"A Course in Miracles"? Yay or Nay? (Page 2 of 5)

christianity is good, the bible is excellent, the bible doesn't say anything about gold tablets, or ruling your own planet when you die, or satan being jesus' brother, or wearing magic underwear, or most of the tenets of mormonism.  mormonism is a bastardization of christianity at best, at worse its very pagan, the bad kind of pagan, you shouldn't associate the two, all the symbols on your magic underwear for instance are freemasonic symbols, not christian symbols, the mormon symbols are total mystery babylon.

edit: theres nothing wrong with loving mountains and trees, nature is incredible, uplifting, inspiring, and just because there's a possibility that existence could continue or possibly even coexist on some other plane or could stop alltogether which is what some people might want, it doesn't necessarily make this world any less "real", i think its plenty real, we may be able to mentally transcend but i don't know of anyone that can transcend physical reality.  Anyways, i think most of us could agree that there's some soul or higher self associated with your life on earth, either you think its a curse/mistake or you think its a blessing/gift, as long as you arent doing anything malicious towards yourself or others you might as well enjoy it

Definitely worth the $7, IMO.  The course definitely presents the most cohesive, logical, and internally consistent view of Christian theology I've ever read, and has a lot of practical value.  I don't take it as gospel, simply another perspective.

Okay, first of all: synchronicity!  I've been brushing up with ACIM for the last couple of days.

I will be the dissenter here.  I say "Nay" to ACIM.

I haven't read the book cover-to-cover or completed all of the lessons, but did give it a fair go (seventy pages or so) and a few days' worth of lessons.  I also discussed it at length with long-time fans of the book--both of whom I very much respect and still do. 

My beef with ACIM is its focus upon real and unreal.  The distinction must be made, but the presentation of these concepts in ACIM, in my opinion, fosters dissociation.

I believe the first of the lessons consists of standing outside for a minute or two and looking at mountains and trees and grass and saying, (paraphrase) "This is unreal.  These mountains are unreal.  These trees are unreal.  Everything I'm seeing is unreal." 

...The lesson basically encourages you to disbelieve your five senses and the sense-data from your body.  And, really, that approach is none too different from every other mystical technique--most of them are centered on withdrawing from the senses and going within. 

There is value in this...But it strikes me as unbalanced and I've noticed "Course" followers becoming anti-life.  By believing "everything" is illusion you enter a subliminal mindset that life is a mistake that needs to be corrected.  It's Original Sin all over again. 

Moreover, the mindset of "Course" people--in my observation--also follows another mainstream religious pattern: the mindset that the solution is in the future and that when the illusion/spell is finally broken THEN they can breathe.  They seem floaty to me and like there energy is less in the present time than more.  And I think that could be a side effect of constantly telling yourself "This is unreal."  By telling yourself that you're abstracting your mind away from your body, resulting in less ability to know and interact with what's happening around you.

It comes down to this: I think the only way out is "through."  Is it possible to achieve freedom from the body or ego by negating it and calling it unreal?  ...It just seems more intuitive to me that the opposite's true: you gain freedom from the ego by recognizing it, working with it, accepting it, purifying it, rising above it.

There are also links around the 'net inferring that Helen Schumann (the "scribe" of ACIM) was an MKULTRA mind-controlled disinfo artist.  There's a link to such a webpage in another thread that's already been started on ACIM.  The web info is pretty thin, but who knows...

http://forum.noblerealms.org/viewtopic.php?id=1417

http://www.urantiagate.com/conspiracy.html

And here's an article LipStickMystic wrote on it:

http://www.lipstickmystic.com/articles/ … 81404.html

Edit: I made some broad, sweeping statements in this post.  I wrote it quickly.  My main point is: my feeling from ACIM is that it is anti-life.  And I love life.  I love redrock slot canyons and sage brush and ponderosa pines.  When I take all that in, I feel uplifted, present, the presence of love.  When I label it all as unreal, I feel lost.  I am excited for ascension, but I feel sure a person doesn't have to negate or become numb to their current level of existence in order to move to the next.

I heard Barb M who channels the P's warn of ACIM during a workshop, implying that its a slick form of mind control cloaked in spirituality. What I know for my own personal observation comes from knowing 4 individuals Before and After they got involved  with ACIM. Before they were, to me, free thinkers, not afraid to have opinions, open  -- After they were like "All is One la la land" zombies ... utterly peaceful, placid and undisturbed. It may sound good...but I did NOT like the change I saw in these people..it gave me the creeps. Just my opinion. I found the link an interesting study. Judge for yoruselves.

http://urantiagate.com/conspiracy/fleas.html

Peace, Summer

Informative article on John Gittinger and how his system was used by the CIA to analyze potential recruits or targets for their strengths and weaknesses:

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/LSD/marks10.htm

Basically something as simple as a personality test or set of seemingly trivial behavioral observations could be used to extrapolate a more complete profile of a person, allowing his future behavior under various situations to be predicted in advance.

So if you could develop a control methodology specifically designed to exploit weaknesses that always accompanied a particular behavioral trait, you could create a filter that would bring you those people who have that trait and are thus suitable for your control methodology.

It's like what Derren Brown did when he would dial up a public phone, wait for someone to answer, verbally bombard them to induce a hypnotic state, then command them to fall asleep. Most of the time this works because those who would pick up a public phone are the suggestible types.

If there is any connection between this and the ACIM, it might have something to do with the following:

Interestingly, the (R) personalities would be more easily mind programmable, and it is these types that would be more likely to go gaga over the ACIM despite its convoluted, hypnotic, commanding delivery.

So if there is a sinister angle to the origins of the ACIM, it might be that it serves as a filter to select the appropriate mind control recruits, perhaps even impressing or amplifying those traits in desperate people who would otherwise be more independent minded.

Other New Age literature may serve similar functions, and I can think of several examples that are just as convoluted and floaty. I used to think these merely served as disinformation, but I realize now they could also be filter/recruitment devices.

Anyway, there is an ACIM-in-a-nutshell at Wikipedia for anyone without the time to study the material in full:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Course_In_Miracles

Now the next question is - did Jesus Christ really author this book through Shucman? Because if not, then who is it that is speaking in first person throughout the entire book?

And as for the ACIM helping people get their life back on track, that's not disputable, but it's also not a measure of success and cause for endorsement since even Catholicism, Scientology, various cult ideologies, Prozac, etc... can do that.

In the 1980s, I read an article about the way ACIM was created. The article said that the voice kept repeating the phrase, "This is a course in mircles, please take notes." Helen resisted for some time but the voice kept repeating the phrase until Bill incouraged her to start writing it down. When he wanted to publish it, she agreed only after he agreed that there would be no mention of her involvement.
I got the feeling that she felt embarased about the whole project. Her name and the story behind it only became known after her death. Although this is not a reason to judge the book, it has always caused me to wonder about the content, what with her being the reluctent scribe and all.

As far as it coming from Jesus Christ, who knows? Keep in mind that anybody in that realm can claim to be Jesus. Who would Know?

I bought the book because people I respected had liked it very much, but it wasn't for me. Like a lot of people, I gave mine away after struggling through the first fifty pages.

Trust your instincts.
WizardT

A few new links on ACIM:

http://www.jcim.net/overview.htm

It seems the Foundation for Inner Peace no longer owns ACIM, but a group called the Foundation for A Course in Miracles which was originally founded as the "teaching arm" of FIP. 

But, as this timeline shows:

http://www.jcim.net/time_line.htm

FACIM lost the copyright to the book in 2003. (?)

Also, this site claims that there was an earlier version of ACIM (Jesus' Course in Miracles) which underwent an extensive editorial process headed by Ken Wapnick who later worked for FIP.  He cut 25% of the first few chapters the site says.

It shows too that the Foundation for Inner Peace was previously named the Foundation for Parasensory Investigation.

Here's a link, too, with ACIM revision information (it's less neutral than the above sites):

http://www.faithfreedom.org/Articles/sina31214.htm

However, the faithfreedom link had an interesting blurb:

I wonder if Oprah bought the copies personally or if the network backers bought them.  Even if they paid half price that's $15,000.  But I suppose her show does gimmicky schtuff like that all the time.

The site also has a quote from a colleague of Helen Schucman's: