 I was down staying with a woman and she got this email that came in and she said David I don't know how to answer this email to my friend would you answer it and basically the email said a course in miracles is nothing more than a Christian science rip-off and I just had to have the biggest laugh, Jesus and I had a good laugh at that because first let me give you a more historical context about non-dualism Non-dualistic teachings have been around for a long time many many centuries, you can go back to India, you can go back to China you know the course in miracles is a non-dualistic teaching science and health and Mary Baker Eddy's teaching is a non-dualistic teaching Mary Baker Eddy used Christian terminology because her she lived back with the transcendentalists and Walt Whitman and Thoreau and all these you know Emerson you know great great thinkers talk about new thought and even Quindy who was right before her so so you have a teacher will say like Mary Baker Eddy come along and she's gonna let fly and let rip with non-dualistic metaphysics back in the day Mark Twain and she was kind of, I mean she took flack big time Gary and I think we take shots, imagine back in that century a woman coming out and speaking these things I'm sure Mary Baker took a few shots back in those days too considering the culture but anyway here's a non-dualistic teaching and it's coming through in Christian terminology and that's why I had to laugh when I saw the email the Course in Miracles is nothing more than a Christian science rip-off who was basically saying that the Course in Miracles is like plagiarizing and repackaging a bunch of ideas that Mary Baker Eddy originated and then if you go back to the original Jesus that's when this whole plagiarism idea gets absolutely silly because you know the Gnostics, if you go back to some of the Gnostics teachings they were really great too and you can go throughout all the centuries so now let's roll it forward here to this century this is where it's absolutely funny when people seem to be circulating things around the internet and talking about Gary plagiarizing some version of the Gospel of Thomas that was on the internet before Gary wrote his book and I get these questions actually a lot of times where people will go on and they'll say that's plagiarism, that's lying, that's deception, this and this they say okay are you guys ready to do a little Course in Miracles now? let's practice a little Course in Miracles here now there seems to be this big flap that I hear about a lot between fact and fiction I remember we've mentioned with Marlon Morgan's book Mutant Message Down Under and Jimmy Twyman and some other series of lightning this is not kind of a new controversy or flap it's almost like a fad it's like how many, what's the fad? oh we got a fad just like with wealth it was fad to be poor, wealthy and now here we come around with another fad and the big assumption underneath is all these accusations which would be good to look at I think if we would have a nice conference we could talk about some of these things openly but it's like what about the underlying assumption about what's fact and fiction? what are the teachings of the Course in Miracles? they're teaching what? that this world is fiction is that debatable? no, it's not it's a projection to try to start to draw lines in between what is all unreal and say this is factual unreal and this is fiction unreal doesn't that sound funny? factual unreal and fiction unreal that's almost like saying I got factual error and fiction error ooh that sounds pretty funny too when there is a defense and attempt to divide this world up into those two separate camps the bait's already been bitten the ego's sitting back snickering at the assumption kind of laughing going gotcha again got another controversy to chase them and then to throw on top of that to actually throw accusation in a sense to try to belittle to show that there is no value to even put words in like this is going to hurt a lot of people in some kind of article that came out recently about how people are going to be so hurt wait a minute people let's get back to the Course in Miracles where is the practical application of the Course in Miracles when you don't even question the first assumption and you go out on a witch hunt or you go out pointing the finger and none of us are called to do that we are called to forgive completely to forgive and so these are the kind of things I point out where I just kind of watch this here we go the run in the mill controversy that comes around again and again and again and like Gary was saying earlier today it's just absolutely nothing it doesn't offer any value there is no worth to it people can say well this is like part of academic rigor and blah blah blah are you happy with academic rigor or is that going to bring you salvation and happiness so I think it's important that we're talking about these things this is the kind of thing that has to come into the public discussion there was a time when Gary and I were invited together to Canada and there was a few of us who were invited and we came together and that was where we just had a great connection and we shared and one thing I will say is the invitation is there if anybody really seriously wants to talk about these ideas in a very sincere way the door is open we are extremely public we are extremely transparent we share about our experiences in our life we just aren't writing to put the course up on a pedestal we're talking about from our parts how we're trying to live this really really trying to live this because it's really important and so to me I think these are like the key things you know and I know some people will say it's like a compromise approach oh it's a literary device literary device what is a literary device you know what does that really mean you know this I love this guy I enjoyed talking with people I get these questions all the time it's like a literary device I mean everything is a device that's being used by the Holy Spirit why do we have to break the devices up and we have to have devices and put them in different camps and which ones are more important and which ones are real and which ones are fake you know I mean really let's just practice in that sense you'll feel happy so I'm just glad we can come and set the record straight here put it right out there for everybody so we don't get sidetracked in all these ego controversies and issues that really have no point at all you can't say that they have some value they absolutely have no value whatsoever no no of course not I'm just kidding but since the camera is gone I just wanted to set the record straight or something it was that book was a new message down there model working James Twine was an emissary of life it was a book called A Million Little Pieces all of those books were demonstrated and eventually the authors said that they didn't really happen that there wasn't their real experience when it comes to the Dispersed Universe I've never said that because it did happen that's the difference between the Dispersed Universe and the message down there and emissaries of life A Million Little Pieces those things didn't happen but my experience in the Dispersed Universe in your own world we are that's the only difference that I'm going to point out I'm not making anybody go on those guys have done very well and I'm sure they're successful careers or whatever the only thing that I want to point out is that in my experience I don't care if anybody else believes it I really don't but I believe it because that was my experience