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Noble Realms → General Discussion → "A Course in Miracles"? Yay or Nay?
I read "Disappearance of the Universe" with some curiosity and interest. The writer supposedly had several spirits appear in his house and teach him about ACIM.
I could go along with the idea that everything is an illusion. However I find it difficult to grasp the idea that God has nothing to do with the world and doesn't even know it exists. God is everything or nothing.
Okay, I keep resurrecting this thread, but it's because I keep finding more tidbits of information.
I've been reading a book called Bluebird: The Deliberate Creation of Multiple Personalities by Psychiatrists" by Colin A. Ross, MD. In the chapter on brain electrode impants, William Thetford (who helped scribe ACIM) is mentioned. And he's also in the appendix.
Thetford was a subcontractor with the CIA for Project MKULTRA. He specifically received monies from the CIA to study "conversion hysterics" (that's when people manifest physical symptoms without a physical basis). He also did a study involving Hungarian refugees.
The information presented in Bluebird isn't detailed beyond noting that Thetford had Top Secret Clearance with the CIA. What that means is that he knew he was contracting with the CIA and knew his funds were coming from the CIA for those projects.
The book doesn't discuss Thetford's project and so it could have been, and probably was, ethical. Several of the MKULTRA experiments were not ethical, however (no informed consent).
The big question to me is: since Thetford participated in MKULTRA top secret clearance, how much did he know about the project as a whole?
It's been established that Thetford was a colleague with JW Gittinger (one of the chief psychiatrist for the MKULTRA experiments). Thetford and Gittinger authored papers together. And Gittinger HAS been linked to several experiments which involved a serious breach of ethics and which were geared toward the deliberate creation of multiples.
Edit:
Via www.wikipedia.org, I also learned that Thetman worked as an administrative assistant for the Manhattan Project and also, after moving to California, was a psychological consultant at Travis Air Force Base. This says nothing in itself, but does demonstrate that he had a long-standing relationship with the military-industrial complex.
I haven't had a chance to look over it entirely, but here's a link that claims that mind control has taken place out of Travis Air Force Base:
http://www.mindcontrolforums.com/v/intro3.htm
Hello,
I began to read A Course in Miracles and found it very interesting.
Then I began to feel very strange(almost crazy) when reading the book.
I also met one of the "teachers" of ACIM and felt he was just menattly awaken, but he had no charisma and was just smiling all the time and saying nice things about love and joy, but any little singer or musician can create more joy and love than him.
I wanted to know if some people read it or have experiences about it.
Please, I'd really like to have posts of people who have experience, not just ideas found on internet;)
I read the entire book and made 160 lessons, but the more I was involved with the book, the more I felt strange and separated from the world...Funny thing when the book tells you that God and the world makes one, then if you're separated from the world, you're NOT with God, you're in YOUR mind (mental).
I met a "teacher" of the book from the USA and he looked like a "always happy robot", just smiling but feeling cold. We went to the restaurant and when I asked him if he liked the food, he almost couldn't answer, as if it was "bugging" in his mind.
From my experience, this book can really awaken your mental but it won't awake your heart because it negates the body...
This book is like a really good medication with a little poison in it, which you don't see or smell enough to stop the treatment.
It needs years of work on the book to get really infected and be a "happy robot"...
As a friend always tells me,if you want to sell a lie to million people, you have to put 95% truth in it:-)
I read the entire book and made 160 lessons, but the more I was involved with the book, the more I felt strange and separated from the world...
I felt disconnection after the first two lessons.
And, that's interesting what you say about it stimulating the mind, but not the heart. That is what I felt when I (briefly) studied it--the more I studied it the more I felt "Why bother." It sapped my passion as I read it.
My roommate is into Marriane Williamson, who as far as I can tell is something of a deciple of ACIM, basically regurgitating its principals in a pocket book self-help format.
He's always saying things like 'everything but love is an illusion' and that the only thing he cares about is 'joy and love.' He's a person who doesn't want to deal with his own shit, basically, and this philosophy tells him that it's okay, in fact he is on the right path in denying the existance of fucked-up-shit.
I can see how this way of thinking could really be a powerful control mechanism, a mental and spiritual block for many would-be light workers. If someone is convinced that anything bad isn't real and that it's enlightening to be only with love and joy, then someone is also convinced that it's okay, even preferable not to do a damned thing about all the FUS (fucked-up-shit).
It makes me think of living in a hot-air balloon. It's nice, but eventually the gas is going to run out and i wonder how much that ground rushing up is going to seem like an 'illusion.'
Mencius
Err, she.
I can see how this way of thinking could really be a powerful control mechanism, a mental and spiritual block for many would-be light workers. If someone is convinced that anything bad isn't real and that it's enlightening to be only with love and joy, then someone is also convinced that it's okay, even preferable not to do a damned thing about all the FUS (fucked-up-shit).
It makes me think of living in a hot-air balloon. It's nice, but eventually the gas is going to run out and i wonder how much that ground rushing up is going to seem like an 'illusion.'
Mencius
That's excatly how I feel, this book works like a very juicy piece of meat in a trap for animals, it just attracts people seeking for enlightenment with a very good theoretical support but once you're totally in there, the door closes and you're trapped.
I fell in a lot of traps for truth seekers, but this one is probably the best, because they don't ask for money and the book is cheap or free, so you are less wary than you could be when you follow a 500 dollars seminar.
Actually they did a very vicious work but it's so well done we can just congratulate them!
I support ACIM, but also give some caveats:
- ACIM (the workbook) calibrates at 600 per Hawkins' Map of Consciousness Scale.
- ACIM (the text) calibrates at 550, due to the mistake of demonizing the ego as something evil to be conquered instead of accepting it compassionately and healing it
- both do not calibrate at 1000, meaning that there are errors in it and it is not infallible
During Dr. Hawkins' spiritual journey, he used to teach ACIM, and he said that he had seen people with every kind of disease known to mankind spontaneously remit due to intense spiritual work with ACIM.
I think of ACIM (the workbook) as a handy practical guide to enlightenment, and NOT a source of serious spiritual study. To really understand spirituality I look to mystics like Dr. Hawkins, Ramana Maharshi and Nisargadatta Maharaj, and traditions like Advaita Vedanta, Buddhism, etc. They put everything in the right perspective and context. But in the end, spirituality is not just something to understand on the level of mind, but something to be put into practice in daily life -- and that is where ACIM plays its part. Don't look into it for understanding, but look into it for the practical exercises. You can just do the exercises without reading the explanations or the text, and you'll probably get close to all of the benefits in it. The understandings will come later, by experiential revelation, which is what really matters.
The key lesson in ACIM is forgiveness, and just learning that one lesson thoroughly will take you all the way up the levels of consciousness.
And to address the issues other people have raised... I see two answers to them:
1) those people did not get the point of the exercises, and did not really improve (which is ok, because spiritual work takes time -- at least they're not whining about their circumstances like before, lol! 
)
2) these changes are changes in perception / context, not in content. People may still have shitty lives, but to them it really doesn't matter anymore. This is where spiritual work really pays off.
I personally have done some of the lessons in ACIM, and I think they're great. The "floaty" or "dreamy" effect you get is probably due to semi-expanded state of consciousness beyond what you're normally used to. After studying nonduality for a year or so, all the ACIM stuff makes perfect sense
My $.02 
Namaste
Two friends struggling to find themselves have repeatedly taken this course by book. I just this week was briefly exposed to the book as I read the introduction. I know little of the content, but understand the context a bit. These two have witnessed some rather eye-opening synchronicities with me. I have attracted their interest and curiosity as I go about being and living as I am, or should I say as authentically as I feel I can. My expressions of love and forgiveness are rooted in the heart; theirs I believe is found in their advanced intellect. They test me daily it seems.
I'm happy that they are putting efforts into dealing with their lives of compromised virtue, and extend what compassion I can. What seems to irritate them the most is that I am filled with joy and enthusiasm which appears to transfer or induce a painful reaction in them. I try to tone myself down to their level of "imitation light and love" the best I can for their sake. I spent far too much effort sharing wisdom and observation with them before I recognized that they lack a connection to themselves. There seems to exist an emptyness behind their Buddhic smiles of learned joy. I now sit carefully and listen to the small voice inside myself as I observe them seeking miracles via manipulation and self control. My own self-control is now the artificiality presented so they can blossom. I don't know how long before another profound synchronicity will occur and they will turn on me again. Patience is a virtue.
"Doubt the mystery"
~~carefulcarpenter
And to address the issues other people have raised... I see two answers to them:
1) those people did not get the point of the exercises...
I found the exercises to be contradictory. One exercise is: (paraphrasing) "Realize that everything you see is God; the chair is God, the coathanger is God, etc., etc." And then another exercise, a few pages later, tells you: "Realize that everything you see is illusion; the chair is illusion, the coathanger is illusion, etc., etc."
If "God" is infinite, is everywhere, then God is in the coathanger. If the coathanger is an illusion, then God is an illusion. All is illusion, all is God, all is illusion...
As far as the mistake of demonizing the ego...that's a pretty big mistake.
As far as forgiveness as ACIM's key message: I guess I agree with that, but truth can be dimmed by lies.
Nay! Another book of channeled messages. Crap! crap! Were smarter than this!
Ethereal wrote:And to address the issues other people have raised... I see two answers to them:
1) those people did not get the point of the exercises...
I found the exercises to be contradictory. One exercise is: (paraphrasing) "Realize that everything you see is God; the chair is God, the coathanger is God, etc., etc." And then another exercise, a few pages later, tells you: "Realize that everything you see is illusion; the chair is illusion, the coathanger is illusion, etc., etc."
If "God" is infinite, is everywhere, then God is in the coathanger. If the coathanger is an illusion, then God is an illusion. All is illusion, all is God, all is illusion...
As far as the mistake of demonizing the ego...that's a pretty big mistake.
As far as forgiveness as ACIM's key message: I guess I agree with that, but truth can be dimmed by lies.
They are excercises, practices, they themselves are not important it is what they bring about. The goal is the realisation of oneness, you can either affirm everything or deny everything, everything is God or everything is illusion, either way everything is of the same substance and distinctions are void.
I think this book wants us to go back to a kind of vegetable state, where every concious is the same. It's an "anti-creation" thing.
What's the point of getting a soul and consciousness if we all have to go back to that oneness?
I have never read ACIM, but I remember reading Marianne Williamson's book A Return to Love (which is heavily based on ACIM) when I was around 15. At the time I was going to a really scary christian school and struggling against being brainwashed every day. MW's book clicked with a lot of the concepts the school was pushing on me - doing god's will, forgiving everyone - just phrasing it in a more appealing way. I think ACIM is targeted at people who are on the rebound from christian programming and looking for a fast way to dump the guilt and shame that goes with it.
Noble Realms → General Discussion → "A Course in Miracles"? Yay or Nay?
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