Product Description

This book provides an in-depth introduction to the principles of "A Course in Miracles." It first explains the central ideas in the ego's thought system of sin, guilt, and fear, and its defenses of denial and projection. Next, the Holy Spirit's thought system of forgiveness is explained, showing specifically how it and the miracle undo the ego's chief defense against the Love of God: special relationships. Included also are chapters on the purpose of Jesus' life, and the story of how the Course came to be written.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #231229 in Books
• Published on: 1996-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 131 pages

About the Author
Kenneth Wapnick has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and has been working with "A Course in Miracles" since 1973, when he joined Helen Schucman, scribe of the Course, and William Thetford at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York. In addition, he worked closely with Helen preparing the final manuscript of the Course. Since that time he has lectured widely on "A Course in Miracles", as well as conducted a practice in psychotherapy. He has written many books on the Course and he has also produced numerous tape sets explaining and discussing the principles of the Course. He is President and co-founder with his wife Gloria of the Foundation for "A Course in Miracles" in Roscoe, New York, which is the copyright holder of the Course, as well as being its teaching center. Together they have travelled nationally and internationally giving workshops on the Course.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
From pages 86-89:

This idea of judgment is extremely important. According to the Holy Spirit, again, there are only two judgments that we could ever make about anyone or anything in this world. It is either an expression of love or a call for love. There is no other alternative possible, which makes living in this world very simple once you think like this. If someone is expressing love to me, then how can I respond in any other way except to express love back? If a brother or sister of mine is calling for love, how can I react in any other way than to give that love? Again, it makes living in this world very simple. This means no matter what we do, no matter what the world seems to do to us, our response will always be one of love, which really makes everything very simple. As the Course says, "complexity is of the ego" (T-15.IV.6:2), whereas simplicity is of God. As we follow God's principles, everything we do will always be the same. The section at the end of Chapter 15 was written down at New Year's, and Jesus suggests a New Year's resolution to "make this year different by making it all the same" (T-15.XI.10:11). If you see that everything is either an expression of love or a call for love, then you will always react in the same way: with love.

Forgiveness is my looking beyond the darkness of your attack and seeing it instead as a call for light. That is the vision of Christ, and the goal of A Course in Miracles is to help us to meet every situation and person in our lives, without exception, with that vision. To make a single exception is really to say that there is some part of myself that I want to keep shrouded in the darkness of guilt and never have it freed by the light. The way that I will do that is to project it onto you and to see that spot of darkness in you. The final vision of the Course comes on the very last page of the text where it says that "not one spot of darkness still remains to hide the face of Christ from anyone" (T-31.VIII.12:5). Then all the darkness of the guilt in ourselves will be undone. Then we will see the face of Christ which, incidentally, is not the face of Jesus. The face of Christ is the face of innocence that we will see in everyone in the world. At that point we have attained the vision of Christ and that is what the Course refers to as the real world, which is the final goal before Heaven.

What this means in terms of how we live our lives is that we can see every single thing that occurs -- from the moment that we are born to the moment that we die, from the moment that we wake each day to the moment that we go to bed each night -- as an opportunity that the Holy Spirit can use to help us see ourselves as guiltless. The way that we look upon the people in our lives is the way that we look on ourselves. Therefore, those people who are the most difficult and the most problematic are the greatest gift to us because if we can heal our relationship with them, then what we are really doing is healing our relationship with God.

Every single problem that we see in someone else, that we wish to exclude from our own lives, is really the secret wish to exclude some part of our guilt from ourselves so that we do not have to let it go. That is the ego's attraction of guilt. The best way to hold on to our guilt is to hit someone else over the head. Whenever we are tempted to do that, the Course tells us that there is Someone with us Who will tap us on the shoulder and say: "My brother, choose again" (T-31.VIII.3:2). And the choice is always whether to forgive or not to forgive. The choice we make to forgive someone else is the same choice we make to forgive ourselves. There is no difference between inside and outside; everything is a projection of what we feel inside. If we feel guilt inside, then that is what we will project outside. If we feel the Love of God inside, then that is what we will extend outside. All people and all circumstances in our lives offer us the opportunity of seeing what is inside the projector of our own minds; they offer us the opportunity to make another choice. From pages 104-105:

Now let me talk a little bit about the role of God and the Holy Spirit in this. One of the important qualities of A Course in Miracles is that it is a religious book. It is not just a self-help book, or a sound psychological system which, of course, it is too. It is also a deeply religious book. Its religious aspects are centered on two points of view. The first is that without God we have nothing left but the ego. Unless we know that there is a God Who created us, Whose Son we are, we are stuck with whatever image or perception we have about ourselves which will always be some offshoot of the ego. True forgiveness is impossible unless it is first nourished in the belief that we are invulnerable. In other words, we cannot be harmed by anyone or anything in the world; such a belief is impossible unless we know that there is a God Who created us and Who loves us. So this is the foundation for the whole thought system that the Holy Spirit is offering us, as expressed by the Course.

The second part of the importance of God in all this is a little more practical. True forgiveness is impossible without the Holy Spirit. This is true from two points of view. First, we are not the ones who forgive; we are not the ones who undo guilt. Strictly speaking, when A Course in Miracles speaks of forgiveness, it is really speaking of the decision we make to let the Holy Spirit's forgiveness come through us. In and of ourselves we can never forgive, because in and of ourselves, at least in this world, we are the ego. We cannot change a thought system from within the thought system. We need help from outside the thought system -- help that enters into the thought system and then transforms it. That help from outside of the ego's thought system is the Holy Spirit. So He is the One Who forgives through us.

The second thing is even more important and will answer a number of questions that people have raised. Forgiveness is the most difficult thing in the world, which is why hardly anyone does it and why the whole concept of forgiveness that Jesus gave was so bitterly misunderstood from the time he gave it. The reason is that when we truly forgive, as the Course speaks of it, we are really letting go of our own guilt. And no one who identifies with the ego wants to do this. Without God's help there is no way that we can get through some of the deeper problems of guilt that will confront us.

Customer Reviews

A simple overview of "Course" theory
This is a 135-page transcript of a May 9th, 1981 workshop led by Mr. Wapnick in Madison, Connecticut. It is broken down into five chapters:

CHAPTER ONE: "The Story of A Course In Miracles" - In this chapter Kenneth Wapnick gives an overview of the "scribing" of the Course and the two key characters involved: Drs. Helen Schucman and William Thetford. My favorite part of this chapter is the retelling of the highly symbolic dreams Helen had before the scribing began, and the trip that Helen and William took to Chicago. "And this is my true church," Helen heard when she offered to help a young lady she met in the airport; this lady was afraid because she had just left her husband and was about to take her first flight.

CHAPTER TWO: "One-mindedness: The World of Heaven" - In this chapter, Mr. Wapnick tells the reader that A COURSE IN MIRACLES represents three different thought systems: One-mindedness, which represents Heaven; wrong-mindedness, which represents the thought system of the ego; and right-mindedness, which represents the thought system of the Holy Spirit. Obviously, it is the thought system of Heaven - One-mindedness - that is discussed here.

CHAPTER THREE: "Wrong-mindedness: The Thought System of the Ego" - In this chapter the thought system of the ego is discussed. This includes: sin, guilt, fear, denial and projection, the attack-defense cycle, and the "special relationship" where one loves in another what appears to be lacking within oneself.

CHAPTER FOUR: "Right-mindedness: The Holy Spirit's Thought System" - In this chapter we learn that right-mindedness is based on viewing this world as the classroom in which we learn the lessons of forgiveness. The relationship between anger and forgiveness is discussed, as well as the meaning of the word "miracle" as used in A COURSE IN MIRACLES (the Course has its own unique definition of the word).

CHAPTER FIVE: "Jesus: The Purpose of His Life" - Jesus' role as the symbolic source of A COURSE IN MIRACLES is discussed. The Course's reinterpretation of the crucifixion is also discussed. What I found most interesting about this chapter is Mr. Wapnick's interpretation of Jesus' anger in the Temple. And I like this line: "Ultimately, we cannot accept the Course if we do not accept the fact that death is an illusion."

Throughout all of the above chapters, questions and answers are exchanged between the audience and presenter. I like this because it gives the feeling of having been there, as though you are not reading this book by yourself. This "conversational" format also provides an occasionally much-needed breath of air, since the topics covered can be very intense and the ego has great resistance to listening.

As with almost all books published by Foundation for A Course In Miracles, this book ends with a vision statement for the Foundation as well as an index to all Course references and their place in the Course proper. There is also a catalogue of other Foundation publications.

This is a cute little book with some powerful teachings, and is available for a very low price. I recommend it to students of the Course, or anyone wondering what the Course is.

I See the Light
I have been a student of A Course in Miracles (ACIM) for almost a year and a half. So you can see that I'm very new at it. It's not the easiest book to understand, but before I began I had read Gary Renard's Disappearance of the Universe. I recommend his book unconditionally, by the way. But there were still gaps in my understanding. This tiny book by Wapnick is a perfect gem. He takes very complicated issues and breaks them up in such a way that my reaction was - "Of course!". For instance, he talks about how the course represents three different thought systems: One-mindedness (Heaven), wrong-mindedness (ego), and right-mindedness (Holy Spirit). Then he talks about the course being written on two levels (the difference between the One Mind and the split mind, and the difference between wrong and right-mindedness). He also uses wonderful images. One of my favorites is where he talks about the mind being healed gradually, but us not being aware of it and getting discouraged. He says, though, that we must think of it as going around and around a well. We are getting closer and closer to the bottom, but to us it seems that we are going in circles. I can't recommend this book highly enough. I'm on my second time thru it, and figure that I will reread it at least one more time after that.

I loved the very last chapter
The very last chapter is about Jesus, forgivness, and the crucifixion. For the first time, I understand how transcending effect can undo cause. By forgiving, I can undo the effect of an attack. A cause which had no effect wasn't actually a cause, now was it? If I can undo cause, I have erased guilt. Without guilt, there is only innocence. This is how we can absolve the world we see of sin. Amazing!

Now, consider this. This principle has to work both ways. If I can undo cause by not being effected, then I can create cause by being effected. I can feel loved, and elect you as the cause of it.

(Yes, it's still illussion, but what a delicious illussion. The reason it's illussion, is that in either case, I am secretly the cause... shhhh, don't tell anybody).