Chapter 2 of Path of Light
by Robert Perry
What is A Course in Miracles?
A Course in Miracles is a spiritual path that shares basic themes with Christianity, Eastern mysticism, and modern psychology. Its central teaching is forgiveness.
Beyond this brief statement, answering the seemingly simple question "What is A Course in Miracles?" is surprisingly difficult. When you ask what something is, you are essentially asking, "What sort of thing is it?" "What category does it fit in?" And therein lies the problem: The Course fits no familiar category. There is nothing in the world quite like it. This may sound like an extravagant claim, but by the end of this chapter I hope you will see the truth of it.
We depend on familiar categories. Let's say you ask someone what Jainism is. When you are told "it's a religion," that essentially tells you what you wanted to know. You already have a category called "religion" built up in your mind, a category complete with a list of characteristics. Now, you simply apply those characteristics to this particular case: "Oh, I see. Jainism is a tradition that probably has a belief in God or some ultimate spiritual principle, most likely has scriptures and forms of worship, perhaps has temples or sanctuaries, maybe some sort of priesthood," etc. By applying to Jainism the label "religion" and all the characteristics that go along with that label, you instantly have some idea of what it is.
The Course, however, is notoriously difficult to categorize, something which has frustrated students and commentators alike. In Hidden Wisdom, authors Richard Smoley and Jay Kinney claim that the Course has been miscategorized, that it has been made by its popularizers to sound like "another update of the gospel of positive thinking," when instead, "In its hard-headed rigor it resembles the teachings of the Desert Fathers." 1 They end up categorizing it as Esoteric Christianity rather than New Age: "In its inner 'turning' toward God through the mediation of Jesus Christ, the Course is indeed Christian." 2 Patrick Miller, in his book The Complete Story of the Course, speaks of three "forces" associated with the Course: academic psychology, mystical spirituality, and the New Age. He then says that these three forces
are sufficiently dissimilar in essence to have spawned a great deal of confusion about the true nature of A Course in Miracles. Their confluence in one phenomenon has made the Course appear to be a variety of things to students, critics, and the public at large. 3
I believe that, rather than straining to find the appropriate category for the Course, we should recognize that there is no appropriate category, and that this is part of the nature of the Course. Instead, the Course fits many seemingly disparate categories. Each one captures some facet or aspect of the Course, each one by itself paints only a partial picture; but when we look at the Course from all of their angles at once, we finally get a sense of it "in the round." We finally see a more or less adequate answer to the question "What is A Course in Miracles?"
In this chapter I will sketch the main categories I think we need in order to arrive at a roughly accurate sense of what the Course is. Once I have done that, I will explore the implications of this curious phenomenon in which the Course straddles so many categories yet is encompassed by none of them.
1. An educational course
One need only look at the Course's cover to see that it places itself in the category of "educational curriculum." It explicitly calls itself a "course" and has a text, a workbook, and a manual for teachers. The Text, like so many texts, supplies this course's "theoretical foundation," 4 or "abstract level." 5 It sets forth a system of ideas that is often highly intellectual. As with any text, we are urged to study this one carefully. 6 The Workbook, as we might expect, contains a series of exercises, which are intended to help the student apply the Text's ideas on a more practical level. The Manual for Teachers-again, not unexpectedly-provides support for those students who will go on to teach this course to their own "pupils." 7 All in all, like any course, A Course in Miracles is designed to take students on a journey of the mind, in which they gradually learn a body of ideas and how to apply those ideas in practice.
A Course in Miracles, however, is not like any educational course. Its goals are profoundly different. A conventional course has the underlying goal of helping us stand on our own two feet as capable persons in society. If your childhood education is successful, then in the words of the Course, "By the time you reach 'maturity' you [can] meet the world on equal terms, at one with its demands." 8 In this light, formal education is a part of the larger process of socialization, in which the world trains us to fit into our social environment. The Course, on the other hand, claims that its training "is directed toward achieving a goal in direct opposition" 9 to the training that turned us into responsible adults. It claims that true learning means the unlearning of everything the world has taught us, so that we at last emerge from the collective fog of society and enter the limitless freedom enjoyed by the world's spiritual greats.
The very title signifies the difference in this course. Rather than a course in math or anthropology, this is a course in miracles. What an odd thing for an educational course to teach us! A miracle is usually considered to be a gift from above. How many educational courses aim at teaching us to receive gifts of grace from the Divine? Miracles come to set us free from the bondage of the world; one thinks of Jesus setting people free from paralysis or blindness. In the Course's view, such outer imprisonment ultimately stems from our inner bondage to the human ego. Its miracles, therefore, have the purpose of liberating us from this inner bondage, and thus from the entire human condition. Conventional courses end up teaching us how to better punch the world's time clock. How many of them aim at setting us free from the world?
2. A channeled spiritual teaching, as found in the New Age
Someone unexpectedly begins hearing an inner voice. It seems there is a being from the other side who wants to speak through her. This being, who claims to have lived on earth long ago, speaks his wisdom into her mind, wisdom which she is instructed to pass on to others. As he continues to speak, an overall spiritual philosophy emerges, one that bypasses earthly traditions, coming as it does, straight from "upstairs." He says that divinity resides in each person, and that everyone has access to God without having to go through institutions. He says that all is one, and that our task on earth is simply to awaken to that oneness through the series of lessons presented to us by earthly life.
This pattern that we associate with the New Age fits the Course to a tee, yet it was not very familiar when Helen Schucman began scribing the Course in 1965. That changed, however, in the 70's and 80's, as the New Age movement mushroomed, and the public heard of various channeled entities such as Ramtha, Lazaris, and Emanuel. Now, this pattern constitutes a recognizable category in which we can place the Course.
This raises a thorny issue: Is A Course in Miracles "New Age"? Along with many Course students and teachers, I believe the Course has been far too closely identified with the New Age. A balanced view, in my opinion, is that the Course does contain themes that are considered New Age, yet it also contains themes and characteristics that fall well outside the New Age worldview. Rather than referring to the Course as New Age, I prefer to say that it "overlaps" the New Age. Dutch scholar Wouter Hanegraaff, in his voluminous study New Age Religion and Western Culture, locates the Course within the New Age but acknowledges that it is "decidedly atypical": 10
True other-worldliness [where one seeks the ultimate goal of existence in a radically different mode of being than that found in this world] is very rare in the New Age movement. The only unambiguous example in our corpus is A Course in Miracles. According to this text-which has correctly been characterized as a Christianized version of non-dualistic Vedanta-our world is just an illusory chimaera, which has nothing to offer but violence, sorrow and pain. 11
Notice the difficulty Hanegraaff has in categorizing the Course. He includes it in his study of the New Age, but admits that it is not a good fit and then goes on to label it a Christianized version of Vedanta. This lends support to my point that the Course fits no single category and is best described in terms of multiple categories.
3. A purported communication from Jesus Christ
No one has shaped our world more than Jesus of Nazareth. Two billion people claim to be his followers. Imagine if a contemporary message could somehow be authenticated as coming from him. That message would have monumental significance for a third of the world's population. Yet how could such a message ever be authenticated?
Here we face one of the more controversial aspects of A Course in Miracles, for the Course claims to be just such a message. It does not emphasize this claim, but there is no question that it does make it. The author speaks of his birth, his miracles, his Apostles, his experience in Gethsemane, his crucifixion, his resurrection, the way he is portrayed in the New Testament, and the way he has been characterized by Christianity.
But how can we know if this really is Jesus? This issue is just like the dilemma that early Christians grappled with in identifying Jesus as the Messiah. Such an identification could never be proven. Hence, their conviction had to come from within. When Peter proclaimed Jesus to be the Messiah, Jesus responded, "Flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven." 12 Students of the Course are in much the same position. The only way they can come to believe that Jesus authored the Course is through an inward recognition, through perhaps the same still, small voice that spoke to Peter. 13
There is, however, an immediate obstacle to believing this book was authored by Jesus: The Course's Jesus simply does not square with the traditional Jesus. He does not claim to have a uniquely divine nature, to be the only begotten Son of God, and he does not call for us to believe in him and his sacrifice on the cross. However, this may be more of an advantage than an obstacle. Historians have long recognized that the historical Jesus did not claim or ask these things either. In fact, as New Testament scholars peel away the layers of tradition that obscure the original Jesus, many of them find a figure who is strikingly reminiscent of the Course's Jesus. They find a challenging figure who is more than anything else a teacher, a teacher of a way or path which aims for a deep-level transformation in us. This teacher turns upside-down our normal perception of the world, overturning our conventional assumptions as if they were the tables of the moneychangers. He asks us to envision God as an amazingly gracious Father who pours out His love on sinner and saint alike. And he calls us to respond to the world's slings and arrows with an egoless love that mirrors the way God responds to us. Strikingly, all of these elements are central to A Course in Miracles. 14
If the Course really is a message from Jesus, what exactly does he have to say to our modern world? Does he address conditions in the Church? Does he sound the alarm about the environment or warn of impending judgment? No. His message is both more timeless and more personal. He says simply, "Forgive your brother." No matter what he did to you, how unfair it seemed, or how strongly you feel impelled to defend your interests, forgive him; not out of duty, but out of a profound realization that there is ultimately nothing to forgive. If you do, you will make peace with yourself, you will awaken to an untouched innocence within you, you will realize you are God's beloved Son, and you will help save the world.
4. A new system of psychology, with ties to Freud
Modern psychology has changed how we all think about ourselves. It has taught us that there is more to our minds than we realize, that beneath the conscious mind lies an immense unconscious filled with mysterious dynamics. And it has taught us that many if not most of our problems have their source in the mind. Hence, we cannot solve things simply by putting our outer affairs in order; we must attend to the healing of our minds.
A Course in Miracles is deeply psychological. It contains a remarkably extensive and intricate theory of the mind, of its fundamental nature, how it works, what makes it sick, and how it can be healed. On one level, this theory has much in common with modern psychology, especially Freudian psychology-more than most Course students would like to admit. Like Freud, the Course sees the conscious mind suspended over a dark unconscious, filled with buried thoughts and desires the conscious mind finds too frightening to face. This includes impulses that seem more animal than human. Like Freud, the Course views the mind as a veritable battleground, filled with conflict between the conscious and unconscious, between the base and the noble, between the desire for life and the urge for death. And like Freud, it depicts us habitually relying on defense mechanisms, such as denial and projection, to keep from our awareness that which we fear to confront.
The Course, however, ranges far beyond Freud, extending its psychological insights into realms that would be called spiritual or even theological. In fact, one of the most striking things about the Course's psychological system is that it routinely takes insights that we can read in psychology texts or observe in our daily lives and stretches them to mind-boggling extremes. For example:
• Just as Freud taught us to see the conscious mind as only the tip of the iceberg, the Course sees the Freudian unconscious as being the tip of an even larger iceberg. Beneath it lie vast realms of mind which eventually open up to the infinite.
• We know that individuals can go insane and have a break with reality. The Course, however, makes the bold claim that this has happened to all of us. We are all mad. We have had a primordial break with true reality, which is limitless spirit. As a consequence of that rupture we have acquired the false delusion that we are separate beings, and this delusion has caused us to hallucinate a world of time and space, which is not actually there.
• We know from experience that when we feel guilty we also fear that our just deserts will catch up with us. The Course takes this notion to its logical extreme and claims that all fear, without exception, stems from (mostly unconscious) guilt. All fear is, in the final analysis, fear of punishment.
• As we all have experienced, giving to others feels good because it makes us believe that we are good. The Course sees this as an example of a basic law of mind that operates not only in this world but also in the Mind of God. Selfless giving will ultimately save us, but not because it will earn us a ticket through the pearly gates. Rather, it has the psychological power to show us that holiness is basic to our nature.
5. An inspired scripture, in the lineage of the Bible
Scriptures have exerted a powerful influence over human culture for thousands of years, and it is no wonder why: If a book really did contain Heaven's will for the earth, then it would have every right to tower over our landscape and shape our lives and our civilizations. We all know the classic pattern, especially as it has manifested in the West: A book appears, which was written by specially chosen human messengers working under divine inspiration. This book is seen as literally putting the divine will on paper, and so its words carry an exalted power and authority for its followers, becoming their guide in personal, social, and religious matters.
A Course in Miracles fits this pattern perfectly, in two obvious ways. First, its story gives the appearance that it was written by a specially chosen messenger, in this case not merely under divine inspiration, but via direct dictation. In this sense, the Course is like the Islamic Koran, which, according to tradition, is comprised of direct revelations sent down from God to a single passive receiver, Muhammad. Second, the Course has taken on the kind of authority among its followers which is the defining characteristic of scripture. Once again, Dutch scholar Wouter Hanegraaff echoes this view:
If we were to select a single text as "sacred scripture" in the New Age movement, the sheer awe and reverence with which the Course...is discussed by its devotees would make this huge volume the most obvious choice. Indeed, it is among those channeled texts which refute the often-heard opinion that channeling only results in trivialities. 15
The Course clearly appears to see itself in the line or lineage of the West's primary scripture. It frequently refers to the Bible (containing over eight hundred allusions to biblical passages), uses terms and symbols from the biblical tradition (about three dozen by my count), and has the same major figure (Jesus).
The Course, however, sees itself as possessing an authority greater than that of the Bible. It demonstrates this in hundreds of biblical allusions in which its author feels no compunction about selectively affirming certain biblical themes while freely correcting others. For instance, consider this familiar Bible verse: "God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap." 16 Here is the Course's reinterpretation: "'God is not mocked' is not a warning but a reassurance. God would be mocked if any of His creations lacked holiness." 17 To show what a dramatic reinterpretation this represents, let us draw out the meaning of both passages:
Original meaning: Be warned-when you break God's Laws, His power still has the last word. He will make sure you pay for your sins.
Course reinterpretation: Be reassured-when you appear to turn yourself into a sinner, God's power still has the final say on who you are. You are still His holy Son.
Here, the same affirmation that "God is not mocked" yields precisely opposite views of God's relationship with sin: "He will not allow sin to go unpunished" versus "He will not allow sin to be real." And this reveals the Course's main problem with the God of the Bible. In its view, a God Who allows sin to be real and is then compelled to respond to it with wrath is not a God of Love. The Course agrees with, and often quotes, the biblical declaration that God is Love, but it goes further than the Bible in emphasizing that God is only Love. 18
In addition to frequently overriding the Bible's authority, the Course also never binds its students to the authority of the Bible. Nowhere, for instance, are students urged to observe the Jewish Sabbath or practice Christian baptism. Instead, the Course charts a new way, a new spiritual path, whose authority is contained completely inside its own covers, as well as in the presence of the Holy Spirit within each student's heart.
6. A path of enlightenment, as found in Eastern spirituality
For over a century now, masses of people in the West have been turning to the East for spiritual light. There, they seek what they perhaps failed to find in the religion of their birth: direct access to spiritual reality; inner liberation that is available now, in this life; teachers who have tasted that liberation; and techniques that can open up that same experience to anyone.
Whereas in the West the classic pattern for the birth of a religious tradition involves the Divine speaking through a chosen messenger, in the East the pattern focuses on the crucial significance of a man who awakens to his oneness with the Divine. 19 This man has freed himself from the tight strictures of his personal ego, with its attendant bitterness, anger, and worry. He has shaken off the illusion that he is a separate self and has awakened to who he really is, which, he discovers, is limitless. He now lives in the awareness that he is one with the All. He has been liberated. He is enlightened.
Now, this enlightened individual teaches others the way out, leading them along the same road that he followed. The path he teaches is somewhat unique to him, following, as it does, the particular contours of his own journey. However, it leads to the same ultimate goal as other paths. His way consists of both teachings and practice. The teachings re-educate the student's worldview, instructing him that his suffering is due to the illusion of being a separate ego, and that release from suffering lies in awakening to his true unbounded nature. These teachings may also reveal that the entire phenomenal world is an illusion, and that true reality abides in a transcendental realm beyond time and space, a realm in which there is no separate selfhood, for all is one. The practice consists of disciplined mind training, especially in the art of meditation, which allows each individual to detach from his false identity and directly experience who he really is. By following the teachings and doing the practice, the student is eventually freed from his ego and ushered into the same state his teacher found-the state of enlightenment.
This pattern, which one so readily associates with Eastern mysticism, fits the Course as well. Every one of the sentences in the above description accurately portrays the Course. A Course in Miracles, then, despite its American origin (through a person who said she knew nothing of Eastern mystical thought) and its biblical language, can be seen as joined with the great river of Eastern spirituality that is flowing into Western culture. How curious that its author, who claims to be Jesus Christ, the divine savior of the West, also resembles an enlightened master of the East!
7. A literary work of art
The Course presents a rigorously consistent intellectual system. We might expect such a system to be expressed in dry, technical language that aims at plain explanation and leaves little room for misinterpretation. Yet the Course is trying to do more than just inform; it is trying to transform. It wants to move us, to change us. To accomplish this it adopts the forms of art, which are designed for just such a purpose.
This aspect of the Course meant a great deal to Helen Schucman, who once said, "It is quite a literary thing and it does require a certain background….I happen to like this stuff from a literary viewpoint." My colleague Greg Mackie has studied the artistic elements in the Course and sums up his findings in the following paragraph:
Rather than linear, the Course, as Ken Wapnick has pointed out, is written symphonically: it introduces themes, develops them, lays them aside, and then brings them together, exploring their connections much like a symphony. Rather than simple sentence structure, the Course is written poetically: large portions are written in iambic pentameter, and even those parts not written in this poetic meter have a poetic quality, even occasionally using alliteration and rhyme. Rather than straightforward language, the Course often resorts to the literary language of simile, metaphor, symbol, personification, imagery, and allusion. And rather than carefully defining its terms, the Course, like much literature and poetry, uses terms that are more suggestive than definitive. Terms are rarely strictly defined, but instead have flexible meanings that depend upon the context of the words around them. All of these techniques enhance depth; they reveal deeper layers of meaning and beauty, free words from the limitations of strict definition, and open them up to deeper connotations and connections. 20
Even the Course as an intellectual system has an artistic quality. Its system is composed not only of concepts, but also of characters (God, the ego, the Holy Spirit, you, your brothers) who interact with each other and move through places (Heaven, the world, the borderland, the gate of Heaven, roads and pathways) and events (the separation, the Last Judgment, the Second Coming, the final step) in three acts: from a tranquil beginning, through an extended crisis, to a final resolution. This intellectual system, then, also has the flavor of an epic story.
Perhaps the most significant poetic device in the Course is iambic pentameter, also called Shakespearean blank verse. In this kind of verse, each line has five "feet" of two syllables each, and in each "foot" the second syllable is stressed. This results in lines of ten syllables with every other syllable stressed. I'll illustrate this with a line from the Course, in which I divide the feet and emphasize the stressed syllables:
The hush of Heaven holds my heart today. 21
Here is a passage from the Text laid out in verse:
The blood of hatred fades to let the grass
grow green again, and let the flowers be
all white and sparkling in the summer sun.
What was a place of death has now become
a living temple in a world of light.
Because of Them. It is Their Presence which
has lifted holiness again to take
its ancient place upon an ancient throne. 22
If you read these lines sensitively, you will notice that the iambic pentameter lends a song-like rhythm to the material. Since every other syllable is stressed, it almost feels as if there is a heart beating within each line. The use of iambic pentameter goes on unbroken for hundreds of pages in the Course. About one fourth of the Text is written in this form of verse (beginning in Chapter 24), about two thirds of the Workbook (beginning in Lesson 98), and key portions of the Manual for Teachers. Remarkably, the Course started coming through in this way some time before Helen and Bill even noticed it.
For millennia, art has been a tool for reaching us in a deeper, more personal way than purely logical or analytical ideas generally can. The Course uses the techniques of art because it shares the aims of art. The aim of art is to move us emotionally and to usher us into a new way of seeing. That is the aim of the Course as well. Its whole goal is to move us into a new perception, for that, in its eyes, is how we wake up.
8. A manual for interpersonal healing and harmony
There is a plethora of books on the market about relationships, telling us how to get the love we want, how to live romantically every day, how to talk to our children, etc. A Course in Miracles is also a book that promises to reveal the path to truly happy relationships. It sees this topic, however, in its broadest dimensions, lumping together a number of subjects that may seem distinct and separate to us:
• healing our painful romantic relationships and friendships
• joining in a common goal with another and undertaking a joint developmental journey
• reaching out to help those who feel alone and in need
• healing the sick in mind and body
• saving the world
This interpersonal focus should not surprise us. After all, A Course in Miracles came as an answer to a request for "another way" for people to relate, a way for people to get along. Understandably, students often lose sight of this dimension of the Course. The Course lays out a path of inward realization, in which we withdraw the needs we have laid on others, realize the world is illusory, and turn within ourselves to discover a glorious reality waiting there. The Course, in other words, is beckoning us to embark on the ancient quest to find our inmost center. However, it sees this quest as occurring primarily in our everyday relationships, in how we see and relate to other people, and even in conjunction with them. The Course tells us bluntly, "It is impossible to remember God in secret and alone." 23
What is the Course's prescription for a happy relationship? Rather than arming us with various strategies for getting our needs met, or for skillfully consolidating both partners' needs into a creative "win-win," the Course teaches a radical approach. It says that our happiness lies not in how well we are treated, but in how lovingly we see and treat others. It says that real happiness comes not from coaxing (or manipulating) our partners into doing it right, but from forgiving them for doing it wrong. We would be much happier, in its view, if the real message behind our every communication was not, "Why can't you get it right?" but rather, "Awake and be glad, for all your sins have been forgiven you." 24
If we can impart this message with real conviction, says the Course, we can work miracles in our relationships and in the lives of anyone we encounter. This, in fact, is the meaning of the Course's title. Students of this material often see a miracle as something strictly internal, yet the Course itself usually speaks of a miracle as an interpersonal event in which something healing passes from one person to another and joins them together. A Course in Miracles is therefore, quite literally, a course in how to heal others and heal relationships.
Contemplating the categories
Now we can go back and answer our original question. What is A Course in Miracles? What category does it belong in? The answer: Rather than fitting inside a single category, the Course sits astride at least eight categories. Only when we see it as a montage of these eight can we get an adequate sense of what it is. You might want to read down the following list and silently add "that is also" to the end of each item.
A Course in Miracles is…
1. An educational course
2. A channeled spiritual teaching, as found in the New Age
3. A purported communication from Jesus Christ
4. A new system of psychology, with ties to Freud
5. An inspired scripture, in the lineage of the Bible
6. A path of enlightenment, as found in Eastern spirituality
7. A literary work of art
8. A manual for interpersonal healing and harmony
This list answers one question, but in doing so it immediately raises another: How can one thing fit all eight of these categories? How on earth could one book be all these things? Our minds are always captivated when something breaks out of old molds and breaks new ground. That is, after all, the mark of true creativity. Yet how could one thing break this many molds?
Our minds are category-bound. According to the Course, we perceive our world through the lens of familiar categories. We thereby impose a grid onto reality that chops a continuous fabric into little separate boxes. We thus perceive things not according to what they are, but to the label of the category we slap onto them. 25 We even confine ourselves to categories, unconsciously behaving within the patterns they dictate. If we are writing a textbook, for instance, we unthinkingly write according to our "textbook" category, which dictates how a textbook should sound. In the end, without even realizing it, we become the slave of our categories.
The author of A Course in Miracles is refreshingly free of this enslavement. He does not make an occasional creative leap that breaks out of our categories; rather, walking through their walls is his normal way of being. To see how regularly he does this, try asking yourself the following questions:
• How many educational courses are also inspired scriptures in the lineage of the Bible?
• How many purported communications from Jesus Christ are also psychological systems with ties to Freud?
• How many inspired scriptures in the lineage of the Bible are also Eastern-style paths of enlightenment?
• How many new psychological systems are presented as literary works of art?
• How many educational courses are also channeled spiritual teachings?
• How many new psychological systems are also inspired scriptures in the lineage of the Bible?
To my knowledge, the answer to each one of these questions (and many others we could ask) is: one. Just A Course in Miracles. That is why the Course exists in a category by itself. There is nothing like it. Humans are by nature imitative. What we produce automatically falls into the shape of familiar categories. Yet whoever (or whatever) the author of the Course may be, his mind does not work that way. He thinks outside all the boxes.
Yet although he thinks outside them, he willingly steps inside them. He uses them, rather than turning up his nose in repugnance. For instance, even though he voices deep criticisms of conventional education (calling it a fruitless effort to "teach the mind a thousand alien names, and thousands more" 26), he still freely adopts its forms. Why? The following passage from the Course provides an answer. It says that once you have a holy instant, an experience of true reality, you should
then step back to darkness [the sensory world], not because you think it real, but only to proclaim its unreality in terms which still have meaning in the world that darkness rules. Use all the little names and symbols which delineate the world of darkness. Yet accept them not as your reality. The Holy Spirit uses all of them, but He does not forget creation has one Name, one Meaning, and a single Source Which unifies all things within Itself. Use all the names the world bestows on them but for convenience, yet do not forget they share the Name of God along with you. 27
We can boil this passage's counsel down to one sentence: Speak of reality in a language the world understands, even if you do not accept that language as defining reality. This, says the author of the Course, is what the Holy Spirit does, and this, apparently, is what he does as well. He uses our familiar categories in order to reach us, even though he does not believe in the limits they impose.
As I contemplate all this, my mind naturally thinks of God. This is how I imagine God would be if He were to express Himself in our world (and the Course teaches that He does all the time, through the Holy Spirit and Jesus). His Mind would naturally transcend the little mental boxes we have built up through human culture. He could never fit into our tiny categories. At the same time, He would not turn up His nose at His children's boxes. He would gladly use them if, by doing so, He could speak to us in a way that we could comprehend. What he would do with them, though, would far surpass our narrow abilities. He would find some masterful way to join those little boxes together into a much larger space, an airy mental room that would expand our horizons and liberate our minds from their tiny compartments. And He would do all this simply because He wanted to reach us, to "kiss us through the dark," as a poet once said. What is A Course in Miracles? Perhaps it is an instance of God doing just that.
1. Richard Smoley and Jay Kinney, Hidden Wisdom: A Guide to the Western Inner Traditions (New York: Penguin/Arkana, 1999), p. 66.
2. Ibid., p. 66.
3. The Complete Story of the Course, p. 23-24.
4. W-pI.In.1:1.
5. M-29.1:7.
7. As I will explain in Chapter 8, the role of teacher in the Manual is less like that of a classroom teacher, and more like that of a mentor, who works with pupils one-on-one to help them walk the path of the Course in their lives. This involves teaching the concepts to them, but also goes far beyond that.
9. M-9.2:5.
10. Wouter J. Hanegraaff, New Age Religion and Western Culture (New York: State University of New York Press, 1998), p. 365.
11. New Age Religion and Western Culture, p. 115.
12. Matthew 16:17, RSV.
13. It should be noted that the Course never refers to Jesus as the Messiah. It does refer to him as the Christ, but portrays the Christ as a universal Self that is shared by everyone. Thus, in response to the question "Is [Jesus] the Christ?" the Course can answer, "O yes, along with you" (C-5.5:1-2).
14. Historical Jesus scholarship has arrived at many insights that strikingly parallel the Course's view of Jesus. See, for example, "Who Was the Jesus of History and Did He Write A Course in Miracles?" (available at Who Was the Jesus of History and Did He Write A Course in Miracles. In this article, I compare the Jesus of the Course with the historical Jesus as seen through the eyes of Marcus Borg, a leading Jesus scholar.
15. New Age Religion and Western Culture, p. 37-38.
16. Galatians 6:7, RSV.
18. See W-pI.rV.In.4:3.
19. There are certainly women in the East who reportedly have attained this state as well. The "classic pattern," however, generally depicts a man.
20. Greg Mackie, "Appreciating the Masterpiece, Part 1: Seeing the Course as a Great Work of Art," A Better Way, Issue #27 (August 1999), p. 9. I am indebted to Greg's article for much of this section's discussion.
21. W-pII.286.Heading. Interestingly, this sentence is also an alliteration; four of the five stressed syllables begin with "h."
24. P-3.II.4:10.
25. For an extended discussion of this, see "The mechanics of perception" in Chapter 5 of this book.
26. W-pI.184.5:2.
27. W-pI.184.10:3-11:4.
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