Re: What is 'The Course in Miracles' - promoted by Gratitude Training?

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ACIM dictates that guilt, fear, illness, and sin are only states of mind. I argue that it drains such terms of their rich and appropriate meanings.

At this point, we can look into the characters that developed ACIM. Helen Schucman, the channel or "scribe" for the ‘voice,’ grew up as an only child to Jewish parents in New York City. Her father was aloof to religious beliefs while her mother was an early “new ager” who sought spiritual truths from occult teachings and Theosophy. As a teenager Helen was attracted to the Catholic faith of her governess. She later opted for the more ‘holy spirit filled’ Baptist faith of a family housekeeper. By the time she entered New York University, Helen rejected her youthful visionary experiences and Christian leanings. She became a non-religious intellectual and married Louis Schucman who was also from a Jewish background. They shared a primarily secular worldview.

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The ACIM Lessons help a student break down (deconstruct) normal perceptions that ACIM views as aberrant. Typical of many New Age teachings, ACIM devalues words by emptying them of nuance and range of expression. All guilt is bad and there is no healthy version of guilt in ACIM. The same applies to sin, fear, doubt, illness, anxiety, and all negative thoughts—it is New Thought philosophy born again.

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ce399 | research archive (esoterica)
Wikipedia Removes A Course in Miracles “Controversy and Criticism” Section
Posted in Uncategorized by ce399 on 17/11/2010
Reunifying psychology of forgiveness and atonement

ACIM postulates that reclaiming the awareness of unity, which it terms “salvation,” is the one viable solution to the only actual problem facing seemingly separated minds, the problem of believing they are separate from each other and from God. This awareness dawns through the process of forgiveness, making up an overall plan of atonement, two concepts that ACIM redefines from traditional Christianity.

ACIM proposes forgiveness as the solution because, it explains, seemingly separated minds in the world feel guilt and fear of God stemming from the mistaken belief that they have offended or attacked God by separating from Him. These minds close off from the awareness from love, and love’s absence is felt as fear. They instead engage in judgment against the illusory world and against others, allowing psychological projection of the fear and guilt felt inside them outward onto seemingly external forces and actors. They believe that what is really coming from inside them is instead coming at them from outside, and so believe that problems are myriad, random, and unrelated, as opposed to there being only one problem, centered on belief in separation. These minds invariably become angry at these perceived external threats and attempt to attack them and defend against them, when in truth, ACIM claims, anger is never justified, attack has no foundation, and real strength lies only in defenselessness. These minds are locked in a cycle of experiencing imagined victimization and seeking impotently for solutions outside themselves, which is not where the true problem is, inside themselves. The solution to all this, ACIM concludes, is atonement, achieved through forgiveness.

Forgiveness in ACIM is not the letting go of actual slights and injuries inflicted by others, but is instead the recognition that others have not and indeed cannot harm or wrong the mind of the individual perceiver. This unorthodox outlook is possible, ACIM explains, because it is the mind of the perceiver, rather than anyone or anything else, who actually determines all the experiences that he will receive, and also because his mind is still as God created it, meaning that the events that seem to befall him in the world do not actually affect or change him in any real way.