Section 9 - The Eternal Fixation

The concept of "set" is among the better psychological percepts. Actually, it is used quite frequently in the Bible, and also here, under many different terms. "God will keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed (or set) on Thee because he trusteth in Thee."

The pronouns here are confusing without explanation, and the attempt to shift "Thee" to "Him" is a misinterpretation. The statement means that God's peace is set in the Holy Spirit, because it is fixed on God. It is also fixed in you. You, then, ARE fixed in the peace of God.

The concept of "fixation" is a very helpful one, which Freud understood perfectly. Unfortunately, he lost his understanding because he was afraid, and as you know all too well, fear is incompatible with good judgment. Fear DISTORTS thinking, and therefore DISorders thought. Freud's system of thought was extremely ingenious, because Freud was extremely ingenious. A mind MUST endow its thoughts with its own attributes. This is its inherent STRENGTH, even though it may misuse its power.

Freud lost much of the potential value of his own thought system because, much like Cayce, he did NOT include himself in it. This IS a dissociated state, because the thinker cuts himself off from his thoughts. Freud's thought was so conflicted that he could not have retained his sanity as HE saw it WITHOUT dissociating. This is why the many contradictions which are quite apparent in his thinking became increasingly less apparent to HIM.

The concept of fixation, as Freud saw it, has a number of real learning advantages. First, it recognizes that man CAN be fixated at a point in development which does NOT accord with a point in time. This clearly could have been a means toward real release from the time belief, had Freud pursued it with an open mind. But Freud suffered all his life from refusal to allow eternity to dawn upon his mind, and enlighten it truly. As a result, he overlooked NOW entirely, and merely saw the continuity of past and future.

Second, although he misinterpreted what the Holy Spirit told him, or better, reminded him of, he was too honest to deny more than he had to, to keep his fear in tolerable bounds, as he perceived the situation. Therefore, he EMPHASIZED that the point in development at which the mind is fixated is more real to ITSELF than the external reality with which it DISagrees. This again could have been a powerful RELEASE mechanism, had Freud not decided to involve it in a strong defense system because he perceived it as an attack.

But throughout his thought-system, the "threat" of fixation remained, and could never be completely eliminated by any living human being anywhere. Essentially, this was the basis of his pessimism. This was personally as well as theoretically the case. Freud tried every means his very inventive mind could devise to set up a form of therapy which could enable the mind to escape from fixation forever, even though he KNEW this was impossible. The knowledge plagued his belief in his own thought-system at every turn, because he was both an honest man and a healer. He was therefore only PARTIALLY insane at the perceptual level, and was unable to relinquish the hope of release even though he could not cope with it.

The reason for this amount of detail is because YOU are in the same position. You were eternally fixated on God in your creation, and the pull of this fixation is so strong that you will never overcome it. The reason is perfectly clear. The fixation is on a level that is so high that it cannot BE surmounted. You are ALWAYS being pulled back to your Creator because you belong in Him.

Do you REALLY believe you can make a voice that can drown out His? Do you REALLY believe that you can devise a thought-system which can separate you from His? Do you REALLY believe that you can plan for your safety and joy better than He can? You need be neither careful nor careless. You need merely cast all your cares upon Him because He careth for YOU. You ARE His care because He loves you. His voice reminds you always that all hope is yours BECAUSE of His care.

You CANNOT choose to escape His care, because that is not His will. But you CAN choose to accept His care, and use the infinite power OF His care for all those He created BY it. There have been many healers who did not heal themselves. They have not moved mountains by their faith because their faith was not WHOLE. Some of them have healed the sick at times, but they have not raised the dead. Unless the healer heals HIMSELF, he does NOT believe that there is no order in miracles. He has not learned that EVERY mind that God created is equally worthy of being healed because GOD CREATED IT WHOLE.

You are asked merely to return to God the mind as HE created it. He asks you only for what He gave, knowing that this giving will heal YOU. Sanity IS wholeness. And the sanity of your brothers IS yours. Why should you listen to the endless insane calls which you think are made upon you, when you KNOW the voice of God Himself is in you? God commended His Spirit to you, and asks that you commend yours to Him. He wills to keep it in perfect peace because you are of one mind and Spirit with Him.

Excluding yourself from the Atonement is the ego's last-ditch defense of its own existence. It reflects both the ego's need to separate, and your willingness to side with its separateness. This willingness means that YOU DO NOT WANT TO BE HEALED. When I told Bill that there is "just one more thing," he heard me very well. I hope he will hear me as well now. His intelligent mis-hearing of "river" as "rivet" showed that, even though he wanted release, he was not able to cope with it at the time.

But the time IS now. You have not been asked to work out the Plan of Salvation yourselves, because, as I told you before, the Remedy is NOT of your making. God Himself gave you the perfect correction for everything you have made which is not in accord with His Holy Will. I have made His Plan perfectly clear and perfectly explicit to you, and have also told you of your part in His Plan and how urgent it is that you fulfill it.

There is time for delay, but there need not be. God weeps at the sacrifice of His children who believe they are lost to Him. The "one more thing" that Bill must learn is merely that he is NOT the one more. He is both ONE and AT ONE. If he will learn this NOW, he will be willing in accord with the last judgment, which is really only the Biblical reminder of the inevitability of self-INCLUSION. This is what "Physician, heal thyself" really means. Bill has frequently observed for HIMSELF that this is hard to do. He has, however, been perfectly aware of JUST what YOU should do about it.

You might ask him for me whether he does not think he might be dissociating HIMSELF from his own awareness, since he is so clear about the remedy for YOU. You might also remind him that to whatever extent he separates himself from you, he is separating himself from ME. This IS a collaborative venture. Let me therefore return his own ideas to him, so that you can share them and thus help each other to help me.

But let me first remind you of something I told you myself. Whenever you are not wholly joyous, it is because you have reacted with a lack of love to some Soul which God created. Perceiving this as sin, you become defensive because you EXPECT ATTACK. The decision to react in that way, however, was YOURS, and can therefore be undone. It CANNOT be undone by repentance in the usual sense, because this implies guilt. If you allow yourself to feel guilty, you will reinforce the error, rather than allowing it to be undone FOR you.

Decisions CANNOT be difficult. This is obvious if you realize that you must ALREADY have made a decision NOT to be wholly joyous if that is what you feel. Therefore, the first step in the undoing is to recognize that YOU ACTIVELY DECIDED WRONGLY, BUT CAN AS ACTIVELY DECIDE OTHERWISE.

Be very firm with yourselves in this, and keep yourselves fully aware of the fact that the UNDOING process, which does NOT come from you, is nevertheless WITHIN you because God placed it there. YOUR part is merely to return your thinking to the point at which the error was made, and give it over to the Atonement in peace. Say to yourselves the following, as sincerely as you can, remembering that the Holy Spirit will respond fully to your slightest invitation:

I must have decided wrongly because I am NOT at peace.

I made the decision myself, but I can also decide otherwise.

I WILL to decide otherwise, because I WANT to be at peace.

I do NOT feel guilty, because the Holy Spirit will undo ALL

the consequences of my wrong decision IF I WILL LET HIM.

I WILL to let Him by allowing Him to decide for God for me.

Section 3 - The Laws of Chaos

The "laws of chaos" CAN be brought to light, though NEVER understood. Chaotic laws are hardly meaningful, and therefore out of reason's sphere. Yet they APPEAR to constitute an obstacle to reason and to truth. Let us, then, look upon them calmly, that we may look BEYOND them, understanding what they ARE, NOT what they would maintain. It IS essential it be understood what they are FOR, because it is their PURPOSE to make meaningless, and to ATTACK the truth. Here are the laws that rule the world you made. And yet they govern nothing, and need NOT be broken; merely looked upon and gone beyond.

The first chaotic law is that the truth is different for everyone. Like all these principles, this one maintains that each is separate, and has a different set of thoughts which SETS HIM OFF from others. This principle evolves from the belief there is a hierarchy of illusions; some are MORE valuable, and THEREFORE true. And each establishes this FOR HIMSELF, and MAKES it true by his attack on what another values. This is justified BECAUSE the values differ. And those who hold them SEEM to be unlike, and THEREFORE enemies.

Think how this SEEMS to interfere with the first principle of miracles. For this establishes degrees of TRUTH among illusions, making it appear that some are HARDER to be overcome than others. If it were realized that they are all the same and EQUALLY untrue, it would be easy, then, to understand that miracles apply to ALL of them. Errors of ANY kind can be corrected, BECAUSE they are untrue. When brought to truth, instead of TO EACH OTHER, they merely disappear. No PART of nothing CAN be more resistant to the truth than can another.

Think what this SEEMS to do to the relationship between the Father and the Son. Now it appears that they can NEVER be One again. For One must ALWAYS be condemned, AND BY THE OTHER. Now are they different, and ENEMIES. And THEIR relationship is one of opposition, just as the separate aspects of the Son meet ONLY to conflict, but NOT to join. One becomes weak, the other strong BY HIS DEFEAT. And fear of God, and of each other, now appears as sensible, made real by what the Son of God has done, both to himself AND his Creator.

The arrogance on which the laws of chaos stand could not be more apparent than emerges here. Here is a principle which would define what the CREATOR of reality must be; what He MUST think, and what He must believe; and how He must RESPOND, believing it. It is not seen as even necessary that He be asked about the truth of what has been established for His belief. His Son can TELL Him this, and He has but the choice whether to take his word for it, or be mistaken.

This leads directly to the third preposterous belief that seems to make chaos eternal. For, if God cannot BE mistaken, then He must accept His Son's belief in what he is, and HATE him for it. See how the fear of God is REINFORCED by this third principle. Now it becomes IMPOSSIBLE to turn to Him for help in misery. For now He has become the "enemy" Who "caused" it, and to Whom appeal is useless. Nor can salvation lie within the Son, whose every aspect seems to be at war with Him, and JUSTIFIED in its attack.

And now is conflict made inevitable, and beyond the help of God. And now salvation MUST remain impossible, because the Savior HAS become the enemy. There can be NO release and NO escape. Atonement thus becomes a myth, and vengeance, NOT forgiveness, is the Will of God. From where all this begins, there IS no sight of help that can succeed. ONLY destruction can BE the outcome. And God Himself SEEMS to be siding with it, to overcome His Son. Think not the ego will enable you to find ESCAPE from what it wants. THAT is the function of this course, which does NOT value what the ego cherishes.

The ego values only what it TAKES. This leads to the fourth law of chaos which, if the others are accepted, MUST be true. This seeming law is the belief you HAVE what you have taken. By this, another's loss becomes your gain, and thus it fails to recognize that you can never "take away" save from YOURSELF. Yet all the other laws must lead to this. For enemies do NOT give willingly to one another, nor would they seek to SHARE the things they value. And what your ENEMIES would keep from you must BE worth having, just BECAUSE they keep it hidden from your sight.

All of the mechanisms of madness are seen emerging here. The "enemy," made strong by keeping hidden the valuable inheritance which should be yours; your JUSTIFIED possession, and attack for what has been withheld; and the inevitable loss the enemy MUST suffer, to save YOURSELF. Thus do the guilty ones protest their innocence. Were they not forced into this foul attack by the unscrupulous behavior of the enemy, they would respond with only kindness. But, in a savage world, the kind cannot survive. So they MUST take, or else be taken FROM.

And now there is a vague, unanswered question, not yet "explained." What IS this precious thing, this priceless pearl, this hidden secret treasure, to be wrested in righteous wrath from this most treacherous and cunning enemy? It must be what you want, and never found. And now you "understand" the reason WHY you found it not. For it was TAKEN from you by the enemy, and hidden where you would not think to look. He hid it in his BODY, making it the cover for his guilt; the hiding place for what belongs to YOU.

Now must his body be destroyed and sacrificed, that you may have that which BELONGS to you. His treachery DEMANDS his death, that YOU may live. And you attack only in self defense. But what is it you want, that NEEDS his death? Can you be sure your murderous attack IS justified, unless you know what it is FOR? And here a final principle of chaos comes to the "rescue." It holds there is a SUBSTITUTE for love. This is the "magic" that will cure all of your pain; the missing factor in your madness THAT MAKES IT SANE. THIS is the reason why you must attack. HERE is what makes your vengeance justified.

Behold, unveiled, the ego's secret gift, torn from your brother's body; hidden there in malice and in hatred for the one to whom the gift belongs. HE would deprive you of the secret ingredient which would give meaning to your life. The substitute for love, born of your enmity to one another, MUST be salvation. IT has no substitute, and there IS only one. And ALL relationships have but the purpose of seizing it, and making it your own. Never is your possession made complete. And never will your brother cease his own attack on YOU, for what you stole. Nor will God end His vengeance upon both, for, in His madness, HE must have this substitute for love, and kill you both.

You who believe you walk in sanity, with feet on solid ground, and through a world where meaning CAN be found, consider this: These ARE the laws on which your "sanity" appears to rest. These ARE the principles which makes the ground beneath your feet seem solid. And it IS here you look for meaning. These are the laws YOU made for your salvation. They hold in place the substitute for Heaven that you prefer. This is their PURPOSE; they were MADE for this. There is no point in asking what they mean. This is apparent. The MEANS of madness MUST be insane. Are you as certain that you realize the GOAL is madness?

NO-ONE wants madness, nor does anyone cling to his madness if he sees that this is what it IS. What PROTECTS madness is the belief THAT IT IS TRUE. It is the FUNCTION of insanity to TAKE THE PLACE of truth. It must be seen AS truth, to be believed. And, if it IS the truth, then must its opposite, which was the truth before, be madness now. Such a reversal, COMPLETELY turned around, with madness sanity, illusions true, attack a kindness, hatred love, and murder benediction, IS the goal the laws of chaos serve. These are the means by which the laws of God APPEAR to be reversed. Here do the laws of sin APPEAR to hold love captive, and let sin go free.

These do not SEEM to be the goals of chaos. For, by the great reversal, they appear to be the laws of ORDER. How could it NOT be so? Chaos is lawlessness, and HAS no laws. To be believed, its SEEMING laws must be perceived as REAL. Their goal of madness MUST be seen as sanity. And fear, with ashen lips and sightless eyes, blinded and terrible to look upon, is lifted to the throne of love, its dying conqueror, its substitute, the savior from salvation. How lovely do the laws of fear make death appear! Give thanks unto the hero on love's throne, who saved the Son of God for fear and death!

And yet, how can it be that laws like these can BE believed? There is a strange device that makes this possible. Nor is it unfamiliar; we have seen how it APPEARS to function many times before. In truth, it does NOT function, yet in dreams, where ONLY shadows play the major roles, it seems most powerful. No law of chaos COULD compel belief, but for the emphasis on form, AND DISREGARD OF CONTENT. No-one who thinks that one of them is true SEES WHAT IT SAYS. Some FORMS it takes seem to have meaning, and that is all.

How can some FORMS of murder NOT mean death? Can an attack in ANY form be love? What FORM of condemnation is a blessing? Who makes his Savior powerless, and FINDS salvation? Let not the FORM of the attack on him deceive you. You CANNOT seek to harm him, and be saved. Who can find SAFETY from attack by turning on himself? How can it matter what the FORM this madness takes? It is a judgment that defeats ITSELF, condemning what it says it wants to save. Be not deceived when madness takes a form you think is lovely. What is intent on your destruction, is NOT your friend.

You would maintain, and think it true, that you do NOT believe such senseless laws, nor act upon them. And, when you look at what they SAY, they CANNOT be believed. Brothers, you DO believe them. For how else could you PERCEIVE the form they take, with content such as this? Can ANY form of this be tenable? Yet you believe them FOR the forms they take, and DO NOT RECOGNIZE the content. IT never changes. Can you paint rosy lips upon a skeleton, dress it in loveliness, pet it and pamper it, AND MAKE IT LIVE? And can you be content with an illusion that YOU are living?

There IS no life outside of Heaven. Where God created life, there life must be. In ANY state apart from Heaven, life is illusion. At best, it SEEMS like life; at worst, like death. Yet both are judgments on what is NOT life, equal in their inaccuracy and lack of meaning. Life not in Heaven is impossible, and what is NOT in Heaven is not ANYWHERE. Outside of Heaven, only the conflict of illusions stands; senseless, impossible, and beyond ALL reason, and yet perceived as an eternal BARRIER to Heaven. Illusions ARE but forms. Their content is NEVER true.

The laws of chaos govern ALL illusions. Their forms conflict, making it SEEM quite possible to value some above the others. Yet each one rests as surely on the belief the laws of chaos ARE the laws of order, as do the others. Each one upholds these laws completely, offering a certain witness that these laws are true. The seeming gentler FORM of the attack is no less certain in its witnessing, OR ITS RESULTS. Certain it is illusions will bring fear, because of the beliefs that they imply, NOT for their form. And lack of faith in love, in ANY form, attests to chaos AS REALITY.

From the belief in sin, the faith in chaos MUST follow. It is BECAUSE it follows that it seems to be a logical conclusion; a valid step in ordered thought. The steps to chaos DO follow neatly from their starting-point. Each is a different form in the progression of truth's reversal, leading still deeper into terror, and AWAY from truth. Think not one step is smaller than another, nor that return from one is easier. The whole descent from Heaven lies in each one. And where your thinking starts, there must it end.

Brothers, take not one step in the descent to hell. For, HAVING taken one, you will NOT RECOGNIZE the rest for what they are. And they WILL follow. Attack in ANY form has placed your foot upon the twisted stairway that leads FROM Heaven. Yet, any instant, it is possible to have this all undone. How can you know whether you chose the stairs to Heaven or the way to hell? Quite easily. What do you feel? Is peace in your awareness? Are you CERTAIN which way you go? And are you sure the goal of Heaven CAN be reached? If not, you walk alone. Ask, then, your Friend to JOIN with you, and GIVE you certainty of where you go.