SOME reality. It is relatively real, but not absolutely real. And because of this entering into a freely-chosen state of denial, a legitimate mind-state that is POSSIBLE because you have the freedom to try to deny your freedom - we DID in fact experience a "separate from God" - the fall of man.

And now we find ourselves in a mental state that NEEDS correction. There is a legitimate NEED for atonement, and we NEED to change our mind by free will in order to return to the acceptance of God's reality as the only reality that truly makes sense. A movement out of a state of sleep and denial, into a state of awakening and acceptance.

That's why the Holy Spirit was created, to guide us out of a state that we are PERFECTLY FREE TO ENTER, but which does not resonate well with our true nature, and so brings experiences of suffering. The atonement legitimately offers correction for this and restores the mind to a more natural functioning. It's not enough to just say "oh it never happened." You HAVE used your freedom and your power to choose something unnatural, and you DO need to choose again.

A Course in miracles does not mention the phrase "unconscious guilt". However, Jesus does teach about it. In fact, the whole course is about removing the BLOCKS TO AWARENESS. A blocked awareness is indicative of UNCONSCIOUSNESS - not being consciously aware of love.

Here for example he refers to "veiling in shadows", things which must be "raised to understanding" (brought back into conscious awareness), in order to make the choice for heaven consciously:

"Heaven is chosen consciously. The choice cannot be made until alternatives are accurately seen and understood. All that is veiled in shadows must be raised to understanding to be judged again, this time with Heaven’s help, and all mistakes in judgement which the mind had made before are open to correction as the truth dismisses them as causeless. Now are they without effects. They cannot be concealed because their nothingness is recognized."

Anything which is a hidden hate, a secret sin, something concealed, any form of denial, all illusions, all forms of sin guilt fear sickness and death, are forms of unconsciousness.

The entire idea of "awakening" is of returning to full conscious awareness, out of a state of semi-consciousness or, in the case of death, unconsciousness. It is also the same thing as the idea of "forgetting".

Here are for example paragraphs from 5 separate chapters talking about unconsciousness...

"These mad beliefs can gain UNCONSCIOUS hold of great intensity, and grip the mind with terror and anxiety so strong that it will not relinquish its ideas about its own protection."

"Defenses are not unintentional, nor are they made without awareness. They are secret magic wands you wave when truth appears to threaten what you would believe. They seem to be UNCONSCIOUS but because of the rapidity with which you choose to use them."

"Like to a dream of punishment, in which the dreamer is UNCONSCIOUS of what brought on the attack against himself, he sees himself attacked unjustly, and by something NOT himself."

"He is merely making every possible effort, within the limits you impose upon Him, to re-establish your own will in your consciousness. You have imprisoned it in your UNCONSCIOUS, where it remains available, but cannot help you."

"All forms of sickness, even unto death, are physical expressions of the fear of awakening. They are attempts to reinforce UNCONSCIOUSNESS out of fear of consciousness. This is a pathetic way of trying not to know by rendering the faculties for knowing ineffectual."

So you can see our unconscious states are quite well discussed in the course and this is only the tip of the iceberg.

There is one test by which you can find out if you have "unconscious stuff". First of all, realize that even if you have some amount of conscious awareness, it does not mean that you do not have an unconscious. When something is unconscious, you LITERALLY are NOT AWARE of it. There can be huge sections of your mind which have been walled off and kept hidden in the dark, which you do not even know are there.

It is the assumption of just about everyone that because you have conscious awareness, you are aware of EVERY part of your mind. This is usually far from the case. The test to determine whether you have an unconscious mind is simple:

If you perceive there is a cause affecting you which has not come from yourself, you have an unconscious mind.

This must be true because the only way you could perceive that something is happening against your will, is by being unaware of the way that you do everything to yourself. The secret to salvation is realizing you do everything to yourself. Therefore, if you are not directly confronted with AWARENESS of the way in which you are CAUSING everything you are experiencing, no matter what form it takes or how it is projected, YOU DO have a part of your mind which is unconscious. And yes, that means pretty much most of us.

It is valuable to realize you have unconsciousness, because you DO need to bring those parts of your mind back into conscious awareness in order for your mind to be FULLY AWARE OF LOVE’S PRESENCE, and to be able to consciously choose heaven. You cannot enter heaven while part of your mind is unconscious.

Typically, most people walking around this planet, believe that they are FULLY aware. When they wake up in the morning, they believe they have woken up fully. They believe that everything they are aware of comprises the sum total of all things that exist. And therefore, whenever they are trying to make sense out of what caused something to happen, they will reference everything they are aware of, trying to make sense out of how this could happen. And since they believe they are fully aware (but are not), they HAVE to find an explanation for what causes thing, usually by blaming it on someone else.

If you are blaming others or the world for causing ANYTHING, it is proof that you do not recognize that YOU are the cause, you did not SEE yourself cause it, and you seem to have asked for something without realizing it. So recognize this, if you are a victim in any way, you are unconscious.

That means there is a whole bunch of information, facts, truth, and content, which has been BLOCKED from your conscious awareness. These are nothing less than blocks to the awareness of love’s presence. These blocks, these barriers of denial which make the mind unconscious, is precicely what we are REQUIRED to UNDO, in order to restore our awareness of God.

But if you are walking the world thinking, you know everything there is to know, and are aware of everything there is to be aware of, and yet stuff is happening to you seemingly against your will, in any way, then YOU ARE IN DENIAL. And that means, you have a portion of mind which is currently NOT CONSCIOUS, which you are not aware you even have. It is tucked away, out of sight, and you don’t even SUSPECT that you have it.

It is vital to uncover these portions of mind and to heal their content. Too many people think that "forgiving" only means taking back projections. This is beause they have no idea that they have unconscious stuff in their mind. They think that they only need to deal with what they are consciously aware of, ie what someone seems to be doing, and to take back that projection.

That’s a fine stepping stone, but if it does not lead to a) removing the denial that made guilt go unconscious (fear), b) removing the denial which made sin go unconscious (guilt), c) removing the denial that made God go unconscious (sin), by bringing all of those into conscious awareness and undoing them, and accepting Atonement, then this is NOT complete forgiveness. It’s scratching the surface, and many people are NOT forgiving fully.

These hidden dark secrets are hidden behind shadows and illusions and layers of denial. Fear for example is made entirely to make guilt unconscious. Fear defends against guilt and protects the guilt. It causes you to fixate on what the fear is being caused by, anywhere other than within, so that you will not look within to see where the fear is really coming from.

All fear has its source in your unconscious belief that you are GUILTY. It has absolutely no other cause. But while you remain unconscious/unaware of that guilt, you will keep trying to make sense of why you are afraid by blaming the cause on something outside of you. And since that is never the cause, it will not provide you with a solution.

Fear has to be recognized as a decoy, an illusion that is nothing more than an effect, not a cause. It is the effect of guilt. Fear is not causing anything because it is only guilt that can cause it. When you can recognize fear as an effect of guilt, the implication as to what caused it automatically will start to give you some breadcrumbs which will bring that guilt back into conscious awareness. Then you can work on undoing the guilt.

Guilt also is a problem because, guilt is not the problem. Guilt actually is another decoy like fear, designed to block and keep sin unconscious. It’s sole purpose is to pretend you did not sin and did not want to sin. It disowns the sin and disassociates from it, projecting blame for it on something or something outside of you. So long as you are feeling sorrowful and guilty and allegedly unworthy of forgiveness, this will block the dishonest fact that YOU DID WANT TO SIN, and that you yourself believe in it. Guilt keeps sin real and prevents you from looking at it. It keeps it out of conscious awareness.

Guilt has to be then recognized as just an effect of sin, and not a cause of anything. It’s bullshit lies of "didn’t mean to do it" has to be seen through. Guilt is fake. It is there solely to stop you from bringing your unconscious belief in sin into awareness. When you can see that guilt is just an effect, and all guilt is caused by a belief in sin, that will help you to bring the sin into conscious awareness. It will resurface as soon as you make the connection of causality that sin caused guilt, therefore behind guilt there is sin lurking there.

Once the belief is sin is in your awareness, it is not going to be pretty. Always look at this stuff with Holy Spirit, because there is some really dark murderous death-wish kind of beliefs tucked way in the unconscious mind. But these beliefs like all the rest are fake. You have to realize then that sin actually is yet another block to awareness. It keeps something out of conscious awareness. Can you guess what it is?

God.

The belief in sin makes God unconscious. Not only is it a belief that God is dead and IS unconscious hisemself, it also shuts awareness of God out of the mind. It can only do this through denial and unwillingness to accept the truth. It is just another block to let go. You must recognize sin is not a cause of anything. Sin is just an effect of a mistaken idea of separation. It has not caused anything, and therefore has not happened. Undoing this will REVEAL GOD to you, consciously.

So you see, we have a LOT of shit that’s just sitting there in the unconscious areas of mind, and yet not exactly inert or inactive. Unconscious self-hate will project outwards and cause all manner of SHIT stuff to "happen to you", and it will seem to come out of nowhere, because you will not see that you asked for it. And so you will think you are just an innocent victim.

This is the big problem. Believing you are "innocent" just because you are not AWARE of the fact that you attacked yourself, is the entire foundation for projecting blame outside of yourself for everything you experience. You won’t be able to ACCEPT that you have done this to yourself, until you can consciously own up to it and actually SEE that you have in fact been the one who did it. To recognize that YOU PUT THERE all of the suffering you are experiencing, including all of your sickness. Until you can own it, you cannot let it go.

Just because you THINK you are innocent right now, on the basis of not being fully aware of your whole mind, is FAKE INNOCENCE. And it is this fake innocence which leads many people to not even suspect that they have unconscious shit to undo. It also leads many to believe they DID NOT CAUSE the shit that happens, which actually is an act of profound irresponsibility. It is this irresponsibility, the disownership of self, that produces all suffering.

Remember that the secret to salvation is that you have done this ALL to yourself. This is a course in CAUSE, not effect. You are to learn you are the CAUSE of everything in the world, not the effect of it. And you can only do that by becoming AWARE consciously that you in fact DO cause things. That means removing the blocks to AWARENESS, which are simply forms of denial which have made you partly UNCONSCIOUS. And extreme denial produces all denial of life, which leads to sickness and death as total unconsciousness.

If you want life, you must become willing to bring this unconscious stuff back into awareness for healing and release. And that’s going to have to mean, taking full responsibility for everything you are experiencing. Otherwise, guaranteed, you will suffer at your own hand without even realizing it. No-one dies without their own consent!!!

"Maybe I am causing this" "I must be responsible for this" "I am doing this to myself" "I am the cause of this" "I must have some unconscious stuff to heal if I seem to be suffering against my will" "There must be something I am not aware of where I am attacking myself" "I need to undo my belief that I sinned by bringing it back into awareness and letting it go."

Remember, "heaven is a choice I must make" - a conscious choice. You cannot have stuff lurking in unconsciousness, otherwise you are in denial, and the beliefs you are denying will make you unwilling to accept the atonement. A healed mind is a wholly conscious mind.

"There is no world! This is the central thought the course attempts to teach."

Everything in the course culminates with the clear recognition of what is true, and what is false. What is real, and what is unreal. What exists, and what does not.

This includes the recognition that THERE IS NO WORLD. It does not exist. Recognizing this IS forgiveness. This is the mindset in which wrong-mindedness ends, and right-mindedness automatically transitions to one-mindedness.

Jesus tells us that we are to become aware of dreaming. What this means is we become aware that the world IS A DREAM. We recognize it as ONLY a dream. And therefore we are not deceived by it.

"The dream says otherwise, but who would put his faith in dreams once they are recognized for what they are? Awareness of dreaming is the real function of God's teachers. They watch the dream figures come and go, shift and change, suffer and die. Yet they are not deceived by what they see."

"Forgiving dreams are kind to everyone who figures in the dream. And so they bring the dreamer full release from dreams of fear."

Recognizing that the world is a dream, and NOT a reality, ties into the secret of salvation. The secret tells you that provided you do not mistake the dream for reality, you will not react to it. This is the SINGLE LESSON that the Holy Spirit teaches.

"For you would not react at all to figures in a dream you knew that YOU were dreaming. Let them be as hateful and as vicious as they may, they COULD have no effect on you, unless you failed to recognize it is YOUR dream. This single lesson learned will set you free from suffering, WHATEVER form it takes."

"The Holy Spirit will repeat this ONE inclusive lesson of deliverance, until it has been learned, REGARDLESS of the form of suffering that brings you pain. Whatever hurt you bring to Him, He will make answer with this very simple truth."

This means that you attain salvation by recognizing that the world is not real and does not exist. By recognizing it IS A DREAM, not a reality, you don't give it any credit, any truth, any reality, or any value. You know that you are dreaming it, but you are not deceived by it. And therefore you are not confused by notions that the dream is doing anything TO YOU, or that events are happening, or that sin is real, or that attack is occurring, or that anyone is really suffering.

The view that there is no world is like a KEY, which unlocks the door to heaven. It is not just information or some fact to learn. It is the atonement. It is forgiveness. It requires you to SEE and EXPERIENCE from a healed-mind vantage point, which sees that the world is only fiction and not real. And this places you OUTSIDE the dream. It puts you in a position of recognizing also:

"Only the truth is true, and nothing else is true."

and "Nothing unreal exists."

It's a clear distinction between what the real truth IS, and what it ISN'T. And therefore it frames the world in the light of truth, SHOWING that it is a false world and really is NOTHINGNESS. That there isn't even REALLY a world there. And in the cancelling of the world, the illusion is seen through, and disappears. And this leaves ONLY HEAVEN.

"Heaven is all that remains."

"Heaven remains your one alternative to the strange world you made."

"There is no life outside of heaven."

That there is no world, is an assertion that there IS ONLY HEAVEN. It is the resurrection because it is the assertion of life. It is sanity because it acknowledges only God's truth is true. And is salvation because in this awareness, you realize that ONLY GOD and His creation exists.

God is at peace because He knows that there is not really a world here. Nothing unreal exists. And since nothing unreal exists, nothing evil, dark, dangerous, harmful, bad, wrong, etc exists either. Thus there is no suffering, no sickness, no death, no guilt or fear or sin, and no space or time. And ALL THAT IS LEFT is the good, the immortal, the true and the holy. And this makes you feel very safe and happy.

Essentially this requires us to realize, fully, and to perceive, that this world we made IS NOTHING. It is made of nothingness, pretending to be something. When we are deceived by its illusion of existing, we are tempted to believe nothing exists. But when we see through it, we remember that nothingness does NOT exist, and so the world of nothingness does not exist.

"...as the world spins into the nothingness from which it came."

"The body is clearly a device for separation and therefore does not exist."

"At no time does the body exist."

The entire message is EXTREMELY PIVOTAL. The reason is to do with uprooting the ENTIRE PREMISE of the ENTIRE ego thought system, and that system IS this universe. All of space and time are the ego's system of thinking.

"Every system of thought must have a starting point. It begins with either a making or a creating, a difference we have already discussed."

God is the logical premise of truth, the original starting point of creation, and the origin from which all extension and expression happens. Creation is the logical outcome of his premise and truth. And everything that comes from Him is based on His nature.

In the separation, we attempted to REPLACE the premise of truth with a FALSE premise. The false premise was the belief that everything STARTS with the OPPOSITE TO GOD. The opposite of reality, eternal life, truth, happiness, love, health, wholeness, unlimitedness, etc. The assertion of the opposite to God is the ego and the world.

"Earth, heaven's opposite in every way."

"And EVERYTHING here takes a direction EXACTLY opposite to what is true."

The world is nothing other than the idea that what IS NOTHING, is something. What DOES NOT exist, exists. What CANNOT HAPPEN, is happening. What is IMPOSSIBLE, is possible. What is NOT alive, is alive. What IS alive, is dead. What IS false, is true. It is the negation of reality and the opposite to God.

Atonement is the clear recognition that the world IS NOT what it claims to be. IT IS false, it is non-existent, it is an illusion, it is not real, it is not happening, and it is entirely fictional. Recognizing this is awareness of dreaming, the clear true perception that nothing in the world is real. Remembering it is just a dream. And therefore having NO reaction TO it, remembering that IT IS NOT THERE.

Seeing this is to OVERLOOK the world, which is forgiveness, and is what shows you the forgiven world. "A world forgiven cannot last". To forgive the world is to NOT SEE IT. Because "forgiveness does not look upon bodies". Christ vision sees PAST and BEYOND the world. The world is a thin veil which becomes transparent and vanishes when reality is acknowledged AS real, and "illusions recognized must disappear."

By changing the PREMISE of this world back to its ACTUAL premise, which is that the world is founded on a FALSE IMPOSSIBLE IDEA, rather than being confused that the world is founded on the truth and reality of God, this REFRAMES everything in the world. Even just remembering "this is just a dream" does this. It completely changes the MEANING of everything that happens. It completely INVALIDATES all notions of this being an ACTUALLY sinful, guilty, bad, wrong, dark, twisted, threatening, dangerous, suffering world. Because what everything IS is completely turned upside down when you realize it IS ONLY HAPPENING IN A DREAM.

There is no world.

There is no body.

There is no solar system.

There are no galaxies.

There is no space.

There is no time.

There is no sin.

There is no guilt.

There is nothing to fear.

There is no sickness.

There is no death.

There is no matter.

There is no universe.

There is no decay.

There is no malfunction.

There is no problem.

There is no attack.

There is no war.

There is no conflict.

There is no disease.

There is no history.

There is no ANYTHING THAT YOU CAN THINK OF THAT'S IN THIS WORLD.

Remembering there is no world, makes you feel instantly happy. This is the PROPER USE OF DENIAL. To deny the denial of the truth. Because there is no world, EVERY SINGLE THREAT that you believe in does not exist. ALL attacks are not happening. EVERY sickness is an illusion and no one is really sick. DEATH doesn't even exist. This SETS YOU FREE. And this is what ACIM is trying to teach us. To become COMPLETELY clear that there IS no world AT ALL, there never was, and only God's Kingdom remains as it always has. The recognition of this is enlightenment, and this is how you awaken to Heaven.

"W-pI.132.6. But it is pride that argues you have come into a world quite separate from yourself, impervious to what you think, and quite apart from what you chance to think it is. 2 There is no world! 3 This is the central thought the course attempts to teach. 4 Not everyone is ready to accept it, and each one must go as far as he can let himself be led along the road to truth. 5 He will return and go still farther, or perhaps step back a while and then return again.

W-pI.132.7. But healing is the gift of those who are prepared to learn there is no world, and can accept the lesson now. 2 Their readiness will bring the lesson to them in some form which they can understand and recognize. 3 Some see it suddenly on point of death, and rise to teach it. 4 Others find it in experience that is not of this world, which shows them that the world does not exist because what they behold must be the truth, and yet it clearly contradicts the world.

W-pI.132.8. And some will find it in this course, and in the exercises that we do today. 2 Today's idea is true because the world does not exist. 3 And if it is indeed your own imagining, then you can loose it from all things you ever thought it was by merely changing all the thoughts that gave it these appearances. 4 The sick are healed as you let go all thoughts of sickness, and the dead arise when you let thoughts of life replace all thoughts you ever held of death."

When something is logical, you start with a premise, and then as the nature of this premise "extends", it produces logical conclusions. The conclusions that will come from this premise are really established in the premise itself. The limitations or scope of the premise determines what can come from it, and what comes from it is completely in accord with its starting point.

"Every system of thought must have a starting point. It begins with either a making or a creating, a difference we have already discussed. Their resemblance lies in their power as foundations. Their difference lies in what rests upon them. Both are cornerstones for systems of belief by which one lives."

When you use logic, and you arrive at a logical conclusion, what you're looking for is consistency, or the lack of contradiction within the logical system. If what you end up with seems to correlate to what you started with, and there was no obvious "nonsense" creeping in, then you can conclude that your logical conclusions are valid. You won't see any sign of contradiction so you'll consider the conclusion to be "correct". It will seem that the logic "makes sense".

What's happening is you're finding an internal consistency within the system, set up by the premise you started with. And each step you took in your reasoning did not violate the rules of the logic system. So whatever conclusions you ended up with seemed to make sense, based on what you started with. And this gives you a notion of things making sense, being valid, even being correct.

The problem is that the premise itself has absolutely everything to do with what you end up with. The conclusions that come from it, if you follow the logical steps carefully and impeccably, are really "automatic". If you start at a given starting point, you WILL end up at an ending point which is in harmony with the starting point. And you won't be able to come to a "false conclusion" if you reason it through carefully.

But if you start off on the wrong foot, if you begin with an assumption, of your premise is entirely wrong to begin with, what will happen? You'll still make logical steps, you'll still seek out internal consistency, you'll still look for that sense of "it all seems to fit together", and you'll still draw conclusions which seem to be in accord with the premise you started with. And you'll conclude "it makes sense" even. But the conclusions you come to, if you start off on the wrong foot, will be actually false. Even though they'll seem correct.

So you can be logical, and be wrong. If you start out wrong, you will only get something wrong at the other end. If you begin with a lie, you will end up with a lie, but it will be a logical lie which makes sense within the context of the whole system.

Thought systems work the same way, whatever the system is based on determines what can come from it, and only that can come from it and nothing else, unless you want to be contradictory. Yet if you start out with a system based on a lie, you will end up with lies. The lies will seem to make sense and even will seem "true" in that they seem to "add up" without contradicting the starting point, but they will still be false in the big picture. But if you believe them, you will be trapped and stuck, while believing you are free. And that is false perception.

This is the problem with the ego thought system. In the really big picture, the ego's system is a "small picture", and it is out of context, and it does not start with the whole truth. It is not beginning with something that is actually really true. It is starting out on the wrong foot, such as the belief that separation is true, or sin is real, or the impossible is possible, or death is life, or something real can be threatened etc.

When you start out with something ultimately false like that, you will produce an ENTIRE logical "system", where your reasoning will progress completely "logically" from the start to the end. And you will end up with conclusions which seem consistent. The conclusions will even seem to make total sense, IF the premise is true. But in the big picture, if it is recognized that the premise was false to begin with, then even though the conclusions are logically consistent, they are still false conclusions.

So the ego starts off on the wrong foot, on an assumption which is wrong. It starts with the belief that separation is possible, or sin is real, and then begins a progression of seemingly natural logical conclusions. If separation is real, then it must be true (consistent) that bodies are real. Then if bodes are real, it must be true that anything bodies experience is real. And if their experiences are real, then death is real. etc. That's a natural logical progress and completely impeccable logic. But the conclusion is insane because the whole "system of thought", the system of logic, began with a false premise.

When you start with a true premise, such as that God is infinite and permanent and immortal, there are once again logical progressions which come from this. If you follow the steps and start to draw conclusions based on that, and if you are careful to be consistent and not contradictory, you will end up with natural conclusions. And these conclusions will make sense, and seem valid, and they ALSO WILL BE TRUE. If you start with truth, you will end up with truth. And so whether or not the result is true or false, depends on whether the premise is true or false. And what you get out of the system as a natural logical conclusion or outcome, is set up in its starting point.

When the starting point is God, the natural logical outcome of God is the creation of the Kingdom. It's not that God randomly decides to create immortal beings, it's that the whole system just functions that way, truth goes in at the start, progressions of logical consistency occur, and you automatically get creation out the other end. And because you started with immortality, you end up with immortality. "God is but love, and therefore so am I." Such conclusions therefore are not only making sense, they are also TRUE.

"The Kingdom is the result of premises, just as this world is. You may have carried the ego's reasoning to its logical conclusion, which is total confusion about everything."

"The ego's logic is as impeccable as that of the Holy Spirit, because your mind has the means at its disposal to side with Heaven or earth, as it elects."

"From the belief in sin, the faith in chaos must follow. It is because it follows that it seems to be a logical conclusion; a valid step in ordered thought. The steps to chaos do follow neatly from their starting point. Each is a different form in the progression of truth's reversal, leading still deeper into terror and away from truth."

When you begin a thought process/system on a lie or illusion, you will end up with illusory lies which seem to make sense but are false. This means the total absence of REASON, which is the absence of sanity, because the whole system of thinking started out insane. When you start out the thought process/system with sanity and truth, you end up with a SANE conclusion. This is what ACIM refers to as REASON. The reasoning is LOGICAL, just as the ego's reasoning is logical, but it starts with sanity so ends with sane conclusions.

Just because something seems extremely logical, does not mean it is true. And this is a BIG problem for a lot of people studying ACIM. If for example you start out with a premise that e.g. God created the world, and you do not challenge this premise, the ENTIRE course will now be interpreted to try to "fit" it into that premise. And every conclusions drawn will not challenge that premise.

In order to uphold the premise that God created this world, a LOT of adjustments have to be made to the course's meanings, in order to produce consistency and a lack of contradiction. And this can lead to what seems like a consistent picture, but it is also completely wrong. Because it started out with a belief that is completely mistaken and unfounded, in light of God's nature.

A massive collection of CONSISTENT logical conclusions will be made based on it. And all of these conclusion together will form the appearance of what seems like a completely consistent internal coherence. It will STILL all seems to "fit together". A clear "picture" will form. There won't appear to be any contradictions. And any steps necessary to keep the premise valid will be made, regardless of the extent to which that means changing the meaning of the course.

Everything it says will be interpreted through that lens and filter. And the person will end up with a very elaborate, consistent, highly polished, internally supportive, self un-contradictory, and seemingly highly sensible set of conclusions. And it will all seem TRUE because it seems to make sense. And they will marvel at the seeming beauty of its logical harmony. BUT, the entire thing will be bullshit, because it all starts out with a false premise. And so the entire system of thought is completely mistaken. Yet it is regarded as truth because of its consistency.

You have to therefore be careful that your reasoning begins with something which is absolutely true. You need to understand God's nature first. And when you reason based on the truth, you will end up with truthful and valid and consistent answers, which are correct. You can't start with the world and try to reason backwards to find the truth. You have to start at the beginning of the system.

You have to have an awareness or grasp of what the absolute truth IS FIRST, before you can even proceed to think about anything. If you set off on the wrong foot, every conclusion you come to will be potentially false. But most of us will start out with false conclusions and assumptions and not question them, resulting in more false conclusions. Because we're starting out exploring all this with our egos, which has taken a whole bunch of assumptions as true, and this has not yet been questioned.

We have to find out first what the premise of our entire thinking is, whether we have started out on the wrong foot or not. And for that you have to ask yourself, what is the ultimate truth really like? What is God like? What is his nature? What IS the ultimate absolute premise? Where DID everything actually start, and what is the logical nature of that premise? Because from God, everything real proceeds as a logical system of thought, and it proceeds only according to His nature, and nothing can come from it which is unlike its starting point. So you have to be REALLY clear about God's nature before you can reason anything correctly.

When you can understand what God is like, you can start to draw truthful conclusions. And if you are careful, you can be GUARANTEED that these conclusions will be true. But if you do not understand God's premise, or you have difficulty being impeccable with your logic, then you will come to false conclusions because you'll be starting out with something false. And yet these conclusions will see true to you and make sense, even though they are mistakes or errors in reasoning. And you can end up with a whole lot of "it makes sense" even if you start out with lies.

This is happening A LOT in ACIM circles because many students are not yet in a position to grasp the nature of God's system, the premise of reality and the one truth. And so most of us are struggling to come to terms with what the conclusions are, yet alone being able to grasp where it all started or what it's all based on. And a lot of time is spent trying to uncover or learn about the premise.

If you return to the highest possible starting point, the pre-separation system, and you look at how God functions, and then you begin to reason out what CAME from that premise, and if you do so impeccably logically, you WILL come to true conclusions. But if you are mistaken about God, you will be mistaken in everything you conclude.

Those true conclusions will not only show you the things God COULD do, it will also show you what he COULD NOT do. What CAN come from Him, and what cannot. What He would will, and what he would not. And thus what you are, what your nature is, and what you are capable of in reality. When you do that, you'll see why the ego's system is entirely a FALSE premise, and EVERYTHING that comes from it will be false. And that includes the attempt to oppose God's premise, to overthrow the Kingdom, to make another world (including Earth), and why Earth CANNOT have come from God due to its nature being a complete contradiction of God's nature.

God does not make contradictions because He is logically consistent. For Him, heaven is the natural outcome of His premise. And Heaven is the ONLY outcome of His premise. Nothing else CAN come from it because it is rooted in truth. And because of His nature, Heaven HAD to be created. It's in God's nature to extend His logical premise to produce The Kingdom. Which is why it has always existed.

Earth, which is OPPOSITE to heaven in *EVERY* way, CANNOT COME FROM GOD. Its nature is opposite to His premise. It does not function like Him. It does not begin with the premise He begins with. And it cannot be a natural outcome of His thought system. If He were to create it, in addition to creating Heaven, that would mean two entirely different and opposing outcomes can result from a single premise. This is logically IMPOSSIBLE regardless of what the premise is. Each premise produces ONE conclusion in accord with it, not two different ones.

God could only create one or the other, and which one is set up in his beginning nature. Since Earth is opposite to Heaven, God could NOT have created it, otherwise He would have to have STARTED OUT with a split mind and be opposing himself. He would have to be fundamentally contradictory, as a premise, in order to PRODUCE two contradictory outputs. He could only Create ONE or the other, not both, and they cannot both exist or "be one" because of their contradictory natures. If Earth is real, heaven does not exist at all.

God is NOT contradictory, so He can ONLY produce ONE outcome. That outcome is HEAVEN, and Earth is therefore NOT OF GOD, and is not based on truth or reality. And since God is real, Earth therefore, logically, cannot be real. And since only what God creates CAN exist, Earth does not exist at all. And if God is permanent, Earth cannot be permanent. And if God exists, having Created ONLY heaven, Earth cannot exist at all. This is why "there is no world" and God did not create it.

"The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it, for what He creates MUST be eternal AS HIMSELF" is a logical statement. Since Earth is NOT eternal, it must have come from a NON-ETERNAL premise, and since God is eternal, it cannot have come from HIS premise. And because HIS premise is true, it must have come from a FALSE premise. And therefore Earth is an illusion, and never will it be His one outcome.

"Heaven remains your one alternative to this strange world you made and all its ways; its shifting patterns and uncertain goals, its painful pleasures and its tragic joys. God made no contradictions. What denies its own existence and attacks itself is not of Him. He did not make two minds, with Heaven as the glad effect of one, and earth the other's sorry outcome which is Heaven's opposite in every way."

I am going to create a new book based entirely on the metaphysical logic of the Course, which will dispel all myths and misunderstandings and arguments about what the Course is teaching, saying and meaning, on an irrefutably logical, black-and-white basis. It will be so clear and accurate that only unwillingness to accept it will see fault in it.

Everything about the Course is logic-based and every outcome of any thought system is a logical conclusion. There is no room for opinion, neither my own nor that of anyone else. Jesus is extremely logical in his presentation of the metaphysics. People will see this as either arrogant or impossible or perfectly acceptable. But it IS possible to spell out everything Jesus is teaching in a logical manner. Jesus already proved that with His Course.

"The ego has a purpose, just as the Holy Spirit has. The ego’s purpose is FEAR, because ONLY the fearful can be egotistic. The ego’s logic is as impeccable as that of the Holy Spirit, because your mind has all the means at its disposal to side with Heaven or earth, as it elects."

Everything to do with Heaven and Holy Spirit's thought system is perfectly logical.

Everything to do with the ego's thought system, behavior, conclusions and goals is also perfectly logical.

Everything to do with separation from God and all of the steps which followed it, the outcome of the separation, what is or is not real, the nature of time, even the formation of physical matter, and the consequence of death, all come about through perfect logic.

It follows, logically, that if you grasp a correct understanding of the logic behind all this, you can come to the correct conclusions and understand why things have happened the way they have, and how to reverse it.

The flow of logic, when understood clearly without making errors, removes all questions, doubts, confusions, conflicts and arguments about what ACIM is teaching, saying or meaning. You can fight with people but you can't fight with perfect irrefutable logical facts.

The logical consistency is irrefutable, and you can also see that Jesus is very black-and-white and very extremely accurate and specific in His logical descriptions of mind and ego and everything else. Most of what He says is based on logical conclusions. This logical basis is referred to in the course as REASONING. Logical reasoning produces sane conclusions. Insane reasoning is still logical but produces false conclusions. EVERYTHING about the ego and all of its functioning and subtleties is a false conclusion.

Most of the debate surrounding the Course and what it means or teaches comes from a lack of clarity about the underlying metaphysical logic. The logic determines what the course MUST be saying, regardless of the words used or how it says it. Even debates about whether God creates souls or whether the world is real or whether God is in the world or whether miracles are supernatural or anything else, all has a LOGICAL metaphysical foundation which is irrefutable when seen clearly.

A common problem I also see is that Jesus says one thing in one part of the course on a given topic, and a person might take that in isolation and draw conclusions based on it. But then the same topic may be discussed elsewhere in the course in such a manner that it clarifies or gives a slightly different understanding. Because the Course is so large, it can be difficult to keep all of these things in mind simultaneously, to cross-reference them, to ensure that you are being completely consistent and not producing contradictions.

The Course is also often said to be contradictory in many places and many people do not understand why this is. I will say this. There are NO contradictions in the Course at all. Nor is there ANY basis for describing parts of it as metaphor, except for when Jesus is explicitly and deliberately using a metaphor for teaching purposes. The idea of the Course being filled with metaphor or symbols is a poorly illogical way to explain-away or gloss-over a poor grasp of the underlying metaphysical logic. It is usually based in poor reasoning, fear, denial, and unwillingness to accept the truth.

Jesus does not contradict Himself. He is not unclear about anything. He has deliberately tried to be as black-and-white as possible because this ensures perfect clarity and avoids any ambiguous false conclusions as much as possible. From what I've seen, most confusion or conflict over the meaning of the Course has nothing to do with what Jesus says, and is only to do with a temporary lack of grasp of the whole picture by the student, ie there are some parts they have not yet added up, they have not seen how it all fits together, or are not yet willing to accept certain things and so are blocked.

Behind all of our opinions and interpretations, there is an absolutely 100% rock solid underlying metaphysical logic, which can be spelled out in black and white terms. Everything that happens in the ego thought system, all of its dynamics, every interaction and relationship, all ways of perceiving and projecting, every reaction, is all describable in terms of completely logical conclusions, each one building upon the foundation of another. There is no part of this world or the ego or mind or anything that is not completely logical in terms of why it is happening or what it is based on.

Regardless of what the words say, regardless of illusions of contradiction, vagueness, or lack of evidence, if you grasp the logical basis CORRECTLY, you not only can logically find the right answer yourself, you also can extrapolate the logic yourself, meaning that you can not only gain NEW insights which were not previously mentioned based on the SAME metaphysics that Jesus teaches, but also that is completely consistent with it and an extension of it, producing clarifications and understanding of the metaphysics even beyond your current personal experiences.

This is why it can also become a possible trap, because the logic of the mind is able to grasp the metaphysics conceptually prior to it being your actual experience. And yet to grasp the conceptual logic is important because it becomes a GUIDANCE TOOL, correcting your mistakes in thinking and helping LEAD YOU towards the truth. Every part of the Holy Spirit's thought system is perfectly logical so each piece that you grasp accurately builds upon the rest and not only reinforces the thought system it also adds missing pieces by automatic implication.

You can "figure out" what Jesus means by using perfect logical conclusions, and can therefore even say things which are TRUE and which Jesus would agree with, which Jesus Himself never said, and have it NOT be "outside of the Course's teachings". The excuse "Jesus didn't say that" or "that's not written in the course" is a blindness which fixates only on the form of what was said, NOT the underlying logic, and this causes many students to put up unnecessary defenses, to put the course in a box, to dwell unnecessarily on different versions of the book, and to make the form of its words all important. It is what the words are BASED ON that is important. The fundamental logical basis IS the metaphysics, and IS aligned with the thought system of Jesus, from which He speaks.

For example, the only reason that someone projects responsibility for causing something onto another person, is because awareness of being the cause of it has been blocked in their own mind, meaning logically they are not aware that they are responsible for causing it, which means they MUST now look elsewhere to try to find the cause. This is not optional. There are no exceptions to the rule. This is simply what must happen given the logical foundation. If you did not do this, someone or something else did.

As another example, you can explain why every mistake is forgivable by recognizing that a person is only attacking because they are believing that someone else is the cause of the problem. Having simply not been aware of their own actions of mind, they see cause as separate from themselves. And so this justifies all anger and attack. And the only reason the person is becoming angry and attacking is because of this logical framework which has been established.

If the person were to remove the block to awareness to look at the FACTS ("no one can argue with a fact"), that they themselves did this to themselves, it is then OBVIOUS that there is no justification for attack. So anyone who is attacking is simply temporarily unaware, and THAT IS ALL, and because of that unawareness they do not know what they are doing to themselves, and so their attacks are merely MISTAKES they are making in unconsciousness, and so they must be FORGIVABLE because they did not do this on purpose consciously. They are not in their right mind, therefore forgiveness is justified in every case. This is logical, and Holy Spirit's logical thought system recognizes this and therefore sees forgiveness as being always justified.

Impeccable logic can properly explain the "levels" of separation, all states of mind, the dynamics of every interaction, the automatic, predictable flow of ego thoughts, and all logical outcomes of the ego thought system, including the formation of forms and matter and bodies and planets and sickness and death. Nothing is happening other than an entirely CLOSED system of logical conclusions, based on a false premise.

All of these steps in separation, all of the dynamics of the ego, all of the ways that mind does or does not do something, all states of perception and misperception, the state of Heaven and its conditions, the functioning of minds of oneness, all of the parts of the Holy Spirit's thought system and the ego's thought system are ENTIRELY LOGIC BASED.

Love and fear are opposites. But only love is real. Therefore fear is not real and love has no opposite. If there is fear, it produces a state which does not exist. This is PERFECT LOGIC. This describes for example the foundation of the separation. And also explains why "there is no world", because a world based on fear cannot exist. This is why "there is no life outside of heaven".

Or here is another way to do it. God is cause. You are effect. You cannot cause what caused you because you are 100% the effect of it. Therefore attempting to cause God is impossible and will produce states which do not exist (dreams of nothing). This is perfectly logical.

Since everything in the Course's teachings including the foundation for working miracles is based entirely on metaphysical logic, this is going to be the foundation of the new book I am working on. It is going to spell out all of this in such clear black-and-white terms it will be extremely difficult to deny it or to become confused by it. It's got nothing to do with personal opinion. Metaphysics means FACTS, and this is what we need to overcome our constant debates and confusions and states of misunderstanding.

Here are some examples of Jesus talking about metaphysical logic:

"From the belief in sin, the faith in chaos MUST follow. It is because it follows that it seems to be a logical conclusion; a valid step in ordered thought. The steps to chaos DO follow neatly from their starting-point. Each is a different form in the progression of truth’s reversal, leading still deeper into terror, and away from truth."

"The Holy Spirit uses logic as easily, and as well, as does the ego, except that HIS conclusions are NOT insane. They take a direction EXACTLY opposite, pointing as clearly to Heaven as the ego points to darkness and to death. We have followed much of the ego’s logic, and have seen its logical conclusions. And, HAVING seen them, we have realized that they can NOT be seen but in delusions. For there alone their SEEMING clearness SEEMS TO BE CLEARLY SEEN. Let us now turn AWAY from them, and follow the simple logic, by which the Holy Spirit teaches you the simple conclusions that speak for truth, and ONLY truth."

"Like the text for which this workbook was written, the ideas which are used for the exercises are very simple, very clear and totally unambiguous. We are not concerned with intellectual feats nor logical toys. We are dealing only in the very obvious, which has been overlooked in the clouds of complexity in which you think you think."

""God gives me only happiness."

"He has given my function to me."

"Therefore my function must be happiness."

Try to see the logic in this sequence"

"Only the DIFFERENT can attack. So you conclude, BECAUSE you can attack, you must be different. Yet does the Holy Spirit explain this differently. BECAUSE you are not different, you CAN NOT attack. Either position is a logical conclusion, if only the different can attack. Either could be maintained, but never both. "

"And reason now can lead you to the logical conclusion of your union."

"The logic of the world MUST therefore lead to nothing, for its GOAL is nothing."

"There is NOTHING in the world to teach him that the logic of the world is totally insane, and leads to nothing. But in him who MADE this insane logic, there is One Who KNOWS it leads to nothing, for He knows of EVERYTHING."

"Yet the logical outcome of your decision is perfectly clear, if you will LOOK at it. By deciding AGAINST your reality, you have made yourself vigilant AGAINST God and His Kingdom. And it is THIS vigilance that makes you afraid to remember Him."

"You therefore ARE willing to look at the ego’s premises but NOT at their logical outcome. Is it not possible that you have done the same thing with the premises of God? Your creations ARE the logical outcome of His premises. "

"They are the logical outcome of what you ARE. The ability to SEE a logical outcome depends on the WILLINGNESS TO SEE IT, but its TRUTH has nothing to do with your willingness at all."

"This means that the ego attacks WHAT IS PRESERVING IT, and this MUST be a source of extreme anxiety. This is why it NEVER knows what it is doing. This is perfectly logical, though clearly insane."

"Remaining logical but still insane, the ego resolves this completely insane dilemma in a completely insane way."

"In one sense, the ego’s fear of the idea of God is at least logical, because this idea DOES dispel it. "

"Test validity can be judged by logic, by theory, and by practice, each being regarded as a different dimension."

"Upside-down logic produces this kind of thinking."

"Now take this personally, and listen to Divine logic: If, when you have been forgiven, you have everything else, and If you have been forgiven, Then you have everything else. This happens to be the simplest of all propositions. IF P then Q. P. Therefore, Q. The real question is, is P true. If you will review the evidence, I think you will find this inescapable. I went on very personal record to this effect, and I am the only completely True Witness for God."