Section 4 - Fear as Lack of Love

You and Bill both believe that "being afraid" is involuntary. But I have told you many times that only CONSTRUCTIVE acts should be involuntary. We said that Christ-control can take over everything that DOESN'T matter, and Christ-guidance can direct everything that DOES, if you so will.

Fear cannot be Christ-controlled, but it CAN be self-controlled. Fear is always associated with what does not matter. It prevents Me from controlling it. The correction is therefore a matter of YOUR will, because its presence shows that you have raised the UNIMPORTANT to a higher level than it warrants. You have thus brought it under your will, where it DOES NOT belong. This means YOU feel responsible for it. The level confusion here is perfectly obvious.

You would not tolerate insane behavior on your part, and would hardly advance the excuse that you could not help it. Why should you tolerate insane thinking? There is a fallacy here you would do well to look at clearly.

You both believe that you ARE responsible for what you DO, but NOT for what you THINK. The truth is that you ARE responsible for what you THINK, because it is only at this level that you CAN exercise choice. What you DO comes from what you think. You cannot separate the truth by giving autonomy to your behavior. This is controlled by Me automatically, as soon as you place what you think under my guidance.

Whenever you are afraid, it is a sure sign that you have allowed your mind to miscreate, i.e., have NOT allowed Me to guide it. It is pointless to believe that controlling the outcome of mis-Thought can result in real healing. When you are fearful, you have willed wrongly. This is why you feel you are responsible for it.

You must change your MIND, not your behavior, and this IS a matter of will. You do not need guidance EXCEPT at the mind-level. Correction belongs ONLY at the level where creation is possible. The term does not really mean anything at the symptom-level, where it cannot work.

The correction of fear IS your responsibility. When you ask for release from fear, you are implying that it isn't. You should ask, instead, for help in the conditions which have brought the fear about. This condition always entails a separated Mind-willingness. At this level, you CAN help it.

You are much too tolerant of Mind-wandering, thus passively condoning its miscreation. The particular result never matters, but this fundamental error DOES. The fundamental correction is always the same. Before you will to do anything, ask Me if your will is in accord with Mine. If you are sure that it IS, there will BE no fear.

Fear is always a sign of strain, which arises whenever the WILL to do conflicts with WHAT you do. This situation arises in two major ways:

1) You can will to do conflicting things, either simultaneously or successively. This produces conflicting behavior, which would be tolerable to the self (though not necessarily to others) except for the fact that the part of the will that wants something ELSE is outraged.

2)You can BEHAVE as you think you should, but without entirely WILLING to do so. This produces consistent behavior, but entails great strain WITHIN the self.

If you think about it, you will realize that in both cases the will and the behavior are out-of-accord, resulting in a situation in which you are doing what you do NOT will. This arouses a sense of coercion, which usually produces rage. The anger then invades the mind, and projection in the wrong sense becomes likely. Depression or anxiety are virtually certain.

Remember that whenever there is fear, it is because YOU have NOT MADE UP YOUR MIND. Your will is split, and your behavior inevitably becomes erratic. Correcting at the behavior level can shift the error from the first type to the second, but will NOT obliterate the fear.

It is possible to reach a state in which you bring your will under my guidance without much conscious effort, but this implies the kind of habit pattern which neither you nor Bill has developed dependably as yet.

Tell Bill that although he keeps telling you that God will never ask you to do more than you can, he does not understand it himself. God CANNOT ask more than you WILL. The strength to DO comes from your own undivided will to do. There is NO strain in doing God's will as soon as it is also your own.

The lesson here is quite simple, but particularly apt to be overlooked. I will therefore repeat it, URGING you to listen. Only your mind can produce fear. It does so whenever it is conflicted in what it wills, thus producing inevitable strain, because willing and doing become discordant. This CANNOT be corrected by better DOING. But it CAN be corrected by higher WILLING.

Section 2 - The Picture of the Crucifixion

Whenever you consent to suffer pain, to be deprived, unfairly treated, or in need of ANYTHING, you but accuse your brother of attack upon God's Son. You hold a picture of your crucifixion before his eyes, that he may see his sins are writ in Heaven in your blood and death, and go before him, closing off the gate, and damning him to hell. Yet this is writ in hell and NOT in Heaven, where you are BEYOND attack, and prove his INNOCENCE. The picture of yourself you offer him you show YOURSELF, and give it all your faith. The Holy Spirit offers you, to give to him, a picture of yourself in which there is NO pain and NO reproach at all. And what was martyred to his guilt becomes the perfect witness to his innocence.

The power of witness is beyond belief, because it brings conviction in its wake. The witness is believed BECAUSE he points beyond himself, to what he REPRESENTS. A sick and suffering you but represents your brother's guilt; the witness which you send, lest he forget the injuries he gave, from which you swear he never will escape. This sick and sorry picture YOU accept, if only it can serve to punish him. The sick are merciless to everyone, and in contagion do they seek to kill. Death seems an easy price, if they can say, "Behold me, brother, at your hand I die." For sickness is the witness to his guilt, and death would prove his errors MUST be sins.

Sickness is but a "little" death; a form of vengeance not yet total. Yet it speaks with certainty for what it represents. The bleak and bitter picture you have sent your brother, YOU have looked upon in grief. And everything that it has shown to him have you believed, BECAUSE it witnessed to the guilt in him, which you perceived and loved. Now in the hands made gentle by His touch, the Holy Spirit lays a picture of a DIFFERENT you. It is a picture of a body still, for what you REALLY are can not be seen nor pictured. But THIS one has NOT been used for purpose of attack, and therefore never suffered pain at all. IT witnesses to the eternal truth that you can not BE hurt, and points BEYOND itself to both YOUR innocence and HIS.

Show THIS unto your brother, who will see that every scar is healed, and every tear is wiped away in laughter and in love. And he will look on his forgiveness there, and with healed eyes will look BEYOND it, to the innocence that he beholds in you. Here is the proof that he has NEVER sinned; that NOTHING that his madness bid him do was ever done, or ever had effects of any kind. That NO reproach he laid upon his heart was EVER justified, and NO attack can touch him with the poisoned sting of fear. Attest his innocence and NOT his guilt. YOUR healing is his comfort and HIS health. BECAUSE it proves illusions were not true.

It is not Will for Life, but wish for death, that is the motivation for this world. Its ONLY purpose is TO PROVE GUILT REAL. No worldly thought or act or feeling has a motivation other than this one. These are the witnesses that are called forth to be believed, and lend conviction to the system they speak for and represent. And each has many voices, speaking to your brother and yourself in different tongues. And yet to both the message is the same. Adornment of the body seeks to show how lovely are the witnesses for guilt. Concerns about the body demonstrate how frail and vulnerable is your life; how easily destroyed is what you love. Depression speaks of death and vanity of real concern with anything at all.

The strongest witness to futility, which bolsters all the rest and helps them paint the picture in which sin is justified, is sickness in whatever form it takes. The sick have reason for each one of their unnatural desires and strange needs. For who could live a life so soon cut short, and NOT esteem the worth of passing joys? What pleasures COULD there be that will endure? Are not the frail ENTITLED to believe that every stolen scrap of pleasure is their righteous payment for their little lives? Their death will pay the price for all of them, if they enjoy the benefits or not. The end of life must come, whatever way that life be spent. And so take pleasure in the quickly passing and ephemeral.

These are NOT sins, but witnesses unto the strange belief that sin and death are real, and innocence and sin will end alike, within the termination of the grave. If this were true, there WOULD be reason to remain content to seek for passing joys, and cherish little pleasures where you can. But in this picture is the body NOT perceived as neutral and WITHOUT a goal inherent in itself. For it becomes the symbol of reproach, the sign of guilt whose consequences still are there to see, so that the cause can NEVER be denied. Your function is to PROVE to him that sin can HAVE no cause. How futile MUST it be to see yourself a picture of the proof that what your function IS can never be.

The Holy Spirit's picture changes not the body into something it is not. It only takes away from it ALL signs of accusation and of blamefulness. Pictured WITHOUT a purpose, it is seen as neither sick nor well, nor bad nor good. No grounds are offered that it may be judged in ANY way at all. It has no life, but neither is it dead. It stands apart from ALL experience of fear OR love. For now it witnesses to NOTHING yet, its purpose being open, and the mind made free again to choose what it is FOR. Now it is not condemned, but waiting for a purpose to be GIVEN, that it may fulfill the function that it will receive.

Into this empty space, from which the GOAL of sin has been removed, is Heaven free to be remembered. Here its peace can come, and perfect healing take the place of death. The body can become a sign of life, a promise of redemption, and a breath of immortality to those grown sick of breathing in the fetid scent of death. Let it have healing as its PURPOSE. Then will it send forth the message it received, and by its health and loveliness proclaim the truth and value that it represents. Let it receive the power to represent an endless life, forever unattacked. And to your brother let its message be, "Behold me, brother, at your hand I live."

Section 7 - The Bridge to the Real World

The search for the special relationship is the sign that you equate your self with the ego, and NOT with God. For the special relationship has value ONLY to the ego. To IT, UNLESS a relationship HAS special value, IT HAS NO MEANING. And it perceives ALL love as special. Yet, this CANNOT be natural, for it is UNlike the relationship of God and His Son, and ALL relationships that are unlike this One, MUST be unnatural. For God created love as He would have it be, and GAVE it as it IS. Love HAS no meaning except as its Creator defined it, by His Will. It is impossible to define it otherwise, and UNDERSTAND it.

LOVE IS FREEDOM. To look for it by placing yourself in BONDAGE, is to SEPARATE yourself from it. For the love of God, no longer seek for union in separation, nor for freedom in bondage! As you release, so will you BE released. FORGET THIS NOT, or love will be unable to find you, and comfort you. There is a way in which the Holy Spirit asks YOUR help, if you would have His. The holy instant is His most helpful tool in protecting you from the attraction of guilt, the REAL lure in the special relationship. You do NOT recognize that this IS its REAL appeal, for the ego has taught you that FREEDOM lies in it.

YOU SEE THE WORLD YOU VALUE. On this side of the bridge, you see the world of separate bodies, seeking to join each other in SEPARATE UNIONS, and to become one BY LOSING. When two INDIVIDUALS seek to become ONE, they are trying to DECREASE their magnitude. Each would DENY his power, for the SEPARATE union EXCLUDES THE UNIVERSE. Far more is LEFT OUTSIDE than would be taken in. For God is left WITHOUT, and NOTHING taken in. If one such union were made IN PERFECT FAITH, the universe WOULD enter into it. Yet the special relationship which the EGO seeks, does NOT include even ONE whole individual. For the ego WANTS but part of him, and sees ONLY this part, and nothing else.

Across the bridge, it is so different! For a time the body is still seen, but NOT exclusively, as it is seen here. For the little spark that holds the Great Rays within it, is ALSO visible, and this spark cannot be limited long to littleness. Once you have crossed the bridge, the VALUE of the body is so diminished in YOUR sight, that you will see no need at all to MAGNIFY it. For you will realize that the ONLY value that the body has, is to enable you to bring your brothers TO the bridge WITH you. And to be RELEASED TOGETHER there.

The bridge itself is nothing more than a transition in your PERSPECTIVE of reality. On this side, everything you see is grossly distorted, and COMPLETELY out of perspective. What IS little and insignificant is magnified, and what is strong and powerful, cut down to littleness. In the transition, there is a period of confusion, in which a sense of actual disorientation seems to occur. But fear it not, for it means nothing more than that you have been willing to LET GO your hold on the distorted frame of reference, that SEEMED to hold your world together. This frame of reference is BUILT around the special relationship. Without THIS illusion, there can BE no meaning you would still seek here.

Fear not that you will be abruptly lifted up, and hurled into reality. Time is kind, and, if you use it FOR reality, it will keep gentle pace with you, in your transition. The urgency is only in dislodging your minds from their FIXED POSITION here. This will not leave you homeless, and WITHOUT a frame of reference. The period of disorientation, which precedes the actual transition, is far shorter than the time it took to fix your minds so firmly on illusions. Delay will hurt you now MORE THAN BEFORE, ONLY because you realize it IS delay, and that escape from pain IS REALLY POSSIBLE. Find hope and comfort, rather than despair, in this therefore.

You could no longer find even the ILLUSION of love in ANY special relationship here. For you are no longer WHOLLY insane, and you WOULD recognize the guilt of SELF-betrayal FOR WHAT IT IS. Nothing you seek to strengthen, in the special relationship, is REALLY part of you. And you cannot keep PART of the thought-system that taught you it WAS real, and understand the Thought that REALLY knows what you are. You HAVE allowed the Thought of your reality to enter your minds, and, because YOU invited it, it WILL abide with you. Your love for it will not allow you to betray yourself, and you COULD not enter into a relationship WHERE IT COULD NOT GO WITH YOU, for you would NOT be APART from it.

Be glad you have escaped the mockery of salvation that the ego offered you, and look not back with longing on the travesty it made of your relationships. Now, no-one need suffer, for you have come too far to yield to the illusion of the beauty and holiness of guilt. Only the wholly insane could look on death and suffering, sickness and despair, and see it thus. What guilt has wrought is ugly, fearful, and very dangerous. See no illusion of truth and beauty there. And be you thankful that there IS a place where truth and beauty wait for you.

Go on to meet them gladly, and learn how much awaits you, for the simple willingness to give up nothing, BECAUSE it is nothing. The new perspective you will gain, from crossing over, will be the understanding of WHERE HEAVEN IS. From HERE, it seems to be outside, and ACROSS the bridge. But, as you cross to JOIN it, IT will JOIN WITH YOU, and BECOME ONE with you. And you will think, in glad astonishment, that for all this, YOU GAVE UP NOTHING! The joy of Heaven, which HAS no limit, is INCREASED with each light that returns, to take its rightful place within it. Wait no longer, for the Love of God and YOU. And may the holy instant speed you on the way, as it will surely do, if you but LET it come to you.

The Holy Spirit asks only this little help of you. Whenever your thoughts wander to a special relationship which still ATTRACTS you, enter with Him into a holy instant, and there, LET HIM RELEASE YOU. He needs only your willingness to SHARE His perspective, to give it to you completely. And your willingness need not be complete, BECAUSE HIS IS PERFECT. It is His task to atone for your UNwillingness by His perfect faith. And it is HIS faith you share with Him there. Out of YOUR recognition of your UNwillingness for your release, His PERFECT willingness is GIVEN you. Call upon Him, for Heaven is at His call. And LET Him call on Heaven FOR you.

Section 8 - "Be Vigilant Only for God and His Kingdom"

For your own salvation you MUST be critical, because YOUR salvation IS critical to the whole Sonship. We said before that the Holy Spirit IS evaluative, and MUST be. Yet His evaluation does not extend BEYOND you, or you WOULD share it. In YOUR mind, and your mind ONLY, He sorts out the true from the false, and teaches you to judge every thought that you allow to ENTER in the light of what God PUT there. Whatever is IN ACCORD with this light He retains, to strengthen the Kingdom in YOU. When it is PARTLY in accord with truth He accepts it and purifies it. But what is OUT OF ACCORD ENTIRELY He rejects by judging against. This is how He keeps the Kingdom perfectly consistent and perfectly unified.

The Holy Spirit does not teach your mind to be critical of other minds, because He does not want you to teach your errors and LEARN THEM YOURSELVES. He would hardly be consistent if He allowed you to STRENGTHEN what you must learn to avoid. In the mind of the THINKER, then, He IS judgmental, but only in order to unify it so IT CAN perceive WITHOUT judgment. This enables the mind to TEACH without judgment and therefore learn to BE without judgment. The UNdoing is necessary only in YOUR mind, so that you cannot PROJECT it. God Himself has established what you can project with perfect safety. Therefore, the Holy Spirit's third lesson is: Be vigilant ONLY for God and HIS Kingdom.

This is a major step toward FUNDAMENTAL change. Yet it is still a lesson in thought REVERSAL, because it implies that there is something you must be vigilant AGAINST. It has advanced far from the first lesson which was PRIMARILY a reversal, and also from the second, which was essentially the identification of what is MORE desirable. This step, which follows from the second as the second does from the first, emphasizes the DICHOTOMY between the desirable and the UNdesirable. It therefore makes the ULTIMATE choice inevitable. But while the first step seems to INCREASE conflict, and the second still ENTAILS it to some extent, this one calls for CONSISTENT EFFORT AGAINST IT.

We said already that you can be as vigilant AGAINST the ego as FOR it. This lesson teaches not that you CAN be, but that you MUST be. It does not concern itself with order of difficulty, but with CLEAR-CUT PRIORITY FOR VIGILANCE. This step is unequivocal in that it teaches THERE MUST BE NO EXCEPTIONS, but it does NOT deny that the temptations to MAKE exceptions will occur. Here, then, your consistency is called on DESPITE chaos. But chaos and consistency CANNOT coexist for long, because they are MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE. As long as you must be vigilant against ANYTHING, however, you are not recognizing this, and are holding the belief that you can CHOOSE EITHER ONE.

By teaching you WHAT to choose, the Holy Spirit will ultimately be able to teach you that YOU NEED NOT CHOOSE AT ALL. This will finally liberate your will FROM choice, and direct it toward creation WITHIN the Kingdom. Choosing through the Holy Spirit will only lead you TO it. You create by what you ARE, but this IS what you must learn. The way to learn it is INHERENT in the third step, which brings together the lessons inherent in the others, and goes beyond them toward real integration.

If you allow yourselves to HAVE in your minds only what God put there, you are acknowledging your mind as God created it. Therefore, you are accepting it AS IT IS. And since it IS whole, you are teaching peace BECAUSE you have believed in it. The final step will still be taken FOR you by God. But by the third step, the Holy Spirit has PREPARED you FOR God. He is GETTING YOU READY to translate having into being by the very nature of the steps you must take WITH Him. You learn first that having rests on GIVING and NOT getting. Next you learn that you learn what you TEACH, and that you WANT TO LEARN PEACE. This is the CONDITION for identifying WITH the Kingdom, because it is the condition OF the Kingdom.

But you have believed that you are WITHOUT the Kingdom, and have therefore excluded yourself FROM it in your belief. It is therefore essential to teach you that YOU must be INCLUDED, and the BELIEF THAT YOU ARE NOT is the ONLY thing that you must exclude.

The third step is thus one of PROTECTION for your minds by allowing you to identify ONLY with the center, where God placed the altar to HIMSELF. We have already said that altars are BELIEFS, but God and His creations are BEYOND belief because they are beyond question. The Voice FOR God speaks only for BELIEF beyond question, but this IS the preparation for BEING without question.

As long as belief in God and His Kingdom is assailed by ANY doubts in your minds, His perfect Accomplishment is NOT apparent to you. This is why you MUST be vigilant ON GOD's BEHALF. The ego speaks AGAINST His Creation, and therefore DOES engender doubt. You cannot go BEYOND belief UNTIL you believe wholly. No one can EXTEND a lesson he has NOT LEARNED FULLY. Transfer, which IS extension, is the measure of learning because it is the MEASURABLE RESULT. This, however, does NOT mean that what it transfers TO is measurable. On the contrary, unless it transfers to the whole Sonship, which is immeasurable because it was created BY the Immeasurable, the learning itself MUST be incomplete.

To teach the WHOLE Sonship WITHOUT EXCEPTION demonstrates that you PERCEIVE ITS WHOLENESS and have learned that it IS One. Now you must be vigilant to HOLD its Oneness in your minds because if you allow doubt to enter, YOU will lose awareness of its wholeness, and WILL BE UNABLE TO TEACH IT. The wholeness of the Kingdom does NOT depend on your perception, but your AWARENESS of its wholeness DOES. It is only your awareness that NEEDS protection, because your BEING cannot be assailed. Yet a real sense of being CANNOT be yours while you are doubtful of what you ARE. THIS IS WHY VIGILANCE IS ESSENTIAL. Doubts ABOUT being MUST not enter your mind, or you CANNOT know what you are with certainty.

Certainty is OF God for YOU. Vigilance is not necessary for truth, but it IS necessary AGAINST ILLUSION. Truth is WITHOUT illusions, and therefore WITHIN the Kingdom. Everything OUTSIDE the Kingdom IS ILLUSION. But you must learn to ACCEPT truth because YOU THREW IT AWAY. You therefore saw yourself AS IF you were WITHOUT it. By making another Kingdom WHICH YOU VALUED, you did NOT keep the Kingdom of God alone in your minds, and thus placed part of your mind OUTSIDE of it. What you have made has thus DIVIDED YOUR WILL and given you a sick mind that MUST be healed. Your vigilance AGAINST this sickness IS the way to heal it.

Once YOUR mind is healed, it radiates health and thereby TEACHES healing. This establishes you as a teacher who teaches LIKE me. Vigilance was required of me as much as of you. But remember that those who will to teach the same thing MUST be in agreement about what they believe.

The third step, then, is a statement of what you WANT to believe, and entails a willingness to RELINQUISH EVERYTHING ELSE. I told you that you were just beginning the second step, but I also told you that the third one FOLLOWS it. The Holy Spirit WILL enable you to go on IF YOU FOLLOW HIM. Your vigilance is the sign that you WANT Him to guide you. Vigilance DOES require effort, but only to teach you that effort ITSELF is unnecessary. You have exerted GREAT effort to preserve what you made BECAUSE it is NOT true. Therefore, you must now turn your effort AGAINST it. Only this can cancel out the NEED for effort, and call upon the BEING which you both HAVE and ARE. THIS recognition is wholly WITHOUT effort, because it is ALREADY true and needs no protection. It is in the perfect safety of God. Therefore, inclusion is total and Creation is WITHOUT LIMIT.

Section 7 - Communication and the Ego-Body Equation

Attack is ALWAYS physical. When attack in ANY form enters your mind, you are EQUATING YOURSELF WITH A BODY. This is the ego's INTERPRETATION of the body. You do not have to ATTACK physically to accept this interpretation; you ARE accepting it simply by the belief that attack can GET YOU SOMETHING YOU WANT. If you did NOT believe this, the IDEA of attack would have no appeal to you.

When you equate yourself with a body, you will ALWAYS experience depression. When a Child of God thinks of himself in this way, he is belittling himself and seeing his brothers as similarly belittled. Since he can find himself ONLY in them, he has cut himself off from salvation. Remember that the Holy Spirit interprets the body ONLY as a means of communication. Being the communication link between God and His separated Sons, He interprets everything YOU have in the light of what HE is.

The ego SEPARATES through the body. The Holy Spirit reaches THROUGH it to others. You do not perceive your brothers as the Holy Spirit does because you do not interpret their bodies AND YOURS solely as a means of JOINING THEIR MINDS and uniting them with yours and mine. This interpretation of the body will change your mind entirely about its value. Of itself it has NONE. If you use it for attack it is harmful to you. But if you use it ONLY to reach the minds of those who believe they ARE bodies and teach them THROUGH the body that THIS IS NOT SO, you will begin to understand the power of the mind that is in both of you. If you use the body for this, and ONLY for this, you CANNOT use it for attack. In the service of uniting, it becomes a beautiful lesson in communion, which has value until communion IS.

This is God's way of making unlimited what YOU have limited. His Voice does not see the body as YOU do, because He knows the ONLY reality that ANYTHING can have is the service it can render God on behalf of the function HE has given. Communication ENDS separation. Attack PROMOTES it. The body is ugly or beautiful, savage or holy, helpful or harmful, according to the use to which it is put. And in the body of another you will see the use to which you put YOURS.

If the body becomes for you a means which you give to the Holy Spirit to use on behalf of the union of the Sonship, you will not see ANYTHING physical except as WHAT IT IS. Use it for truth, and you will see it truly. MISuse it and you WILL misunderstand it, because you have already done so BY misusing it. Interpret ANYTHING apart from the Holy Spirit, and you will mistrust it. This will lead you to hatred and attack and LOSS OF PEACE.

But ALL loss comes only from your own misunderstanding. Loss of ANY kind is impossible. When you look upon a brother as a physical entity, HIS power and glory are lost to you and SO ARE YOURS. You HAVE attacked him, and you MUST have attacked yourself first. Do not see him this way for your OWN salvation, which MUST bring him his. Do not ALLOW him to belittle himself in YOUR mind, but give him freedom from his belief in littleness, and escape from YOURS. As part of YOU, HE is holy. As part of ME, YOU are. To communicate with part of God Himself is to reach beyond the Kingdom to its Creator, through His Voice which He has established as part of YOU.

Rejoice, then, that of yourselves you can do nothing. You are not OF yourselves. And He of Whom you ARE has willed your power and glory FOR you, with which you can perfectly accomplish His holy Will for you when you so will it yourself. He has not withdrawn His gifts from YOU, but YOU have withdrawn them from Him. Let no Son of God remain hidden for His Name's sake, because His Name is YOURS.

Remember that the Bible says, "The word (or thought) was made flesh." Strictly speaking, this is impossible, since it seems to involve the translation of one order of reality into another. Different orders of reality merely SEEM to exist, just as different orders of miracles do. Thought cannot be MADE into flesh except by belief, because thought is NOT physical. But thought IS communication, for which the body can be used. This is the only NATURAL use to which it can be put. To use the body UNnaturally is to lose sight of the Holy Spirit's purpose, and thus to confuse the goal of His curriculum.

There is nothing so frustrating to a learner as to place him in a curriculum which he cannot learn. His sense of adequacy suffers, and he MUST become depressed. Being faced with an impossible learning situation, REGARDLESS of why it is impossible, is the most depressing thing in the world. In fact, it is ultimately WHY the world is depressing. The Holy Spirit's curriculum is NEVER depressing because it is a curriculum in joy. Whenever the reaction to learning is depression, it is only because the goal of the curriculum has been lost sight of.

In the world, not even the body is perceived as whole. Its purpose is seen as fragmented into many functions which bear little or no relationship to each other, so that it appears to be ruled by chaos. Guided by the ego, it IS. Guided by the Holy Spirit, it is NOT. It becomes ONLY a means by which the part of the mind which you have separated from your Soul can reach beyond its distortions and RETURN to the Soul. The ego's temple thus becomes the temple of the Holy Spirit, where devotion to Him replaces devotion to the ego. In this sense the body DOES become a temple to God, because His Voice abides in it by directing the use TO WHICH YOU PUT IT.

Healing is the result of using the body SOLELY for communication. Since this IS natural, it heals by making whole, which is also natural. ALL mind is whole, and the belief that part of it is physical or NOT MIND is a fragmented (or sick) interpretation. Mind CANNOT be made physical, but it CAN be made manifest THROUGH the physical if it uses the body to GO BEYOND itself. By reaching OUT, the mind EXTENDS itself. It does not STOP at the body, for if it does it is blocked in its purpose. A mind which has been blocked has allowed itself to be vulnerable to attack, because it has TURNED AGAINST ITSELF.

To use a medium of communication as a medium of ATTACK is an obvious confusion in purpose. To communicate is to join and to attack is to separate. How can you do both simultaneously WITH THE SAME THING, and NOT suffer? Perception of the body can be unified only by ONE PURPOSE. This releases the mind from the temptation to see it in many lights, and gives it over ENTIRELY to the One Light in which it can be really understood at all.

To confuse a learning device with a curriculum GOAL is a fundamental confusion. Learning can hardly be meaningfully arrested at its own aids, and hope to understand them OR its real purpose. Learning must lead BEYOND the body to the re-establishment of the power of the mind IN it. This can be accomplished ONLY if the mind EXTENDS to other minds, and does not ARREST ITSELF in its extension. The arrest of the mind's extension is the cause of all illness, because ONLY EXTENSION IS THE MIND's FUNCTION. Block this, and you have blocked health because you have BLOCKED THE MIND's JOY.

The opposite of joy is depression. When your learning promotes depression INSTEAD of joy, you CANNOT be listening to God's joyous teacher, and you MUST be learning amiss. To see a body as anything EXCEPT a means of pure extension is to limit your mind and HURT YOURSELF. Health is therefore nothing more than united purpose. If the body is brought under the purpose of the mind, it becomes whole because the mind's purpose IS one.

Attack can only be an assumed goal of the body, but the body APART from the mind HAS NO PURPOSE AT ALL. You are NOT limited by the body, and thought CANNOT be made flesh. But mind can be manifested through the body if it goes beyond it and DOES NOT INTERPRET IT AS LIMITATION. Whenever you see another as limited TO or BY the body, you are imposing this limit ON YOURSELF. Are you willing to ACCEPT this, when your whole purpose for learning should be to escape FROM limitations?

To conceive of the body as a means of attack of any kind, and to entertain even the possibility that joy could POSSIBLY result, is a clear-cut indication of a poor learner. He has accepted a learning goal in obvious contradiction to the unified purpose of the curriculum, and is interfering with his ability to accept it AS HIS OWN.

Joy is unified purpose, and unified purpose is ONLY God's. When yours is unified, it IS His. Interfere with His purpose, and YOU NEED SALVATION. You have condemned yourself, but condemnation is not of God. Therefore, it is not true. No more are any of the RESULTS of your condemnation. When you see a brother as a body, you are condemning him BECAUSE you have condemned yourself. But if ALL condemnation is unreal, and it MUST be unreal because it is a form of attack, then it can HAVE no results.

Do not allow yourselves to suffer from the results of what is not true. Free your minds from the belief that this is possible. In its complete impossibility, and your full awareness OF its complete impossibility, lies your only hope for release. But what other hope would you want? Freedom from illusions lies only in not BELIEVING them. THERE IS NO ATTACK, but there IS unlimited communication and therefore unlimited power and wholeness. The power of wholeness is EXTENSION. Do not arrest your thought in this world, and you will open your mind to Creation in God.

Section 8 - The Decision for Guiltlessness

Learning will be commensurate with motivation, and the interference in your motivation for learning, is EXACTLY the same as that which interferes with ALL your thinking. The happy learner CANNOT FEEL GUILTY ABOUT LEARNING. This is so ESSENTIAL to learning, that it should never be forgotten. The guiltless learner learns so easily, BECAUSE HIS THOUGHTS ARE FREE. But this entails the recognition that GUILT IS INTERFERENCE, NOT SALVATION, and serves NO useful function at all.

You are accustomed to using guiltlessness merely to offset the pain of guilt, and do not look upon it as having value IN ITSELF. You believe that guilt AND guiltlessness are BOTH of value, each representing an ESCAPE from what the other does NOT offer you. You do NOT want either alone, for without both, you do not see YOURSELVES as whole, and therefore happy. You are whole ONLY in your guiltlessness, and only in your guiltlessness, CAN you be happy. There IS no conflict here.

To wish for guilt in ANY way, in ANY form, will lose appreciation of the value of your guiltlessness, and push it from your sight. There is NO compromise that you can make with guilt, and escape from the pain which ONLY guiltlessness allays. Learning is living here, as creating is Being in Heaven. Whenever the pain of guilt seems to ATTRACT you, remember that, if you yield to it, you are deciding AGAINST your happiness, and will NOT learn how to be happy. Say, therefore, to yourself, gently, but with the conviction born of the love of God and of His Son:

What I experience I will make manifest.

If I am guiltless, I have nothing to fear.

I choose to testify to my ACCEPTANCE of the Atonement,

NOT FOR ITS REJECTION.

I would accept my guiltlessness by making it manifest,

and SHARING it.

Let me bring peace to God's Son from his Father.

Each day, each hour and minute, - even each second, - you are deciding between the crucifixion and the Resurrection; between the ego and the Holy Spirit. The ego is the choice for guilt, the Holy Spirit the decision for blamelessness. The power of decision is all that is yours. What you can decide BETWEEN is fixed, because there are no alternatives, EXCEPT truth and illusion. And there is no overlap between them, because they are opposites which CANNOT be reconciled, and CANNOT both be true. You are guilty OR guiltless, bound OR free, happy OR unhappy.

The miracle teaches you that you have chosen guiltlessness, freedom, and joy. It is not a cause, but an EFFECT. It is the natural result of CHOOSING RIGHT, attesting to your happiness that comes from choosing to be FREE of guilt. Everyone you offer healing TO, returns it. Everyone you attack, KEEPS it and cherishes it, by holding it AGAINST you. Whether he DOES this, or does it not, will make no difference. YOU WILL THINK HE DOES. It is impossible to offer WHAT YOU DO NOT WANT, without this penalty. The cost of giving IS receiving. Either it is a penalty from which you suffer, or the happy purchase of a treasure to hold dear.

No penalty is ever asked of God's Son, except BY himself and OF himself. Every chance given to him to heal, is another opportunity to replace darkness with light, and fear with love. If he refuses it, he binds himself TO darkness because he did not choose to free his brother, and enter light WITH him. By GIVING power to nothing, he threw away the joyous opportunity to learn that nothing HAS no power. And, by NOT DISPELLING, darkness, HE became afraid of darkness AND of light. The joy of learning darkness has no power over the Son of God, is the happy lesson the Holy Spirit teaches, and would have YOU teach WITH Him. It is HIS joy to teach it, as it will be YOURS.

The way to teach this simple lesson is merely this; guiltlessness IS invulnerability. Therefore, make your INVULNERABILITY manifest to everyone, and teach him that, WHATEVER he may try to do to you, your perfect freedom from the belief that you can BE harmed, shows him HE is guiltless. He can do NOTHING that can hurt you, and by refusing to allow him to THINK HE CAN, you teach him that the Atonement, which you have accepted for yourself, IS ALSO HIS. THERE IS NOTHING TO FORGIVE. No-one can hurt the Son of God. His guilt is WHOLLY without cause, and, being without cause, CANNOT exist.

Whenever you decide to make decisions FOR YOURSELF, you are thinking self-destructively, and the decision WILL BE WRONG. It will hurt you, because of the CONCEPT of decision which led to it. It is not true that you can make decisions BY yourself, or FOR yourself alone. No thought of God's Son CAN be separate, or isolated in its effects. Every decision is made for the WHOLE SONSHIP, directed in and out, and influencing a constellation larger than anything you ever dreamed of. Those who accept Atonement, ARE invulnerable. But those who believe they are guilty, WILL respond to guilt, because THEY THINK IT IS SALVATION, and will NOT refuse to see it, and side WITH it. They BELIEVE that INCREASING guilt is self-PROTECTION. And they fail to understand the simple fact that, what they do NOT want, MUST hurt them.

All this arises because they do NOT believe that WHAT THEY WANT IS GOOD. Yet will was given them BECAUSE it is holy, and will bring TO them ALL that they need, coming as naturally as peace that knows no limits. There is NOTHING their wills will not provide, that offers them ANYTHING of value. But, because they do NOT understand their will, the Holy Spirit quietly understands if FOR them, and gives them what THEY will, without effort, strain, or the impossible burden of deciding WHAT THEY WANT AND NEED ALONE. It will never happen that you will have to make decisions FOR YOURSELF. You are NOT bereft of help, and HELP THAT KNOWS THE ANSWER. Would you be content with little, which is all that YOU ALONE can offer yourself, when He Who GIVES YOU EVERYTHING will simply OFFER it TO you?

He will never ask what you have done to make you worthy of the gift of God. Ask it not therefore of yourselves. Instead, accept His answer, for He KNOWS you are worthy of everything God wills FOR you. Do not try to escape the gift of God, which He so freely, and so gladly offers you. He offers you but what God gave Him FOR you. You need NOT decide whether or not you are DESERVING of it. GOD KNOWS THAT YOU ARE. Would you deny the truth of GOD'S decision, and place your pitiful appraisal of yourself, in place of His calm and unswerving value of His Son? NOTHING can shake God's conviction of the perfect purity of everything that He created, for it IS wholly pure. Do not decide AGAINST it, for being of Him it MUST be true.

Peace abides in every mind that quietly accepts the plan that GOD has set for his Atonement, RELINQUISHING HIS OWN. You know NOT of Salvation, for you do NOT understand it. Make no decisions about what it is, or where it lies, but ask of the Holy Spirit EVERYTHING, and leave ALL decisions to His gentle counsel. The One Who knows the plan, of God which God would have you follow, can teach you what it IS. Only His wisdom is capable of guiding you to follow it. Every decision you undertake alone but signifies that you would define what Salvation is, and what you would be saved FROM. The Holy Spirit KNOWS that ALL Salvation is escape from guilt. You have no other "enemy," and against this strange distortion of the purity of the Son of God, the Holy Spirit is your ONLY friend.

He is the strong protector of your innocence, which sets you free. And it is HIS decision to undo EVERYTHING that would obscure your innocence from your unclouded mind. Let Him, therefore, be the only guide that you would follow to Salvation. He knows the way, and leads you gladly on it. WITH Him, you will not fail to learn what God wills FOR you IS your will. WITHOUT His guidance, you will think you know alone, and will decide AGAINST your peace, as surely as you made the wrong decision in ever thinking that Salvation lay in you alone. Salvation is of Him to Whom God GAVE it FOR you. He has not forgotten it. Forget HIM not, and He will make EVERY decision for you, for YOUR Salvation and the peace of God in you.

Seek not to appraise the worth of God's Son, whom He created holy, for to do so is TO EVALUATE HIS FATHER, and judge AGAINST Him. And you WILL feel guilty for this imagined "crime," which no one in this world, or Heaven, CAN POSSIBLY commit. God's Spirit teaches only that the "sin" of SELF replacement on the throne of God is NOT a source of guilt. What CANNOT happen, can have no effects to fear. Be quiet in your faith in Him, Who loves you, and would lead you out of insanity. Madness may be your CHOICE, but NOT your reality. Never forget the Love of God, Who HAS remembered you. For it is quite impossible that He could ever let His Son drop from His loving Mind, wherein he was created, and where his abode was fixed in perfect peace forever.

Say to the Holy Spirit only, "Decide for me," and it is done. For His decisions are reflections of WHAT GOD KNOWS ABOUT YOU, and in this light, error of ANY kind becomes impossible. Why would you struggle so frantically to anticipate all that you CANNOT know, when ALL knowledge lies behind EVERY decision that the Holy Spirit makes FOR YOU? Learn of His wisdom and His love, and teach His answer to everyone who struggles in the dark. For you decide for THEM AND for yourself. How gracious is it to decide all things through Him, Whose equal love is given equally to all alike. He leaves you no one OUTSIDE yourself, alone WITHOUT you. And so He gives you what is yours, because your Father would have you share it WITH him.

In everything be led by Him, and do not reconsider. Trust Him to answer quickly, surely, and with love for everyone who will be touched, in any way by the decision. And EVERYONE will be. Would you take unto yourself the sole responsibility for deciding what can bring ONLY good to everyone? Would you KNOW this? You taught YOURSELVES the most unnatural habit of NOT communicating with your Creator. Yet you remain in close communication with Him, and with everything that is within Him, as it is within YOURSELF. UNlearn isolation through His loving guidance, and learn of all the happy communication that you have thrown away, but could NOT lose.

Whenever you are in doubt what you should do, think of His Presence in you, and tell yourself this, and ONLY this: "He leadeth me, and knows the way, which I know not. Yet He will never KEEP from me what He would have me LEARN. And so I trust Him to communicate to me all that He knows FOR me." Then let Him teach you quietly how to perceive your guiltlessness, which is ALREADY there.

Section 3 - Healing as Release from Fear

The new emphasis will now be on healing. The miracle is the means, the Atonement the principle, and the healing is the result. Those who speak of "the miracle OF healing" are combining two orders of reality inappropriately. Healing is NOT a miracle. The Atonement, or the final miracle, is a REMEDY. It is purely a means, while any type of healing is a result.

The order of error to which Atonement is applied is irrelevant. Essentially, ALL healing is the release from fear. But to undertake this you cannot be fearful yourself.

You do not understand healing because of your own fear. I have been hinting throughout (and once stated very directly, because you were unfearful at the time) that you MUST heal others. The reason is that their healing merely witnesses or attests to yours.

A major step in the Atonement plan is to undo error at ALL levels. Illness, which is really "not Right Mindedness", is the result of level confusion in the sense that it always entails the misbelief that what is amiss in one level can adversely affect another.

We have constantly referred to miracles as the means of correcting level confusion. In reality, all mistakes must be corrected at the level at which they occur. Only the mind is capable of error. The body can ACT erroneously, but this is only because it has responded to mis-Thought. The body cannot create, and the belief that it CAN, a fundamental error responsible for most of the fallacies already referred to, produces all physical symptoms.

All physical illness represents a belief in magic. The whole distortion which created magic rested on the belief that there is a creative ability in matter, which can control the mind. This fallacy can work either way; i.e., it can be misbelieved either that the mind can miscreate IN the body, or that the body can miscreate in the mind. If it can be made clear that the mind, which is the only level of creation, cannot create beyond itself, then neither confusion need occur.

The reason why only the mind can create is more obvious than may be immediately apparent. The Soul has been created. The body is a learning device FOR the mind. Learning devices are not lessons in themselves. Their purpose is merely to facilitate the THINKING of the learner. The most that a faulty use of a learning device can do is to fail to facilitate. It does not have the power in itself to introduce actual learning errors.

The body, if properly understood, shares the invulnerability of the Atonement to two-edged application. This is not because the body is a miracle, but because it is not inherently open to misinterpretation. The body is merely a fact. Its ABILITIES can be, and frequently are, over-evaluated. However, it is almost impossible to deny its existence. Those who do are engaging in a particularly unworthy form of denial. (The use of the word "unworthy" here implies simply that it is not necessary to protect the mind by denying the un-mindful. There is little doubt that the mind can miscreate. If one denies this unfortunate aspect of its power, one is also denying the power itself.)

All material means which man accepts as remedies for bodily ills are simply restatements of magic principles. It was the first level of the error to believe that the body created its own illness. Thereafter, it is a second mis-step to attempt to heal it through non-creative agents. It does not follow, however, that the application of these very weak corrective devices are evil. Sometimes the illness has sufficiently great a hold over an individual's mind to render him inaccessible to Atonement. In this case, one may be wise to utilize a compromise approach to mind and body, in which something from the OUTSIDE is temporarily given healing belief. This is because the last thing that can help the non-Right-Minded (or the sick) is an increase in fear. They are already in a fear-weakened state. If they are inappropriately exposed to a straight and undiluted miracle, they may be precipitated into panic. This is particularly likely to occur when upside down perception has induced the belief that miracles are frightening.

The value of the Atonement does not lie in the manner in which it is expressed. In fact, if it is truly used it will inevitably BE expressed in whatever way is most helpful to the receiver, not the giver. This means that a miracle, to attain its full efficacy, MUST be expressed in a language which the recipient can understand without fear. It does not follow by any means that this is the highest level of communication of which he is capable. But it DOES mean that it is the highest level of communication of which he is capable NOW.

It is essential that the remembrance of the fact that ONLY mind can create at all remain with you. Implicit in this is the corollary that correction belongs at the thought level, and NOT at either level to which creation is inapplicable. To repeat an earlier statement, and also to extend it somewhat, the Soul is already perfect, and therefore does not require correction. The body does not really exist, except as a learning device for the mind. This learning device is not subject to errors of its own, because it was created, but is NOT creating. It should be obvious, then, that correcting the creator (or inducing it to give up miscreation) is the only application of creation which is inherently meaningful at all.

We said before that magic is essentially mindless, or the destructive (miscreated) use of mind. Physical medicines are a form of "spells." In one way, they are a more benign form, in that they do not entail the possession fallacy which DOES enter when a mind believes that it can possess another. Since this is considerably less dangerous, though still incorrect, it has its advantages. It is particularly helpful to the therapist who really wants to heal, but is still fearful himself. By using physical means to do so, he is not engaging in any form of enslavement, even though he is not applying the Atonement. This means that his mind is dulled by fear, but is not actively engaged in distortion.

Those who are afraid of using the mind to heal are right in avoiding it, because the very fact that they are afraid HAS made them vulnerable to miscreation. They are therefore likely to misunderstand any healing they might induce, and, because egocentricity and fear usually occur together, may be unable to accept the real Source of the healing. Under these conditions, it is safer for them to rely TEMPORARILY on physical healing devices, because they cannot misperceive them as their own creations. As long as their own vulnerability persists, it is essential to preserve them from even attempting miracles.

We said in a previous section that the miracle is an expression of miracle-Mindedness. Miracle-Mindedness merely means Right-Mindedness in the sense that we are now using it. Right-Mindedness neither exalts nor depreciates the mind of the miracle worker nor of the miracle receiver. However, as a creative act, the miracle need not await the Right-Mindedness of the receiver. In fact, its purpose is to restore him TO his Right Mind. But it is essential that the miracle worker be in his Right Mind, or he will be unable to reestablish Right-Mindedness in someone else.

The healer who relies on his own readiness is endangering his understanding. He is perfectly safe as long as he is completely unconcerned about HIS readiness, but maintains a consistent trust in MINE. (Errors of this kind produce some very erratic behavior, which usually point up an underlying unwillingness to co-operate. Note that by inserting the carbon backwards, Bill created a situation in which two copies did not exist. This reflected two levels of confidence lack, one in My readiness to heal, and the other in his own willingness to give.) These errors inevitably introduce inefficiency into the miracle worker's behavior, and temporarily disrupt his miracle-mindedness. We might also make very similar comments about your own hesitation about dictating at all. This is a larger error only because it results in greater inefficiency. If you don't say anything, nobody can use it, including Me. We have established that for all corrective processes, the first step is know that this is fear. Unless fear had entered, the corrective procedure would never have become necessary. If your miracle working propensities are not working, it is always because fear has intruded on your Right-Mindedness, and has literally upset it (i.e. turned it upside down).

All forms of not-Right-Mindedness are the result of refusal to accept the Atonement FOR YOURSELF. If the miracle worker DOES accept it, he places himself in the position to recognize that those who need to be healed are simply those who have NOT done so. The reason why you felt the vast radiation range of your own inner illumination is because you were aware that your Right-Mindedness IS healing. The sole responsibility of the miracle worker is to accept Atonement himself. This means that he knows that mind is the only creative level, and that its errors ARE healed by the Atonement. Once he accepts this, HIS mind can only heal. By denying his mind any destructive potential, and reinstating its purely constructive powers, he has placed himself in a position where he can undo the level confusion of others. The message which he then gives to others is the truth that THEIR MINDS are really similarly constructive, and that their own miscreations cannot hurt them. By affirming this, the miracle worker releases the mind from over-evaluating its own learning device (the body), and restores the mind to its true position as the learner. It should be re-emphasized that the body does not learn, any more than it creates. As a learning device, it merely follows the learner, but if it is falsely endowed with self initiative, it becomes a serious obstruction to the learning it should facilitate.

ONLY the mind is capable of illumination. The Soul is already illuminated, and the body in itself is too dense. The mind, however, can BRING its own illumination TO the body by recognizing that density is the opposite of intelligence, and therefore unamenable to independent learning. It is, however, easily brought into alignment with a mind which has learned to look beyond density toward light.

Corrective learning always begins with awakening the spiritual eye, and turning away from belief in physical sight. The reason this entails fear is because man is afraid of what his spiritual eye will see, which was why he closed it in the first place. We said before that the spiritual eye cannot see error, and is capable only of looking beyond it to the defense of Atonement. There is no doubt that the spiritual eye does produce extreme discomfort by what it sees. The thing that man forgets is that the discomfort is not the final outcome of its perception. When the spiritual eye is permitted to look upon the defilement of the altar, it also looks immediately toward Atonement. Nothing which the spiritual eye perceives can induce fear. Everything that results from accurate spiritual awareness merely is channelized toward correction. Discomfort is aroused only to bring the need to correct forcibly into awareness.

What the physical eye sees is not corrective, nor can it be corrected by any device which can be physically seen. As long as a man believes in what his physical sight tells him, all his corrective behavior will be misdirected. The reason why the real vision is obscured is because man cannot endure to see his own defiled altar. But since the altar has BEEN defiled, this fact becomes doubly dangerous unless it IS perceived. This perception is totally non-threatening because of the Atonement. The fear of healing arises in the end from an unwillingness to accept the unequivocal fact that healing is necessary. The fear arises because of the necessary willingness to look at what man has done to himself.

Healing was an ability which was lent to man after the Separation, before which it was completely unnecessary. Like all aspects of the space-time belief, healing ability is temporary. However, as long as time persists, healing remains among the stronger human protections. This is because healing always rests on charity, and charity is a way of perceiving the true perfection of another, even if he cannot perceive it himself. Most of the loftier concepts of which man is capable now are time-dependent. Charity is really a weaker reflection of a much more powerful love-encompassment, which is far beyond any form of charity that man can conceive of as yet. Charity is essential to Right-Mindedness, in the limited sense to which Right-Mindedness can now be attained. Charity is a way of looking at another AS IF he had already gone far beyond his actual accomplishment in time. Since his own thinking is faulty, he cannot see the Atonement himself, or he would have no need for charity at all. The charity which is accorded him is both an acknowledgment that he IS weak, and a recognition that he COULD BE stronger. The way in which both of these beliefs are stated clearly implies their dependence on time, making it quite apparent that charity lies within the framework of human limitations, though toward the higher levels.

We said before, twice in fact, that only Revelation transcends time. The miracle, as an expression of true human charity, can only shorten it a best. It must be understood, however, that whenever a man offers a miracle to another, he IS shortening the suffering of both. This introduces a correction into the Record, which corrects retroactively as well as progressively.

Miracle Principle 51

The miracle is a learning device which lessens the need for time. The sudden shift from horizontal to vertical perception which the miracle entails introduces an interval from which the doer and the receiver both emerge much farther along in time than they would otherwise have been.

A miracle has thus the unique property of abolishing time by rendering the space of time it occupies unnecessary. There is NO relation between the time a miracle TAKES and the time it COVERS. It substitutes FOR learning that might have taken thousands of years. It does this by the underlying recognition of perfect equality and holiness between doer and receiver on which the miracle rests.It is unstable, but perfectly consistent, i.e., it does not occur predictably across time, and it rarely occurs in comparable forms. But within ITSELF it is perfectly consistent. Since it contains NOTHING BUT an acknowledgment of equality and worth, all parts ARE equal. This establishes the prerequisite for validity.

We said before that the miracle abolishes time. It does this by a process of COLLAPSING it. It thus abolishes certain INTERVALS within it. It does this, however, WITHIN the larger temporal sequence.

The validity of the miracle, then, is PREDICTIVE, not logical, within the temporal schema. It establishes an out-of-pattern time interval, which is NOT under the usual laws of time. Only in this sense is it timeless. By collapsing time, it literally saves time, much the way "daylight saving time" does. It rearranges the distribution of light.

Miracle Principle 52

The miracle is the only device which man has at his immediate disposal for controlling time. Only the Revelation TRANSCENDS it, having nothing to do with time at all. The miracle is much like the body, in that both are learning aids which aim at facilitating a state in which they are unnecessary. When the Soul is finally in the original state of direct communication, neither the body nor the miracle serves any purpose.

While he is IN the body, however, man can choose between loveless and miraculous channels of creativity. He can create an empty shell (see previous reference), but he DOES NOT create nothing at all. He can wait, delay, paralyze himself, reduce his creativity almost to nothing, and even introduce a real developmental arrest or regression. But he CANNOT abolish his creativity. He CAN destroy his medium of communication, but NOT his potential.

He was NOT created by his own free will. Only what HE creates is his to decide. The basic decision of the miracle-minded is NOT to wait on time any longer than is necessary. Time can waste, as well as be wasted. The miracle-worker, therefore, accepts the time-control factor of the miracle gladly, because he knows that every collapse of time brings all men closer to the ultimate RELEASE from time, in which the Son and the Father ARE one.

The real meaning of "are of one kind" is "of one mind or will." When the will of the Sonship and the Father are one, their perfect accord IS Heaven.

ASIDE Tell Bill he is right in providing you with the consistent strength you need to get, and he needs to offer. Your instability and his weakness have resulted from bad karmic choices, and your relationship NOW is crucial for the future. You must both exert every effort to restore it to what it once was. Both of you are correcting where you have failed before. This has already enabled you to fulfill a very unexpected role in your own joint salvation, and the salvation of many other children I will entrust increasingly to you. These are by no means chosen at random. Bill should know that his preparation is not only in terms of sharing in the results of your better application of some rather unusual talents. His own role, which he will understand after his preparation is complete, will be equally surprising. He will need your help then, as you need his strength now.

Note that you DO NOT need his help as a scribe, because you developed this ability by your own efforts, and finally placed them at MY disposal. By lending you his strength, he strengthens himself. When he gains this through his own efforts, he will need your help in a very unexpected way. But this is just another example of the reciprocal nature of miracles.

Equality does not imply homogeneity NOW. When EVERYONE has EVERYTHING, individual contributions to the Sonship will no longer be necessary. When the Atonement has been completed, ALL talents will be shared by ALL of the Sons of God. God is NOT partial. All of His children have His total love, and all of his gifts are given freely to everyone alike.

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

You and Bill DO have special talents which are needed for the Celestial speedup at this time. But note that the term speed-up is not one which relates to the TRANSCENDING of time.

When time is abolished, and all of the Sons of God have come home, no special agents will be necessary. But do not underestimate the power of special agents now, or the great need there is for them. I do not claim to be more than that myself. No one in his Right Mind, (a term which should be specially noted) ever wants either more or less than that. Those who are called on to witness for me NOW are witnessing for all men, as I am.

The role of the Priestess was once to experience Revelations and to work miracles. The purpose was to bring those not yet available for direct Revelations into proper focus for them. Heightened perception was always the essential Priestess attribute.

(This is the first time that Helen Schucman ever said that she would be honored if there were any notes.)

(Neither Bill nor I is really clear about how sexual-impulses can be directly translated into miracle-impulses.) The fantasies that I mentioned yesterday (refers to discussion Helen Schucman and Bill had) provide an excellent example of how you switch. (Now switch the pronoun references, or it will be too confusing.)

Fantasies are distorted forms of thinking, because they always involve twisting perception into unreality. Fantasy is a debased form of vision. Visions and Revelations are closely related. Fantasies and projection are more closely associated, because both attempt to control external reality according to false internal needs. "Live and let live" happens to be a very meaningful injunction. Twist reality in any way, and you are perceiving destructively. Reality was lost through usurpation, which in turn produced tyranny. I told you you were now restored to your former role in the Plan of Atonement. But you must still choose freely to devote your heritage to the greater Restoration. As long as a single slave remains to walk the earth, your release is not complete. Complete restoration of the Sonship is the only true goal of the miracle-minded.

Sexual fantasies are distortions of perception by definition. They are a means of making false associations, and obtaining pleasure from them. Man can do this only because he IS creative. But although he can perceive false associations, he can never make them real except to himself. As was said before, man believes in what he creates. If he creates a miracle, he will be equally strong in his belief in that. The strength of his conviction will then sustain the belief of the miracle receiver.

NO fantasies, sexual or otherwise, are true. Fantasies become totally unnecessary as the Wholly satisfying nature of reality becomes apparent. The sex impulse IS a miracle impulse when it is in proper focus. One individual sees in another the right partner for "procreating the stock" (Wolff was not too far off here), and also for their joint establishment of a creative home. This does not involve fantasy at all. If I am asked to participate in the decision, the decision will be a Right one, too.

In a situation where you or another person, or both, experience inappropriate sex impulses, KNOW FIRST that this is an expression of fear. Your love toward each other is NOT perfect, and this is why the fear arose. Turn immediately to me by denying the power of the fear, and ask me to help you to replace it with love. This shifts the sexual impulse immediately to the miracle-impulse, and places it at MY disposal.

Then acknowledge the true creative worth of both yourself AND the other one. This places strength where it belongs. Note that sexual fantasies are ALWAYS destructive (or depleting), in that they perceive another in an inappropriate creative role. Both people are perceived essentially as "objects" fulfilling THEIR OWN pleasure drives. This dehumanized view is the source of the DEPLETING use of sex. Freud's description is purely NEGATIVE, i.e., as a release from the UNPLEASANT. He also observed that the tension from id impulses never completely abates.

What he should have said is that the shift from miracle-impulses to sexual impulses was debilitating in the first place, because of the level-confusion involved. This set up a state in which real release was impossible. Note also that Freud's notion of sex was as a device for inducing RELAXATION, which he confused with PEACE.

Inappropriate sex relaxes only in the sense that it may induce physical sleep. The miracle, on the other hand, is an ENERGIZER. It always strengthens, and never depletes. It DOES induce peace, and by establishing tranquility (not relaxation) it enables both giver and receiver to enter into a state of Grace. Here his miracle-mindedness, (not release from tension) is restored.

The peace of God which passeth understanding CAN keep your hearts now and forever.

There are only two short additions needed here:

1. Your earlier acute problem in writing things down came from a MUCH earlier misuse of very great scribal abilities. These were turned to secret rather than shared advantage, depriving it (?) of its miraculous potential, and diverting it into possession. This is much like the confusion of sex impulses with possession-impulses. Some of the original material is still in the Temple. This is why you became so afraid about Atlantis. Bill has his own reasons.

2. Retain your miracle-minded attitude toward Rosie VERY carefully. She once hurt both of you, which is why she is now your servant. But she is blessed in that she sees service as a source of joy. Help her straighten out her past errors by contributing to your welfare now.

(special Revelation re Helen Schucman -OMISSION 1.)

Helen Schucman question re: past memories. ANSWER: As long as you remember ALWAYS that you never suffered anything because of anything that anyone ELSE did, this is not dangerous.

Remember that you who want peace can find it only by complete forgiveness. You never really WANTED peace before, so there was no point in knowing how to get it. This is an example of the "need to know" principle, which was established by the Plan of Atonement long before CIA.

No kind of knowledge is acquired by anyone unless he wants it, or believes in some way he NEEDS it. A psychologist does NOT need a lesson on the hierarchy of needs as such, but like everyone else, he DOES need to understand his own.

This particular set of notes will be the only one which deals with the concept of "lack", because while the concept does not exist in the Creation of God, it is VERY apparent in the creations of man. It is, in fact, the essential difference.

A need implies lack, by definition. It involves the recognition, conscious or unconscious, (and at times, fortunately, superconscious) that you would be better off in a state which is somehow different from the one you are in.

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

After the Separation, needs became the most powerful source of motivation for human action. All behavior is essentially motivated by needs, but behavior itself is not a Divine attribute. The body is the mechanism for behavior. (Ask any behaviorist, and he's RIGHT, too.)

You tell your own classes that nobody would bother even to get up and go from one place to another if he did not think he would somehow be better off. This is very true.

Believing that he COULD be "better off" is the reason why man has the mechanism for behavior at his disposal. This is why the Bible says "By their DEEDS ye shall know them."

A man acts according to the particular hierarchy of needs he establishes for himself. His hierarchy, in turn, depends on his perception of what he IS, i.e., what he LACKS. This establishes his own rules for what he needs to know.

Separation from God is the only lack he really needs to correct. But his Separation would never have occurred if he had not distorted his perception of truth, and thus perceived himself as lacking.

The concept of ANY sort of need HIERARCHY arose because, having made this fundamental error, he had already fragmented himself into levels with DIFFERENT needs. As he integrates, HE becomes one, and his ONE need becomes one accordingly. Only the fragmented can be confused about this.

Internal integration within the self will not (suffice to?) correct the lack fallacy, but it WILL correct the NEED fallacy. (Thank you for writing this as given.) Unified need produces unified action, because it produces lack of ambivalence.

The concept of need hierarchy, a corollary to the original error, requires correction at its OWN level, before the error of levels itself can be corrected. Man cannot operate (or behave) effectively while he operates at split levels. But as long as he does so, he must introduce correction from the bottom UP.

This is because he now operates in space, where "up" and "down" are meaningful terms. Ultimately, of course, space is as meaningless as time. The concept is really one of space-time BELIEF. The physical world exists only because man can use it to correct his UNBELIEF, which placed him in it originally. As long as man KNEW he did not need anything, the whole device was unnecessary.

The need to know is not safely under man's control at this time. It is MUCH better off under mine. Let's just leave it at that.

(Specific question raised by WT re sex under existing conditions) (Helen Schucman raised previous question about the past, which has just been answered.)

The other question, however, I am more than willing to answer, because it is appropriate for NOW. You and Bill both chose your present sex partners shamefully, and would have to atone for the lack of love which was involved in any case.

You selected them precisely BECAUSE they were NOT suited to gratify your fantasies. This was not because you wanted to abandon or give up the fantasies, but because you were AFRAID of them. You saw in your partners a means of protecting against the fear, but both of you continued to "look around" for chances to indulge the fantasies.

The dream of the "perfect partner" is an attempt to find EXTERNAL integration, while retaining conflicting needs in the self.

Bill was somewhat less guilty of this than you, but largely because he was more afraid. He had abandoned the hope (of finding a perfect partner) in a neurotic sense of despair of finding it. You, on the other hand, insisted that the hope was justified. Neither of you, therefore, was in your Right Mind.

As was said before, homosexuality is INHERENTLY more risky (or error prone) than heterosexuality, but both can be undertaken on an equally false basis. The falseness of the basis is clear in the accompanying fantasies. Homosexuality ALWAYS involves misperception of the self OR the partner, and generally both.

Penetration DOES NOT involve magic, nor DOES ANY form of sexual behavior. It IS a magic belief to engage in ANY form of body image activity at all. You neither created yourselves, nor controlled your creation. By introducing levels into your own perception, you opened the way for body-image distortions.

The lack of love (or faulty need-orientation) which led to your particular person (not OBJECT) choices CAN BE corrected within the existent framework, and would HAVE to be in the larger interest of overall progress. The situation is questionable largely because of its inherent vulnerability to fantasy-gratification. Doing the best you can WITHIN this limitation is probably the best corrective measure at present. Any relationship you have undertaken for whatever reasons becomes a responsibility.

If you shift your own needs, some amount of corresponding shift in the need-orientation of the other person MUST result, This will be beneficial, even if the partner was originally attracted to you BECAUSE of your disrespect. Teaching devices which are totally alien to a learner's perceptual system are usually merely disruptive. Transfer depends on SOME common elements in the new situation which are understandable in terms of the old.

Man can never control the effects of fear himself, because he has CREATED fear and believes in what he creates. In attitude, then, though not in content, he resembles his own Creator, who has perfect faith in His Creations because he Created them. All creation rests on belief, and the belief in the creation produces its existence. This is why it is possible for a man to believe what is not true for anyone else. It is true for him because it is made BY him.

Every aspect of fear proceeds from upside down perception. The TRULY creative devote their efforts to correcting this. The neurotic devotes his to compromise. The psychotic tries to escape by establishing the truth of his own errors. It is most difficult to free him by ordinary means, only because he is more stable in his denial of truth.

Miracle Principle 53

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

Christ-controlled miracles are selective only in that they are directed toward those who can use them for THEMSELVES. Since this makes it inevitable that they will extend them to others, a very strong chain of Atonement is welded. But Christ-control takes no account at all of the MAGNITUDE of the miracle itself, because the concept of size exists only in a plane that is itself unreal. Since the miracle aims at RESTORING reality, it would hardly be useful if it were bound by the laws of the same error it aims to correct. Only man makes that kind of error. It is an example of the "foolish consistency" his own false beliefs have engendered.

Both the power and the strength of man's creative will must be understood, before the real meaning of denial can be appreciated and abolished. Denial is NOT mere negation. It is a positive miscreation. While the miscreation is NECESSARILY believed in by its own creator, it does not exist at all at the level of true Creation.

Miracle Principle 54

The miracle compares the creations of man with the higher level of creation, accepting what is in ACCORD as true, and rejecting the DISCORDANT as false. This is why it is so closely associated with validity. Real validity is both true AND useful, or better, it is useful BECAUSE it is true.

All aspects of fear are untrue, because they DO NOT exist at the higher creative levels, and therefore do not exist at all. To whatever extent a man is willing to submit his beliefs to the real test of validity, to that extent are his perceptions healed (or corrected.)

In sorting out the false from the true, the miracle proceeds much along the lines suggested very correctly by Bill, i.e.:

If perfect love casts out fear,

And if fear exists,

Then there is NOT perfect love.

But

Only perfect love really exists.

Therefore, if there is fear, it creates a state which does not exist. Believe THIS and you WILL be free. Only God can establish this solution, for THIS faith IS His gift.

Section 5 - The Correction for Lack of Love

After taking the first corrective step, i.e., "Knowing it IS fear," you might benefit temporarily by adding another next step BEFORE going on with the corrective process. Try saying to yourself that you MUST have willed not to love somehow or somewhere, or that fear which arises from behavior-will conflict could not have happened. Then follow previous instructions.

If you consider what the process really means, it is nothing more than a series of pragmatic steps in the larger process of accepting the Atonement as THE remedy. From this viewpoint, the steps can be reworded as follows:

1.) Know first this is fear.

2.) Fear arises from lack of love.

3.) The ONLY remedy for lack of love is perfect love.

4.) Perfect love IS the Atonement.

The final procedural step (3) is inherent in the last statement (4). We have emphasized that the miracle, or the EXPRESSION of Atonement, is always a sign of real respect from the worthy TO the worthy. This worth IS re-established by the Atonement.

It is obvious, then, that when you are afraid you have placed yourself in a position where you NEED Atonement BECAUSE you have DONE something loveless because you WILLED without love. This is precisely the situation for which the Atonement was offered. The need for the remedy inspired its CREATION.

As long as you recognize only the NEED for the remedy, you will remain fearful. However, as soon as you REMEDY it, you have also abolished the fear. This is how TRUE healing occurs.

Everyone experiences fear, and nobody enjoys it. Yet, it would take very little Right-thinking to know why it occurs. Neither you nor Bill have thought about it very much, either. ( I object at this point to the use of plural verb with a properly singular subject - - Helen Schucman - - and remember that last time in a very similar sentence, He said it correctly and I remembered it with real pleasure. This real grammatical error makes me suspicious of the genuineness of these notes. ANSWER: What it really shows is that YOU are not very receptive. The reason it came out that way, is because you are projecting (in the inappropriate way) your own anger, which has nothing to do with these notes. YOU made the error, because you are not feeling loving, so you want me to sound silly, so you won't have to pay attention. Actually, I am trying to get through against considerable opposition, because you are not very happy, and I wish you were. I thought I'd take a chance, even though you are so resistant, because I MIGHT be able to make you feel better. You may be unable not to attack at all, but do try to listen a little, too.)

Very few people appreciate the real power of the mind. Nobody remains fully aware of it all the time. This is inevitable in this world, because the human being has many things he must do, and cannot engage in constant thought-watching. However, if he hopes to spare himself from fear, there are some things he must realize, and realize them fully, at least some of the time.

The mind is a very powerful creator, and it never loses its creative force. It never sleeps. Every instant it is creating, and ALWAYS as you will. Many of your ordinary expressions reflect this. For example, when you say "don't give it a thought", you are implying that if you do not think about something, it will have no effect on you. This is true enough.

On the other hand, many other expressions are clear expressions of the prevailing LACK of awareness of thought-power. For example, you say, "just an idle thought", and mean that the thought has no effect. You also speak of some actions as "thoughtless", implying that if the person HAD thought, he would not have behaved as he did. You also use phrases like "thought provoking", which is bland enough, but the term "a provoking thought" means something quite different.

While expressions like "think big" give some recognition to the power of thought, they still come nowhere near the truth. You do not expect to grow when you say it, because you don't really believe it. It is hard to recognize that thought and belief combine into a power-surge that can literally move mountains.

It appears at first glance that to believe such power about yourself is merely arrogant, but that is not the real reason why you don't believe it.

People prefer to believe that their thoughts cannot exert real control because they are literally AFRAID of them. Therapists try to help people who are afraid of their own death wishes by depreciating the power of the wish. They even attempt to "free" the patient by persuading him that he can think whatever he wants, without ANY real effect at all.

There is a real dilemma here, which only the truly right-minded can escape. Death wishes do not kill in the physical sense, but they DO kill spiritually. ALL destructive thinking is dangerous. Given a death wish, a man has no choice except to ACT upon his thought, or behave CONTRARY TO it. He can thus choose ONLY between homicide and fear. (See previous notes on will conflicts.) (NOTE I avoided this term in the last series of notes intentionally, because it seemed too Rankian. Apparently, there was a reason why this word should have been used last time. It is used in this section for a very good reason.)

The other possibility is that he depreciates the power of his thought. This is the usual psychoanalytic approach. This DOES allay guilt, but at the cost of rendering thinking impotent. If you believe that what you think is ineffectual, you may cease to be overly afraid of it, but you are hardly likely to respect it, either. The world is full of endless examples of how man has depreciated himself because he is afraid of his own thoughts. In some forms of insanity, thoughts are glorified, but this is only because the underlying depreciation was too effective for tolerance.

The truth is that there ARE no "idle thoughts." ALL thinking produces form at some level. The reason why people are afraid of ESP, and so often react against it, is because they KNOW that thought can hurt them. Their OWN thoughts have made them vulnerable.

You and Bill, who complain all the time about fear, still persist in creating it most of the time. I told you last time that you cannot ask ME to release you from it, because I KNOW it does not exist. YOU don't. If I merely intervene between your thoughts and their results, I would be tampering with a basic law of cause and effect, in fact the most fundamental one there is in this world. I would hardly help if I depreciated the power of your own thinking. This would be in direct opposition to the purpose of this course.

It is certainly much more useful to remind you that you do not guard your thoughts at all carefully, except for a relatively small part of the day, and somewhat inconsistently even then. You may feel at this point that it would take a miracle to enable you to do this, which is perfectly true. Human beings are not used to miraculous thinking, but they CAN be TRAINED to think that way.

Miracles cannot free the miracle-worker from fear. Both miracles AND fear come from his thoughts, and if he were not free to choose one, he would also not be free to choose the other. Remember, we said before that when electing one person, you reject another.

It is much the same in electing the miracle. By so doing, you HAVE rejected fear. Fear cannot assail unless it has been created. You and Bill have been afraid of God, of me, of yourselves, and of practically everyone you know at one time or another. This can only be because you have miscreated all of us, and believe in what you have created. (We spent a lot of time on this before, but it did not help very much.) You would never have done this if you were not afraid of your own thoughts. The vulnerable are essentially miscreators, because they misperceive Creation.

You and Bill are willing to accept primarily what does NOT change your minds too much, and leaves you free to leave them quite unguarded most of the time. You persist in believing that when you do not consciously watch your mind, it is unmindful.

It is time to consider the whole world of the unconscious, or unwatched mind. This will frighten you, because it is the source of fright. You may look at it as a new theory of basic conflict, if you wish, which will not be entirely an intellectual approach, because I doubt if the truth will escape you entirely.

The unwatched mind is responsible for the whole content of the unconscious, which lies above the miracle-level. All psychoanalytic theorists have made some contribution to the truth in this connection, but none of them has seen it in its true entirety. (The correct grammar here is a sign of your better cooperation. Thank you.) Jung's best contribution was an awareness of individual vs. collective unconscious levels. He also recognized the major place of the religious spirit in his schema. His archetypes were also meaningful concepts. But his major error lay in regarding the deepest level of the unconscious as shared in terms of CONTENT. The deepest level of the unconscious is shared as an ABILITY. As MIRACLE-MINDEDNESS, the content, (or the particular miracles which an individual happens to perform) does not matter at all. They will, in fact, be entirely different, because, since I direct them, I make a point of avoiding redundancy. Unless a miracle actually heals, it is not a miracle at all.

The content of the miracle-level is not recorded in the individual's unconscious, because if it were, it would not be automatic and involuntary, which we have said repeatedly it should be. However, the content IS a matter for the record, which is NOT within the individual himself.

All psychoanalysts made one common error, in that they attempted to uncover unconscious CONTENT. You cannot understand unconscious activity in these terms, because "content" is applicable ONLY to the more superficial unconscious levels to which the individual himself contributes. This is the level at which he can readily introduce fear, and usually does.

Freud was right in calling this level pre-conscious, and emphasizing that there is a fairly easy interchange between preconscious and conscious material. He was also right in regarding the censor as an agent for the protection of consciousness from fear. HIS major error lay in his insistence that this level is necessary at all in the psychic structure. If the psyche contains fearful levels from which it cannot escape without splitting, its integration is permanently threatened. It is essential not to control the fearful, but to ELIMINATE it.

Here, Rank's concept of the will was particularly good, except that he preferred to ally it only with man's own truly creative ability, but did not extend it to its proper union with God's. His "birth trauma", another valid idea, was also too limited, in that it did not refer to the Separation, which was really a FALSE idea of birth. Physical birth is not a trauma in itself. It can, however, remind the individual of the Separation, which was a very real cause of fear.

The idea of "will-THERAPY" was potentially a very powerful one, but Rank did not see its real potential because he himself used his mind partly to create a theory OF the mind, but also partly to attack Freud. His reactions to Freud stemmed from his own unfortunate acceptance of the deprivation-fallacy, which itself arose from the Separation. This led him to believe that his own mind-creation could stand only if the creation of another's fell. In consequence, his theory emphasized rather than minimized the two-edged nature of defenses. This is an outstanding characteristic of his concepts, because it was outstandingly true of him.

He also misinterpreted the birth-trauma in a way that made it inevitable for him to attempt a therapy whose goal was to ABOLISH FEAR. This is characteristic of all later theorists, who do not attempt, as Freud did, to split off the fear in his own form of therapy.

No one as yet has fully recognized either the therapeutic value of fear, or the only way in which it can be truly ended. When man miscreates, he IS in pain. The cause and effect principle here is temporarily a real expeditor. Actually, Cause is a term properly belonging to God, and Effect, which should also be capitalized, is HIS Sonship. This entails a set of cause and effect relationships which are totally different from those which man introduced into the Miscreation.

The fundamental opponents in the real basic conflict are Creation and miscreation. All fear is implicit in the second, just as all love is inherent in the first. Because of this difference, the basic conflict IS one between love and fear.

So much, then, for the true nature of the major opponents in the basic conflict. Since all such theories lead to a form of therapy in which a re-distribution of psychic energy results, it is necessary to consider OUR concept of libido next. In this respect, Freud was more accurate than his followers, who were essentially more wishful. Energy CAN emanate from both Creation AND miscreation, and the particular ratio between them which prevails at a given point in time DOES determine behavior AT that time. If miscreation did NOT engender energy in its own right, it would be unable to produce destructive behavior, which it very patently DOES.

Everything that man creates has energy because, like the Creation of God, they (it) come FROM energy, and are endowed by their creator with the power to create. Miscreation is still a genuine creative act in terms of the underlying IMPULSE, but NOT in terms of the CONTENT of the creation. This, however, does not deprive the creation of its OWN creative power. It DOES, however, GUARANTEE that the power will be misused, or USED FEARFULLY.

To deny this is merely the previously mentioned fallacy of depreciation. Although Freud made a number of fallacies of his own, he DID avoid this one in connection with libido. The later theorists denied the split-energy concept, not by attempting to heal it, but by re-interpreting it instead of redistributing it.

This placed them in the illogical position of assuming that the split which their therapies were intended to heal had not occurred. The result of this approach is essentially a form of hypnosis. This is quite different from Freud's approach, which merely ended in a deadlock.

A similar deadlock occurs when both the power of Creation and of miscreation coexist. This is experienced as conflict only because the individual feels AS IF both were occurring AT THE SAME LEVEL. He BELIEVES in what he has created in his own unconscious and he naturally believes it is real BECAUSE he has created it. He, thus, places himself in a position where the fearful becomes REAL.

Nothing but level-confusion can result as long as this belief is held in ANY form. Inappropriate denial and equally inappropriate identification of the REAL factors in the basic conflict will NOT solve the problem itself. The conflict CANNOT disappear until it is fully recognized that miscreation is NOT real, and therefore there IS no conflict. This entails a full realization of the basic fact that, although man has miscreated in a very real sense, he need neither continue to do so, nor to suffer from his past errors in this respect.

A REDISTRIBUTION of psychic energy, then, is NOT the solution. Both the idea that both kinds MUST exist, and the belief that ONE kind is amenable for use or misuse, are real distortions. The ONLY way is to STOP MISCREATING NOW, and accept the Atonement for miscreations of the past. Only this can re-establish true single-mindedness. The structure of the psyche, as you very correctly noted yourself, follows along the lines of the particular libido concept the theorist employs. (I still think it was the other way around - - Helen Schucman. Answer: This confusion arises out of the fact that you DID change the order - - several times in fact. Actually, it didn't matter, because the two concepts DO flow from each other. It was a TERRIFIC waste of time, and one in which I hardly care to become engaged myself. PLEASE!)

Freud's psyche was essentially a good and evil picture, with very heavy weight given to the evil. This is because every time I mentioned the Atonement to him, which was quite often, he responded by defending his theory more and more against it. This resulted in his increasingly strong attempts to make the illogical sound more and more logical.

I was very sorry about this, because his was a singularly good mind, and it was a shame to waste it. However, the major purpose of his incarnation was not neglected. He DID succeed in forcing recognition of the unconscious into man's calculations about himself, a step in the right direction which should not be minimized. Freud was one of the most religious men I have known recently. Unfortunately, he was so afraid of religion that the only way he could deal with it was to regard IT (not himself) as sick. This naturally prevented healing.

Freud's superego is a particularly interesting example of the real power of miscreation. It is noteworthy throughout the whole development of his theories that the superego never allied itself with freedom. The most it could do in this direction was to work out a painful truce in which both opponents LOST. This perception could not fail to force him to emphasize discontent in his view of civilization.

The Freudian id is really only the more superficial level of the unconscious, and not the deepest level at all. This, too, was inevitable, because Freud could not divorce miracles from magic. It was therefore his constant endeavor, (even preoccupation) to keep on thrusting more and more material between consciousness and the real deeper level of the unconscious, so that the latter became increasingly obscured. The result was a kind of bedlam, in which there was no order, no control, and no sense. This was exactly how he FELT about it.

The later theoretical switch to the primacy of anxiety was an interesting device intended to deny both the instinctive nature of destructiveness, and the force of the power of miscreation. By placing the emphasis on the RESULT, the generative nature of the power was minimized.

Destructive behavior IS instinctual. The instinct for creation is NOT obliterated in miscreation. That is why it is always invested with reality. *One of the chief ways in which man can correct his magic-miracle confusion is to remember that he did not create himself. He is apt to forget this when he becomes egocentric, and this places him in a position where belief in magic is virtually inevitable. His instincts for creation were given him by his own Creator, who was expressing the same instinct in His Creation. Since the creative ability rests solely in the mind, everything which man creates is necessarily instinctive.

(This goes after basic conflict theory.) (Dictated without notes by Helen Schucman)

We have already said that the basic conflict is one between love and fear, and that the proper organization of the psyche rests on a lack of level confusion. The section on psychic energy should be re-read very carefully, because it is particularly likely to be misinterpreted until this section is complete.

It has already been said that man CANNOT control fear, because he himself created it. His belief in it renders it out of his control by definition. For this reason, any attempt to resolve the basic conflict through the concept of mastery of fear is meaningless. In fact, it asserts the power of fear by the simple assumption that it need be mastered at all.

The essential resolution rests entirely on the mastery of love. In the interim, conflict is inevitable. The reason for this is the strangely illogical position in which man had placed himself. Since we have frequently emphasized that correction must be applied within the level that error occurs, it should be clear that the miracle MUST be illogical because its purpose is to correct the illogical and restore order.

Two concepts which CANNOT coexist are nothing and everything. To whatever extent one is believed in, the other HAS BEEN abolished. In the conflict, fear is really nothing, and love is really everything. (This recognition is really the basis for the castration complex.) This is because whenever light penetrates darkness, it DOES abolish it. The unwillingness to be seen, or submit error to light, is spuriously associated with active doing. In this incarnation, this can take the form of oedipal involvement and concomitant castration anxiety.

However, in more long range and meaningful terms, the oedipal complex is a miniature of the true Separation fear, and the castration complex is a way of denying that it ever occurred. Like all pseudo-solutions, this kind of distorted thinking is very creative, but false. The Separation HAS occurred. To deny this is merely to misuse denial. However, to concentrate on error is merely a further misuse of legitimate psychic mechanisms. The true corrective procedure, which has already been described as the proper use of the spiritual eye (or true vision), is to accept the error temporarily, BUT ONLY as an indication that IMMEDIATE correction is mandatory. This establishes a state of mind in which the Atonement can be accepted without delay.

It is worth repeating that ultimately there is no compromise possible between everything and nothing. The purpose of time is essentially a device by which all compromise in this respect can be abolished. It seems to be abolished by degrees precisely because time itself involves a concept of intervals which do not really exist. The faulty use of creation has made this necessary as a corrective device.

"And God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son so that whosoever believeth on Him shall not perish but have Eternal Life" needs only one slight correction to be entirely meaningful in this context. It should read "And God so loved the world that he gave it TO His only begotten Son." It should be noted that God HAS begotten only ONE Son. If you believe that all of the Souls that God created ARE His Sons, and if you also believe that the Sonship is One, then every Soul MUST be a Son of God, or an integral part of the Sonship. You do not find the concept that the whole is greater than its parts difficult to understand. You should therefore not have too great difficulty with this. The Sonship in its Oneness DOES transcend the sum of its parts. However, it loses this special state as long as any of its parts are missing. This is why the conflict cannot ultimately be resolved UNTIL all of the individual parts of the Sonship have returned. Only then, in the true sense, can the meaning of wholeness be understood.

The concept of minus numbers has always been regarded as a mathematical rather than an actual expedient. (This is a major limitation on mathematics as presently understood.) Any statement which implies degrees of difference in negation is essentially meaningless. What can replace this negative approach is a recognition of the fact that as long as one part (which is the same as a million or ten or eight thousand parts) of the Sonship is missing, it is NOT complete.

In the Divine psyche, the Father and the Holy Spirit are not incomplete at all. The Sonship has the unique faculty of believing in error, or incompleteness, if he so elects. However, it is quite apparent that so to elect IS to believe in the existence of nothingness. The correction of this error is the Atonement.

We have already briefly spoken about readiness. But there are some additional awarenesses which might be helpful. Readiness is nothing more than the prerequisite for accomplishment. The two should not be confused. As soon as a state of readiness occurs, there is always some will to accomplish, but this is by no means undivided. The state does not imply more than the potential for a shift of will. Confidence cannot develop fully until mastery has been accomplished. We began this section with an attempt to correct the fundamental human error that fear can be mastered. The Correction was that ONLY love can be mastered. When I told you that you were "ready for Revelation", I did not mean that you had in any way mastered this form of communication. However, you yourself attested to your readiness by insisting that I would not have said so if it had not been true. This IS an affirmation of readiness. Mastery of love necessarily involves a much more complete confidence in the ability than either of you has attained. But the readiness at least is an indication that you believe this is possible. This is only the beginning of confidence.

In case this be misunderstood as a statement that an enormous amount of time will be necessary between readiness and mastery, I would again remind you that time and space are under My control. Dictated without notes by Helen Schucman)

One of the chief ways in which man can correct his magic-miracle confusion is to remember that he did not create himself. He is apt to forget this when he becomes egocentric, and this places him in a position where belief in magic is virtually inevitable. His instincts for creation were given him by his own Creator, who was expressing the same instinct in His Creation. Since the creative ability rests solely in the mind, everything which man creates is necessarily instinctive.

It also follows that whatever he creates is real in his own eyes, but not necessarily in the sight of God. This basic distinction leads us directly into the real meaning of the Last Judgment. (I am aware of the fact that you would much rather continue with the parallels involved in other theories of basic conflict. However, this would merely be a delay which we will engage in only if you regard it as essential.)