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(Volume 12 Number 3 September 2001)
Kenneth Wapnick, Ph.D.
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With the beginning of the Foundation's video classes on the text (see pages 9-10), it seemed relevant to devote this article to the text of A Course in Miracles. More specifically, this article will examine the specific contribution that the text makes to the curriculum of the Course, as well as its relationship to the Course's other two components -- the workbook for students and manual for teachers -- that comprise the integrated curriculum of theory and experience that defines A Course in Miracles.(FOOTNOTE 1) We begin with the misconception common to many students of A Course in Miracles, reflective of an anti-intellectualism that is continually present in our society. The form in which this ultimately pseudo-spiritual position is often expressed in Course students is that it is not necessary to study the text; one simply needs to have a spiritual experience, and that is all. Interestingly, a recent article in Newsweek (May 7, 2001) discussed religious experiences that ostensibly emanated from stimulation of certain sectors of the brain. The conclusions often drawn from such research -- namely, that most, if not all spiritual experience is nothing but a high, induced by bio-electric, bio-magnetic, or bio-chemical means-bring into focus the confusion people often make between authentic spirituality and spiritual or religious experience. The latter can be relatively easily acquired through various disciplines (yoga, meditation, etc.), psychedelic drugs, hyperventilation, or now, brain stimulation. But this does not necessarily lead to the person's becoming more genuinely forgiving, loving, kind, or peaceful; or less judgmental, angry, or fearful -- all of which would be characteristic of people advancing on the spiritual path. It is the process of achieving the experience that undoes the unconscious guilt -- our "secret sins and hidden hates" (T-31.VIII.9:2)-that is the true obstacle to attaining the peace of God. In this sense, one could more accurately speak of a spiritual process, rather than a spiritual experience. While this emphasis on non-intellectual experience is found in many spiritual pathways, it is not at the heart of the learning process of A Course in Miracles. As Helen remarked after the completion of the scribing: "Thank God there is at last something [on the spiritual life] for the intellectual." And Jesus explains in another context:
You are not making use of the course if you insist on using means which have served others well, neglecting what was made for you (T-18.VII.6:5).The central place that the text holds in the three-volume Course makes these means clear, as I hope to demonstrate in these pages. Many times in the anti-intellectual approach to A Course in Miracles, the workbook for students is accorded a prominence and importance that far exceeds, and even distorts, its role in the curriculum. Jesus makes the workbook's role emphatically clear in the very opening paragraph of its introduction:
A theoretical foundation such as the text provides is necessary as a framework to make the exercises in this workbook meaningful. Yet it is doing the exercises that will make the goal of the course possible. An untrained mind can accomplish nothing. It is the purpose of this workbook to train your mind to think along the lines the text sets forth (W-in.1).In other words, the specific one-year training program of the workbook would have no meaning if it were implemented outside the context of the text's teachings. This passage clearly implies that if indeed students' practice of the workbook were to be separate from their study and understanding of the text, these students would easily go astray -- going off course if the pun can be forgiven -- misleading themselves and perhaps others. Moreover, as will be seen presently, Jesus did not conceive the mind-training aspects of his Course to be restricted to the workbook alone, but to apply to the text as well. It should be obvious, however, that the more experiential aspects of the workbook have meaning only within the context of the theoretical structure of the text. Certainly the theory of A Course in Miracles in and of itself means nothing, as the introduction to the clarification of terms discusses:
This is not a course in philosophical speculation, nor is it concerned with precise terminology. It is concerned only with Atonement, or the correction of perception (C-in.1:1-2).Yet, once again, the study and understanding of the text is an inherent part of the process of learning the curriculum of forgiveness leading to the acceptance of the Atonement. Stated another way, perception cannot be corrected if one does not first understand what is to be corrected. The teachings found in the text explain the what, at the same time leading us to the experiential perceptual shift that is the Course's goal. Thus, the workbook was never meant to stand alone, nor to be a substitute for the "theoretical framework such as the text provides." In other words, to reiterate this important point, the exercises of the workbook -- the "practical application" -- were not construed by Jesus to be done without the context of the text. By the same token, of course, the theory of the text was never meant to be studied without the complementary one-year training program that is the workbook's structure. As the manual for teachers states:
He [a teacher of God] cannot claim that title until he has gone through the workbook, since we are learning within the framework of our course (M-16.3:7).This is why, incidentally, Jesus instructed Helen that the three books of A Course in Miracles were not to be abridged nor separated from each other, lest the error just described occur to the detriment of a student's study and practice of the Course. In an interesting parallel, Sigmund Freud understood the necessity of the analyst's both learning the theory of psychoanalysis and at the same time having the experience of being analyzed:
Impressions and convictions will be gained in relation to oneself which will be sought in vain from studying books and attending lectures (On Psychoanalysis, 1911, Vol. XII, p. 230).(FOOTNOTE 2)What students sometimes fail to understand is that the struggle to understand the text intellectually is an inherent part of the process of learning and integrating its message. That is one reason Jesus insisted to Helen and Bill that they, in his own emphatic words to them during the scribing, study these notes (see my Absence from Felicity, pp. 251-52[FOOTNOTE 3]). He amplified this exhortation in a message that is now contained, in edited form, at the end of Chapter 1 of the text. The original context makes this important point even more distinctly personal than the published version, and so I quote it as it was originally given to the Course's first two students: All learning involves attention and study at some level. This course is a mind-training course. Good students assign study periods for themselves. However, since this obvious step has not occurred to you, and since we are cooperating in this, I will make the obvious assignment now [of studying the notes]....Jesus then continues by providing the reason for his exhortation: The next part of this course rests too heavily on the earlier part not to require its study. Without this, you will become much too fearful when the unexpected does occur to make constructive use of it [a reference presumably to Helen and Bill's future involvement in the Course and their specific roles in its development]. However, as you study the notes, you will see some of the obvious implications....This last comment was followed by a discussion of awe as it related to God, and this can now be found earlier in the text's first chapter. The message to Helen and Bill concluded with these words, also found, albeit in slightly edited form, in the published Course:
The next step, however, does involve the direct approach to God Himself. It would be most unwise to start on this step at all without very careful preparation, or awe will surely be confused with fear, and the experience will be more traumatic than beatific... The means [to achieve healing] are carefully explained in the notes. Revelation has occasionally shown you the end, but to reach it the means are needed (Absence from Felicity, pp. 251-52).The means of which Jesus speaks constitute the study, learning, and application of the "notes" that Jesus was now just beginning to provide to Helen, for her and Bill. Clearly he meant for his text to be studied by them, so that it could be understood and then applied to their lives in the many opportunities for forgiveness that arose daily. I have frequently commented on the symphonic nature of the text's writing, reflective of the process of learning that embraces both the study of the text as well as the practice of the workbook (see, e.g., my Glossary-Index for A Course in Miracles, p. 1[FOOTNOTE 4]). The symbol of the ladder, found in both A Course in Miracles itself (T-28.II.12:7; T-28.III.1:2), as well as in its companion pamphlet The Song of Prayer (S-1), particularly reflects this concept of growth over time, rather than an instantaneous ascendance into Heaven -- Fear not that you will be abruptly lifted up and hurled into reality (T-16.VI.8:1). A wonderfully succinct expression of this process of learning is found in workbook Lesson 284. The context is the teaching that suffering of any kind is "nothing but a dream," and therefore, in the words of the lesson title, "I can elect to change all thoughts that hurt." The passage makes it very clear that Jesus has no illusions that his students are going to accept this truth without considerable struggle and resistance, occurring, moreover, over an extensive period of time:
This is the truth, at first to be but said and then repeated many times; and next to be accepted as but partly true, with many reservations. Then to be considered seriously more and more, and finally accepted as the truth (W-pII.284.1:5-6; italics mine).Experienced psychotherapists similarly have no illusions about their patients' process of therapy over time; i.e., if they are to undergo meaningful change and be free of their unconscious conflicts. An important passage in the text also expresses this need to proceed slowly, otherwise, as Jesus cautioned Helen and Bill at the beginning of the scribing, traumatic fear would ensue, rather than the awe-inspiring experience of the beatific to which he was gently leading them. Jesus here is discussing the ego's fearful dream, which in our insanity we have made to be reality:
Nothing more fearful than an idle dream has terrified God's Son, and made him think that he has lost his innocence, denied his Father, and made war upon himself. So fearful is the dream, so seeming real, he could not waken to reality without the sweat of terror and a scream of mortal fear, unless a gentler dream preceded his awaking, and allowed his calmer mind to welcome, not to fear, the Voice That calls with love to waken him; a gentler dream, in which his suffering was healed and where his brother was his friend (T-27.VII.13:3-4).These gentle dreams of forgiveness are the "little steps" we are asked to take to God (W-pI.193.13:7), ensuring that the journey Home will be sure and safe, as much as possible free from the terror of imminent annihilation the ego promises will be our "reward" for betraying its teachings and following instead the Holy Spirit's forgiving path of the Atonement. Almost all students of A Course in Miracles have had the experience of needing several readings (at least!) of the text, in order to understand what it is saying. This is usually not an intellectual problem, but rather an expression of the fear of what exactly is being taught-the meaning behind the words.(FOOTNOTE 5) The student's mind, listening to the voice of the ego -- the voice of guilt and fear -- "sees" the words and says: "I do not want to see this." A message then gets sent to the eyes, via the brain, not to see what is on the page. Or, the message is sent to the brain itself not to think about what is being read. Thus we find the common phenomenon that students reach the end of a paragraph or page (or perhaps even a section or chapter!) with absolutely no memory of what was previously "read." The words were of course "read," but not by the body's eyes; the words were of course "thought about," but not by the body's brain. This phenomenon, therefore, is born of the fear of shifting identification from the physical-psychological self to the self that is the decision-making aspect of the mind, which will be discussed presently. Very often, therefore, one can observe that this reluctance to truly study the text, expending the necessary time and effort to understand its thought system, not to mention its use of language is, on an unconscious level, an attempt to defend against one's fear of what this thought system is really teaching. Why else would otherwise sincere students, embracing A Course in Miracles as their spiritual path, and Jesus as their teacher, ignore his explicit and specific instructions to study his teachings and pay attention to the structure of his curriculum? This situation is really no different from what occurred with Jesus' teachings two thousand years ago, where his followers, by their very actions and practice, deliberately set themselves in opposition to what their own writings urged them to do: not to judge (e.g., Matthew 7:1-5; John 8:2-11). This fear cannot be underestimated, for it is the core thought that underlies the ego thought system, not to mention the world it made as a principal defense against remembering God. If indeed this world -- which, by the way, means the entire physical universe -- is an illusion, one that was over long ago (T-28.I.1:6), and that in fact never existed at all except in our insane thoughts and dreams (W-pI.132.4-6; M-2.2:6-8), then that must also mean that we -- the selves we think we are -- were also "over long ago." I have sometimes asked students during a workshop to consider for a moment what goes through their thinking when they read representative passages like the following:
Yet sights and sounds the body can perceive are meaningless. It cannot see norIf our eyes do not see, and our brains do not think, then what is it that is reading the words that tell us that the eyes do not see? And what is it that is thinking about the words that tell us that the brain does not think? How could an honest consideration of this not produce overwhelming anxiety and numbing fog in anyone still identified with the body, not to mention the personality that is integrated within it? And yet, how many serious students of A Course in Miracles actually "think" about passages like that. If "the world has never been at all" (W-pI.169.6:6), and obviously I am an inherent part of this world, then that statement must also mean that I -- the physical and psychological self I call myself -- have never been, either. The text explains how consciousness is the domain of the ego, and was indeed the first split introduced into the mind after the separation appeared to have happened (T-3.IV.2:1-2). This state of consciousness is synonymous with the split mind and exists beyond the body. Therefore, as thought, it survives our physical death. This can be a comforting idea as long as we can identify ourselves as thought, which is a major theme of A Course in Miracles. However, to the extent that we still cling to our physical identity we shall be fearful. It thus becomes apparent why students would be so reluctant to read and study -- let alone embrace! -- the Course's non-dualistic thought system. If truly understood and embraced, this thought system inevitably means the end of their existence, to state it again, as the self with which they have identified and called by their own name. This self, in the words of the manual for teachers, would "ultimately fade into the nothingness from which it came" (M-13.1:2). In other words, this self would die. Not reading, studying, or understanding the text then becomes nothing more or less than literal self-preservation, preventing our minds from making the choice that would truly save: "You think you are destroyed, but you are saved" (W-pI.93.4:4). That is why Jesus has these encouraging and important words near the end of Chapter 3:
Your Self is still in peace, even though your mind is in conflict. You have not yet gone back far enough, and that is why you become so fearful. As you approach the Beginning, you feel the fear of the destruction of your thought system upon you as if it were the fear of death. There is no death, but there is a belief in death (T-3.VII.5:8-11).What would ensure against this fear arising is the careful and patient study of the text material, along with the development of an ongoing relationship with one's own Inner Teacher, be it Jesus, the Holy Spirit, or any other symbolic figure that represents the non-ego part of our minds. The one-year practice of the workbook exercises is an essential part of the training of all students and would-be teachers of A Course in Miracles.(FOOTNOTE 6) The humility required for such a period of study and practice is perhaps the most significant attribute required for all Course students, not to mention any spiritual aspirant pursuing the goal of inner peace. The struggle to understand the meaning of the words reflects the struggle to let go of our ego's involvement in specialness and the investment in preserving our individual and separated existence. It is noteworthy that in a field totally divorced from the Course in form, though its content in many aspects is remarkably alike, one can observe the occurrence of a similar phenomenon. The field is psychoanalysis, and the two titans of this twentieth century discipline-Sigmund Freud and C. G. Jung-grappled with this issue, however unsuccessful in the long run their efforts may have been. It was clear to both men, despite their eventual theoretical, not to mention personal, irreconcilable differences, that the analysts who subsequently followed their theories very often became part of the very problems they were trying to undo. Thus was born the concept of the training analysis (it was actually Jung who first conceived of this practice), wherein psychoanalysts were required to undergo their own analysis to ensure that they were healed of their unconscious conflicts:
Medical psychotherapists are required to undergo a training analysis, in order to gain insight into their own unconscious psyche (Depth Psychology, 1954, Volume XVIII, p. 485).(FOOTNOTE 7)The following quotes from both men are illustrative of their shared belief about this problem, and can well serve all students of A Course in Miracles who feel "guided" to be teachers of its principles, yet unknowingly mislead others and themselves because they are not in touch with the aforementioned ego's need to protect their existence from the "threat" of the Course's teachings. Freud here expresses his concern not only for the well-being of patients who might suffer from the unconscious projections of the un-analyzed analyst, but also for the possible negative implications for the development of psychoanalysis:
Anyone who has scorned to take the precaution of being analyzed himself will not merely be punished by being incapable of learning more than a certain amount from his patients, he will risk a more serious danger and one which may become a danger to others. He will easily fall into the temptation of projecting outwards some of the peculiarities of his own personality, which he has dimly perceived...; he will bring the psychoanalytic method into discredit, and lead the inexperienced astray (Recommendations to Physicians Practicing Psychoanalysis, 1912, Vol. XII, p. 117).He was no less pointed in his remarks on psychoanalytic quacks:
A quack is anyone who undertakes a treatment without possessing the knowledge and capacities necessary forFrom Jung we also find these clear statements of how therapists must be attentive to their own "personal equation," their "attitude":
It must be admitted that probably in no other field of work is there so great a danger of the investigator's falling a victim to his own subjective assumption. He of all people must remain more than ever conscious of his "personal equation" (Mysterium Coniunctionis, 1956, Vol. XIV, p. xvi).In conclusion, therefore, all students of A Course in Miracles should as much as possible attempt to be faithful to their responsibility as its students, and to follow their teacher's guidance and recommendations: "Study these notes, and ask my help in learning and applying their teachings in your daily life." Only by such faithful adherence to the teaching material of the total curriculum, as well as their own commitment to the undoing of the ego thought system, will students of A Course in Miracles find the peace they truly desire, and the "power to bring this peace to everyone who wanders in the world uncertain, lonely, and in constant fear" (T-31.VIII.7:1).
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