Ask: Can you clarify the term "magic thoughts"?
“…. Could
you please clarify the use of the term 'magic thoughts'?...” – TB (November
13, 2015)
A
Course in Miracles
uses the concept of “magical thinking” in two ways. One form of magical
thinking is the belief that anything outside of you can make you whole and at
peace. For example, the belief that if you just had perfect health or the right
partner or enough money or if that person would change or if everyone just
believed as you do, etc. then you would be at peace. ACIM includes in this form
of magical thinking the idea that sickness is a form of problem solving. For
example, using illness as a way to get attention, to be a victim, to avoid a
situation, or as self-punishment to mitigate God’s punishment of you, etc. The
belief that the things that illness would get you “saves” you is a form of
magical thinking.
The other form
of magical thinking in ACIM is the belief that change at the level of form is
caused at the level of form. For example, the use of medications or other
treatments to reduce the symptoms of or to cure an illness in the body. ACIM
says that this is magical thinking because only changing your thinking can
change the body.
For those readers
who have followed my teaching in one form or another for a while I will head
off some inevitable questions by clarifying that yes, I teach only the former
not the latter, despite what ACIM teaches. What I have been taught by the Holy
Spirit is that thinking that healing the body is any true healing of me (mind)
is magical thinking. Physical healing does not heal the mind of the perception
that it is a body – the fundamental error of mind that needs to be corrected or
“healed”. This is in line with what ACIM teaches in part. But the Holy Spirit
has taught me that remedies at the level of form are
at the level of form. Medications and treatments are how solutions to bodily
ailments show up when one is ready for physical healing. Just as, if my house
has plumbing problems I need to call the plumber or if my car isn’t running
properly I need to take it to a mechanic. The body is not a “special case” of
form that is fixed somehow by a change of mind where other forms of disorder in
the universe of form are fixed at the level of form. This is where I have been
led away from what ACIM teaches.
>>>>>
Learn about the books The ACIM Mentor Articles, The Plain Language A Course in Miracles, 4 Habits for Inner Peace, and Releasing Guilt for Inner Peace at www.acimmentor.com.
Comments
While there is definitely room for a discussion about what part of the brain, or which `mind` is doing the healing, and I think it can be another ego trap to get stuck in making a big deal of practicing this kind of `healing`, I`m just going to end this with the assertion that it is really not a matter of who is right or wrong about this topic... we each need to follow our own guidance as we ask the Holy Spirit to assist us in forgiving ourselves for what we thought was `real`.
PEACE, LOVE and LIGHT..
In Oneness..
Frank
What you said was well written Frank. When I read Liz's piece it helped with understanding the hierarchy of illusions and just the illusion thing in general. I think the ego would have us get 'cocky' about understanding the principles. When we get that way it's a pretty good bet we have only scratched the surfaced of what it means. No reference to you Frank, just thinking out loud.
but just for the sake of clarity, maybe each Anonymous could end their post with an initial or even a number would be helpful...
The gift the Course would offer is singular and always given and received in the space between the notes, awaiting one who must inevitably find its stillness within. As this one who listens, found is this quiet center, and thus within is this one joined with heaven’s help to begin this seeming journey to our Self in earnest—the journey in truth finds us, and is unavoidable as simply a return to the essence of who we are! This attractive essence, like a fragrance, is awakened within the Course’s reader; this timeless, wordless memory, deeply felt is irreversibly received; apparently reflected from within the Course’s pages—often its student is drawn to it as if being given a gift from the symbol itself—at first, not to really understand this attraction, the gift, or its Source.
We begin on this journey seeing as a body, complicated, specific, serious, and are guided to see we are not mindless identities, but a dreaming mind. From this perspective, as a mind, simplicity of vision increases and the Course is seen to have a single message, of the heart; for one who once was lost and now can see, seeing ever clearer as a mind, as the knowing dreamer of the dream!
As with all such symbols, such gifts, seemingly having appeared by some method or person to come into this world, its gift can quickly devolve into the fearful opposite of what it was pointing to. All it asks is that we look to the dream to see who the dreamer is. Nothing more—but also nothing less. Many times and in a multitude of ways, the Course simply says, “nothing is true within a dream, see this and be the lucid dreamer, just before you gladly waken from it! All concepts used have no meaning within their tiny tethered bounds, only one purpose each would serve for one who sees, to see this choice is mine, the choice of which purpose it will fulfill: either to deepen this sleep of mindlessness, or to gently and mindfully wake up!”
Forgiveness is the Course’s key to leave the dream, and is the willing dreamer’s only purpose. Forgiveness is always first approached to be understood as a concept, though it’s goal is the absence of every concept. Beyond any acquired concept of what forgiveness is, there is an experience which leads to waking up, always to show its willing witness absolutely nothing in a dream is true or valuable. Lastly, and chief among the dreams illusions, is the self that continually binds and builds itself of concepts, as a hiding place for guilt.
It is this one the dreamer must be willing to see “as it is,” to then release it with the guilt it serves as slave, eventually given back to the dream, to be seen as wholly unreal just as all the rest. From here the total freedom of the Atonement forgiveness is leading toward is close—as a telling smile it bends across the dreamers face to wordlessly say: “absolutely known, is that nothing ever truly happens in a dream.” Onward this happy dreamer travels, unabated, and so it is, the “Real World” thus appears. This salvation, the “escape from concepts,” cannot be learned, only Known when all other knowing, all else, has dropped away! Here, revealed beyond this nothing of a dream, is the Awareness of Wholeness, the Everything Reality Is… eternally as it always Is!
T-31.V.14. “The concept of the self has always been the great preoccupation of the world. And everyone believes that he must find the answer to the riddle of himself. Salvation can be seen as nothing more than the escape from concepts.” (A revealing read: Self Concept Versus Self (T-31.V.)
T-31.V.17. “The world can teach no images of you unless you want to learn them. There will come a time when images have all gone by, and you will see you know not what you are. It is to this unsealed and open mind that truth returns, unhindered and unbound. Where concepts of the self have been laid by is truth revealed exactly as it is. When every concept has been raised to doubt and question, and been recognized as made on no assumptions that would stand the light, then is the truth left free to enter in its sanctuary, clean and free of guilt.”
T-27.VII.8-9. “No one can waken from a dream the world is dreaming for him. He becomes a part of someone else’s dream. He cannot choose to waken from a dream he did not make. Helpless he stands, a victim to a dream conceived and cherished by a separate mind. Careless indeed of him this mind must be, as thoughtless of his peace and happiness as is the weather or the time of day. It loves him not, but casts him as it will in any role that satisfies its dream. So little is his worth that he is but a dancing shadow, leaping up and down according to a senseless plot conceived within the idle dreaming of the world.
This is the only picture you can see; the one alternative that you can choose, the other possibility of cause, if you be not the dreamer of your dreams. And this is what you choose if you deny the cause of suffering is in your mind. Be glad indeed it is, for thus are you the one decider of your destiny in time. The choice is yours to make between a sleeping death and dreams of evil or a happy wakening and joy of life.”
I have Multiple Sclerosis, Rheumatoid Arthritis and Pan-uveitis which has caused permanent blindness. I've been on some form of chemotherapy for 30 years, and I'm only 48! So, needless to say, the healing of the body with the mind has been a big part of my spiritual journey. These illnesses are what brought me to my knees nine years ago and I begged for help from Jesus and I'd never talked to Jesus in my life! haha That must have been the moment I was willing because less than a week later ACIM dropped into my life. Fortunately, I found your teachings shortly after I started so I'm grateful for that.
I was experiencing a severe relapse of all three of my illnesses in May and I went into a place of extreme fear. I know enough now to go to Holy Spirit and ask for help. I was in such a state of confusion and guilt surrounding illness of my body. I was talking to Holy Spirit about this when I opened my email and there was your post about "A Different Approach to the Body". As I read it I felt this wave of relief, peace and joy wash over me liked I'd never experienced before. I knew at that moment it was the Holy Spirit answering me. That peace and trust in the Holy Spirit has not left me since that experience.
Nothing has changed with my illnesses, in fact, they are progressing. But I just talk to the Holy Spirit and I'm reminded of this line in your article: "The whole of the universe of form, as the opposite of Perfect Truth, is inherently dysfunctional".
It's about letting go of everything. I can't pick and choose what's good/bad or right/wrong because it's ALL insane. It's not personal. It just is.
Much love,
Sherry
I am once again watching myself scramble and scurry about, generally looking into any escape that will let me off the hook of recognizing where the problem really lies.
I've told myself too many times that the Course is not for me, as I went in search of other non-dual teachings that offered any/some kind of relief, and perhaps they helped, perhaps not. Regardless, I feel I couldn't have done otherwise, as fear manifesting as 'searching' is often hard to identify, at least for me.
Anyway, thanks again, for some reason your post really spoke to me. Especially the words about looking at the ego "as it is". I don't know what to make of much anymore, but because of your comments, I found myself coming back to His message and it has brought a modicum of relief.....
Laurie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVxErAFPg_U
www.spiritmessages.ca
Anonymous4 :D