Such a title certainly deserves an explanation, especially since Jesus tells us in A Course in Miracles that

the world was made as an attack on God. … [and] was meant to be a place where God could enter not, and where His Son could be apart from Him (W-pII.3.2:1,4).

This world is the opposite of Heaven, being made to be its opposite, and everything here takes a direction exactly opposite of what is true (T-16.V.3:6).

Almost a century ago in his epochal The Interpretation of Dreams, Sigmund Freud wrote: "The interpretation of dreams is the royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious activities of the mind." This seminal statement is based on the psychoanalytic notion that the activities of the unconscious -- the irrational and unbridled impulses of the id -- were by definition totally inaccessible to our consciousness, and therefore could seemingly never be uncovered and treated. However, such exposure to what the father of psychoanalysis conceived to be our innate drives was essential if people were to be helped with their problems, since Freud posited that it was these unconscious impulses that were the determinants of all that we thought, felt, and believed, not to mention how we behaved. Freud's investigations led him to the conclusion that through the analysis of our dreams we would find the key that would unlock these dark, destructive forces that were the cause of not only our individual worlds, but through the psychological defense of sublimation, the progress of civilization as well. Thus, through analyzing or interpreting the symbols of our dreams we would gain access to the unconscious, thereby fulfilling the goal of psychoanalysis of making the unconscious conscious. Only in this way, Freud believed, could people's neuroses -- caused by unconscious and therefore unresolved conflicts -- be healed.

Interestingly enough, the Jesus who is the source of A Course in Miracles could make the same statement Freud did, based upon the same reasoning, but with a frame of reference that is greatly expanded and with a goal that would have made the great Viennese physician cringe if he were alive today. As mentioned above, the context for Jesus' teachings of forgiveness is the metaphysical premise that the physical universe is an illusion. Moreover, we shall see presently that the making of the world is the culmination of the ego's strategy to preserve its existence by denying the mind and distracting our attention from the true problem of our having chosen the ego over the Holy Spirit. Before reviewing this brilliantly effective, though totally insane strategy of the ego, let us first examine the need that led to the development of this cosmic plot against truth in the first place.

We begin with the original ontological choice to see the "tiny, mad idea" of separation as "a serious idea, and possible of both accomplishment and real effects" (T-27.VIII.6:2-3). In that instant the ego was born, wherein it certainly seemed as if there were a separated mind that had split off from the Mind of Christ, leaving the thought of individual existence to be a foregone conclusion. The upholding of this strange idea of individuality and separation from our Source is presented in the Course in the metaphor of the Son of God falling sleep and dreaming a dream of consciousness, a dream in which there were dualistic thoughts of subject and object. Jesus makes reference to this dichotomy by stating in the text that "Consciousness … was the first split introduced into the mind after the separation" (T-3.IV.2:1). At this point, Who we truly are as Christ -- the Son of God at one with His Source -- became a distantly vanishing memory, a Presence in our split minds that was almost inaccessible to our awareness. This Presence is represented in A Course in Miracles by the Holy Spirit. He is the Alternative, the part of our minds that constantly reminds us that the separation from God never truly happened and therefore individuality must be a lie. This reminder is known in the Course as the principle of the Atonement.

Confronted by a decision between these two choices -- the ego's separation and the Holy Spirit's Atonement -- we believed in our insanity that the illusion was the truth, and the truth an illusion. And this decision was motivated by one very simple thought: If we chose the Holy Spirit, we would lose our individuality in the abstract Oneness of Heaven. And so, enamored of our newly-acquired special existence, we all collectively as one split mind -- the separated Son of God -- "remembered not to laugh" at the silliness of the "tiny, mad idea" (T-27.VIII.6:2) that a part of God could wrench itself free from perfect Oneness and become separate and self-created. Moreover, we took seriously the thought that "there is a power past omnipotence, a place beyond the infinite, a time transcending the eternal" (T-29.VIII.6:2). And we "forgot" because, once more, the bottom line was that we liked the idea of being on our own: independent of what the ego stated was God's "tyranny" of oneness; autonomous and free; and special, unique, and very much an individualized entity. In fact, however, we simply substituted "illusion for truth … [and] fragmentation for wholeness" (T-18.I.4:2), and made the entire inconceivable experience into what we now believed to be a reality, one that was, again, "possible of both accomplishment and real effects" (T-27.VIII.6:3).

The ego had now seemingly "won" its battle with the Holy Spirit -- the illusion of separation appearing to have triumphed forever over the truth of perfect oneness -- and all that remained for the ego to secure its existence for all time was to see to it that the Son never changed his mind. For it is the power of the Son of God to change his mind that is the ego's true enemy, as Jesus makes clear to us in the following passages from the text:

Yet its [the ego's] existence is dependent on your mind, because the ego is your belief. … Do not be afraid of the ego. It depends on your mind, and as you [the mind's decision maker] made it by believing in it, so you can dispel it by withdrawing belief from it. … The ego can be completely forgotten at any time, because it is a totally incredible belief, and no one can keep a belief he has judged to be unbelievable. The more you learn about the ego, the more you realize that it cannot be believed (T-7.VIII.4:6; 5:1-2; 6:2-3; italics mine, except for 5:1).

Therefore, to reiterate this important point, it is not really God nor His Love that is the ego's enemy, nor the Holy Spirit, Jesus, or the teachings of A Course in Miracles. Rather it is the Son's mind -- actually, the part of the mind that chooses, i.e., the decision maker -- that can decide for God or His Voice that is the ego's problem. Being nothing, the ego is totally dependent on the Son's belief in its reality in order to continue to exist. That is why Jesus makes the following urgent request of us:

You must look upon your illusions and not keep them hidden, because they do not rest on their own foundation. In concealment they appear to do so, and thus they seem to be self-sustained. This is the fundamental illusion on which the others rest (T-13.III.6:1-3; italics mine).

The ego begins by telling the Son that his individuality was bought at a very great price. Indeed, the ego lies, the Son did substitute illusion for truth and fragmentation for wholeness, and that meant destroying the Oneness of Heaven -- God the First Cause and Christ the Effect -- thus annihilating the Creator by usurping His function of creation. And this series of actions, the ego tells us, has a name: sin, for we won our independence by sinning against God. From this seeming ego fact, guilt over what we believe we have done is inevitable, as is the punishment that guilt demands be ours. And since the object of our sin was the ego's projected image of a victimized God, it is this ego God's punishment that we fear. This "unholy trinity" of sin, guilt, and fear finds graphic expression in the following passage on magic thoughts from the manual for teachers, for which the prototype is the ontological belief that we can exist outside of God:

It [a magic thought] states, in the clearest form possible, that the mind which believes it has a separate will that can oppose the Will of God, also believes it can succeed [sin]. That this can hardly be a fact is obvious. Yet that it can be believed as fact is equally obvious. And herein lies the birthplace of guilt. Who usurps the place of God and takes it for himself now has a deadly "enemy" [fear]. And he must stand alone in his protection, and make himself a shield to keep him safe from fury that can never be abated, and vengeance that can never be satisfied (M-17.5:4-9; italics mine).

It is this joint dynamic of denial and projection -- carrying out the need to have our guilt (or self-hatred) perceived outside of us -- that collectively is the cause of the physical universe. On the individual level, these dynamics are reflected in the birth of the specific body -- ours and others  -- to be the object of our minds' denied and projected hatred, as is explained to us in Lesson 161:

Complete abstraction is the natural condition of the mind. But part of it is now unnatural. It does not look on everything as one. It sees instead but fragments of the whole, for only thus could it invent the partial world you see. The purpose of all seeing is to show you what you wish to see. All hearing but brings to your mind the sounds it wants to hear.

Thus were specifics made.…

Hate is specific. There must be a thing to be attacked. An enemy must be perceived in such a form he can be touched and seen and heard, and ultimately killed. When hatred rests upon a thing, it calls for death as surely as God's Voice proclaims there is no death. Fear is insatiable, consuming everything its eyes behold, seeing itself in everything, compelled to turn upon itself and to destroy.

Who sees a brother as a body sees him as fear's symbol. And he will attack, because what he beholds is his own fear external to himself, poised to attack, and howling to unite with him again. Mistake not the intensity of rage projected fear must spawn. It shrieks in wrath, and claws the air in frantic hope it can reach to its maker and devour him (W-pI.161.2; 3:1; 7-8; italics mine).

The belief that by seeing it [the guilt we do not want] outside you have excluded it from within is a complete distortion of the power of extension. That is why those who project are vigilant for their own safety. They are afraid that their projections will return and hurt them. Believing they have blotted their projections from their own minds, they also believe their projections are trying to creep back in. Since the projections have not left their minds, they are forced to engage in constant activity in order not to recognize this (T-7.VIII.3:8-12).

All temptation is nothing more than some form of the basic temptation not to believe the idea for today ["My salvation comes from me."]. Salvation seems to come from anywhere except from you. So, too, does the source of guilt. You see neither guilt nor salvation as in your own mind and nowhere else. When you realize that all guilt is solely an invention of your mind, you also realize that guilt and salvation must be in the same place. In understanding this you are saved.

The seeming cost of accepting today's idea is this: It means that nothing outside yourself can save you; nothing outside yourself can give you peace. But it also means that nothing outside yourself can hurt you, or disturb your peace or upset you in any way. Today's idea places you in charge of the universe, where you belong because of what you are (W-pI.70.1:1–2:3).

Thus there is no hope for the Son ever to realize his mistake and make the correct choice. But as Jesus comforts us in the text: The ego's thought system "may be fool-proof, but it is not God-proof" (T-5.VI.10:6). And what allows the Presence of God in our minds -- the Holy Spirit or Jesus -- to undo the ego's seemingly invincible plot is the pain that we feel from our original and ongoing decision to remain separate from the Love of God, a decision that enables us to exist as an individual. It is this discomfort over our unhappy situation (referred to below as having "an imprisoned will") that impels us finally to ask for "a better way":

An imprisoned will engenders a situation which, in the extreme, becomes altogether intolerable. Tolerance for pain may be high, but it is not without limit. Eventually everyone begins to recognize, however dimly, that there must be a better way. As this recognition becomes more firmly established, it becomes a turning point. This ultimately reawakens spiritual vision, simultaneously weakening the investment in physical sight (T-2.III.3:4-8).

The choice for the ego led us into the world, within which we fashioned a body filled with the unforgiveness that originates in, and still remains within the mind. Thus it is with our physical and psychological experiences -- our special relationships -- that our new Teacher must begin His lessons. Once again, our asking for help is what allows the healing process of forgiveness to begin. Jesus or the Holy Spirit teach us that the world we perceive outside is the shadow of the world we first made real inside -- in our minds. And now we can begin to understand the important role the world plays in the undoing of the ego thought system. Were it not for our projections of the ego's thoughts of sin, guilt, and fear, we would have no opportunity to know about the existence of our minds, let alone the insane thoughts they contain. Thus does the world become the royal road that leads us back to the Heaven that its original intent was to conceal. And so Jesus turns the tables on the ego: The dynamic of projection, which is the ego's ace in the hole as it were, now has been transformed into a means of salvation and healing. In the context of the ego's masterful defense of special relationships and the shift to the holy relationship, Jesus writes:

Such is the Holy Spirit's kind perception of specialness; His use of what you made, to heal instead of harm (T-25.VI.4:1).

Projection makes perception. The world you see is what you gave it, nothing more than that. But though it is no more than that, it is not less. Therefore, to you it is important. It is the witness to your state of mind, the outside picture of an inward condition. As a man thinketh, so does he perceive. … Perception is a result and not a cause. … And you will see the witness to the choice you made, and learn from this to recognize which one you chose. The world you see but shows you how much joy you have allowed yourself to see in you, and to accept as yours. And, if this is its meaning, then the power to give it joy must lie within you (T-21.in.1:1-6,8; 2:6-8; italics mine, except for 2:8).

Unfortunately, a tendency in many students of A Course in Miracles is to deny the grim bizarreness of this world, masking it under the veils of what can be termed a "positive spirituality." This attitude, born of denial, sees only the "good," and this perception enables them to pretend that within the ego's dream world of separation there is no pain, hatred, or murder. Not seeing any problems in the world outside, they then deny themselves the only opportunity -- "the royal road" -- for getting back in touch with the world inside. A teacher is rendered impotent if there is no classroom and nothing to teach. The horror of the world we made as a substitute for God is the very classroom Jesus uses, that he may instruct us how the world reflects back to us the real problem of our minds' decision for guilt and individuality. The following passage nicely summarizes our discussion, and highlights this article's central point:

Everything you perceive as the outside world is merely your attempt to maintain your ego identification, for everyone believes that identification is salvation. Yet consider what has happened, for thoughts do have consequences to the thinker. You have become at odds with the world as you perceive it, because you think it is antagonistic to you. This is a necessary consequence of what you have done. You have projected outward what is antagonistic to what is inward, and therefore you would have to perceive it this way. That is why you must realize that your hatred is in your mind and not outside it before you can get rid of it; and why you must get rid of it before you can perceive the world as it really is (T-12.III.7:5-10; italics mine).

In this world the only remaining freedom is the freedom of choice; always between two choices or two voices (C-1.7:1).

Now are we saved indeed. For in God's Hands we rest untroubled, sure that only good can come to us. If we forget, we will be gently reassured. If we accept an unforgiving thought, it will be soon replaced by love's reflection. And if we are tempted to attack, we will appeal to Him Who guards our rest to make the choice for us that leaves temptation far behind. No longer is the world our enemy, for we have chosen that we be its friend (W-pI.194.9).