 Fantasies of any kind are distorted forms of thinking because they always involve twisting perception into unreality. Fantasy is a debased form of vision. Vision and revelation are closely related while fantasy and projection are more closely associated because both attempt to control external reality according to false internal needs. Twist reality in any way and you are perceiving destructively. Reality was lost through usurpation which in turn produced tyranny. I told you that you are now restored to your former role in the plan of atonement but you must still choose freely to devote yourself to the greater restoration. As long as a single slave remains to walk the earth your release is not complete. Complete restoration of the sonship is the only true goal of the miracle minded. No fantasies are true. They are distortions of perception by definition. They are a means of making false associations and obtaining pleasure from them. Man can do this only because he is creative but although he can perceive false associations he can never make them real except to himself. Man believes in what he creates. If he creates miracles he will be equally strong in his belief in them. The strength of his conviction will thus sustain the belief the miracle receiver and fantasies become totally unnecessary as the wholly satisfying nature of reality becomes apparent to both. Deallusion of separation. This section deals with the fundamental misuse of knowledge referred to in the Bible as the cause of the fall or separation. There are some definitions which I ask you to take from the dictionary which won't be helpful here. They are somewhat unusual since they are not the first definitions which are given. Nevertheless the fact that each of them does appear in the dictionary should be reassuring. Project verb to extend forward or out. Project noun a plan in the mind. World a natural grand division. We will refer later to projection as related to both mental health and mental illness. We have already observed that man can create an empty shell but he cannot create nothing at all. This emptiness provides the screen for the misuse of projection. The Garden of Eden which is described as a little garden in the Bible was not an actual garden at all. It was merely a mental state of complete need lack. Even in the literal account it is noteworthy that the pre-separation state was essentially one in which man needed nothing. The Tree of Knowledge is also an overly literal figure. These concepts need to be clarified before the real meaning of the separation or the detour into fear can be fully understood. To project as to find above is a fundamental attribute of God which he gave to his son. In the creation God projected his creative ability from himself to the souls he created and he also imbued them with the same loving will to create. The soul has not only been fully created but has also been created perfect. There is no emptiness in it. Because of its likeness to its creator it is creative. No child of God can lose his ability because it is inherent in what he is but he can use it inappropriately. Whenever projection is used inappropriately it always implies that some emptiness or lack exists and that it is in man's ability to put his own ideas there instead of truth. If you consider carefully what this entails the following will become quite apparent. First the assumption is implicit that what God created can be changed by the mind of man. Second the concept that what is perfect can be rendered imperfect or wanting is accepted. Third the belief that man can distort the creations of God including himself is accepted. Fourth the idea that since man can create himself the direction of his own creation is up to him is implied. These related distortions represent a picture of what actually occurred in the separation. None of this existed before nor does it actually exist now. The world was made as a natural grand division or a projecting outward of God. That is why everything that he created is like him. Projection as undertaken by God is very similar to the kind of inner radiance which the children of the Father inherit from him. It is important to note that the term project outward necessarily implies that the real source of projection is internal. This is as true of the Son as of the Father. The world in the original connotation of the term included both the proper creation of man by God and the proper creation by man in his right mind. The letter required the endowment of man by God with free will because all loving creation is freely given. Nothing in these statements implies any sort of level involvement or in fact anything except one continuous line of creation in which all aspects are of the same order. When the lies of the serpent were introduced they were specifically called lies because they are not true. When man listened all he heard was untruth. He does not have to continue to believe what is not true unless he chooses to do so. All of his miscreations can literally disappear in the twinkling of an eye because they are merely visual misperceptions. Man's spiritual eye can sleep but a sleeping eye can still see. What is seen in dreams seems to be very real. The Bible mentions that a deep sleep fell upon Adam and nowhere is there any reference to his waking up. The history of man in the world as he sees it has not yet been marked by any genuine or comprehensive reawakening or rebirth. This is impossible as long as man projects in the spirit of miscreation. It still remains within him however to project as God projected his own spirit to him. In reality this is his only choice because his free will was given him for his own joy in creating the perfect. All fear is ultimately reducible to the basic misperception that man has the ability to usurp the power of God. It can only be emphasized that he neither can nor has been able to do this. In this fact lies the real justification for his escape from fear. The escape is brought about by his acceptance of the atonement which places him in a position to realize that his own errors never really occurred. When the deep sleep fell upon Adam he was in a condition to experience nightmares because he was asleep. If a light is suddenly turned on while someone is dreaming a fearful dream he may initially interpret the light itself as a part of his own dream and be afraid of it. However when he awakens the light is correctly perceived as the release from the dream which is no longer accorded reality. It is quite apparent that this release does not depend on the kind of knowledge which is nothing more than deceiving lies. The knowledge which illuminates rather than obscures is the knowledge which not only sets you free but which also shows you clearly that you are free. Whatever lies you may believe are of no concern to the miracle which can heal any of them with equal ease. It makes no distinction among misperceptions. It's all concern is to distinguish between truth on the one hand and all kinds of errors on the other. Some miracles may seem to be of greater magnitude than others but remember the first point in this course that there is no order of difficulty in miracles. In reality you are perfectly unaffected by all expressions of lack of love. These can be either from yourself and others or from yourself to others or from others to you. Peace is an attribute in you. You cannot find it outside. All mental illness is some form of external searching. Mental health is inner peace. It enables you to remain unshaken by lack of love from without and capable through your own miracles of correcting the external conditions which proceed from lack of love in others. The interpretation of defenses. When you are afraid of anything you are acknowledging its power to hurt you. Remember that where your heart is there is your treasure also. This means that you believe in what you value. If you are afraid you are valuing wrongly. Human understanding will inevitably value wrongly and by endowing all human thoughts with equal power will inevitably destroy peace. This is why the Bible speaks of the peace of God which passes human understanding. This peace is totally incapable of being shaken by human errors of any kind. It denies the ability of anything which is not of God to affect you in any way. This is the proper use of denial. It is not used to hide anything but to correct error. It brings all error into the light. And since error and darkness are the same it corrects error automatically. True denial is a powerful protective device. This kind of denial is not a concealment device but a correction device. The right mind or the mentally healthy depends on it. You can do anything I ask. I have asked you to perform miracles and have made it clear that miracles are natural, corrective, healing and universal. There is nothing good they cannot do but they cannot be performed in the spirit of doubt. God and the souls He created are completely dependent on each other. This soul has already been perfectly accomplished but the creation by souls has not. God created souls so He could depend on them because He created them perfectly. He gave them His peace so they could not be shaken and would be unable to be deceived. Whenever you are afraid you are deceived. Your mind is not serving the soul. This literally styles the soul by denying its daily bread. God offers only mercy. Your words should reflect only mercy because that is what you have received and that is what you should give. Justice is a temporary expedient or an attempt to teach man the meaning of mercy. Its judgmental side arises only because man is capable of injustice if that is what his mind creates. You are afraid of God's will because you have used your own will which he created in the likeness of his own to miscreate. What you do not realize is that the mind can miscreate only when it is not free. An imprisoned mind is not free by definition. It is possessed or held back by itself. Its will is therefore limited and is not free to assert itself. The real meaning of are of one kind which was mentioned before is are of one mind or will. When the will of the sonship and the father are one their perfect accord is heaven. Denial of error is a powerful defense of truth. You will note that we have been shifting the emphasis from the negative to the positive use of denial. As we have already stated denial is not a purely negative device it results in positive miscreation. That is the way the mentally ill do employ it but remember a very early thought of your own never underestimate the power of denial. In the service of the right mind the denial of error frees the mind and re-establishes the freedom of the will. When the will is really free it cannot miscreate because it recognizes only truth. My own role in the atonement is one of true projection. I can project to you the affirmation of truth. If you project error to me or to yourself you are interfering with the process. My use of projection which can also be yours is not based on faulty denial. It does involve however the very powerful use of the denial of errors. The miracle worker is one who accepts my kind of denial and projection, unites his own inherent abilities to deny and project with mine and imposes them back on himself and others. This establishes the total lack of threat anywhere. Together we can then work for the real time of peace which is eternal. The improper use of defenses is quite widely recognized but their proper use has not been sufficiently understood as yet. They can indeed create man's perceptions both of himself and of the world. They can distort or correct depending on what you use them for. Denial should be directed only to error and projection should be reserved only for truth. You should truly give as you have truly received. The golden rule can work effectively only on this basis. Intellectualization is a term which stems from the mind-brain confusion. Right-mindedness is the device which defends the right mind and gives it control over the body. Intellectualization implies a split while right-mindedness involves healing. Withdrawal is properly employed in the service of withdrawing from the meaningless. It is not a device for escape but for consolidation. There is only one mind. Dissociation is quite similar. You should split off or dissociate yourself from error but only in defensive integration. Detachment is essentially a weaker form of dissociation. Flight can be undertaken in whatever direction you choose but note that the concept itself implies flight from something. Flight from error is perfectly appropriate. Distantiation can be properly used as a way of putting distance between yourself and what you should fly from. Regression is an effort to return to your original state. It can thus be utilized to restore rather than to go back to the less mature. Sublimation should be a redirection of effort to the sublime. There are many other so-called dynamic concepts which are profound errors due essentially to the misuse of defences. Among them is a concept of different levels of aspiration which actually result from level confusion. However, the main point to be understood from this section is that you can defend truth as well as error and in fact much better. The means are easier to clarify after the value of the goal itself is firmly established. Everyone defends his own treasure. You do not have to tell him to do so because he will do it automatically. The real question still remains what do you treasure and how much do you treasure it. Once you have learned to consider these two questions and to bring them into all your actions as the true criteria for behavior, I will have little difficulty in clarifying the means. You have not learned to be consistent about this as yet. I have therefore concentrated on showing you that the means are available whenever you ask. You can, however, save a lot of time if you do not extend this step unduly. The correct focus will shorten it immeasurably. The Atonement is the only device which cannot be used destructively. That is because while everyone must eventually join it, it is not a device which was generated by man. The Atonement principle was an effect long before the Atonement itself began. The principle was love and the Atonement itself was an act of love. Acts were not necessary before the separation because the time-space belief did not exist. It was only after the separation that the defense of the Atonement and the necessary conditions for its fulfillment were planned. It became increasingly apparent that all the defenses which man can choose to use constructively or destructively were not enough to save him. It was therefore decided that he needed a defense which was so splendid that he could not misuse it, although he could refuse it. His choice could not, however, turn it into a weapon of attack, which is the inherent characteristic of all other defenses. The Atonement thus becomes the only defense which is not a two-edged sword. The Atonement actually began long before the crucifixion. Many souls offered their efforts on behalf of the separated ones, but they could not withstand the strength of the attack and had to be brought back. Angels came too, but their protection did not suffice because the separated ones were not interested in peace. They had already split their minds and were bent on further dividing rather than reintegrating. The levels they introduced into their minds turned against each other and they established differences, divisions, cleavages, dispersions and all the other concepts related to the increasing splits which they produced. Not being in their right minds, they turned their defenses from protection to assault and acted literally insanely. It was essential to introduce a split-proof device which could be used only to heal if it were used at all. The Atonement was built into the space-time belief in order to set a limit on the need for the belief and ultimately to make learning complete. The Atonement is the final lesson. Learning itself like the classrooms in which it occurs is temporary. The ability to learn has no value when change of understanding is no longer necessary. The eternally creative have nothing to learn. Only after the separation was it necessary to direct the creative forces to learning because changed behavior had become mandatory. Men can learn to improve their behavior and can also learn to become better and better learners. This serves to bring them into closer and closer accord with the sunship but the sunship itself is a perfect creation and perfection is not a matter of degrees. Only while they are different degrees is learning meaningful. The evolution of man is merely a process by which he proceeds from one degree to the next. He corrects his previous missteps by stepping forward. This represents a process which is actually incomprehensible in temporal terms because the Atonement is the device by which he can free himself from the past as he goes ahead. It undoes his past errors thus making it unnecessary for him to keep retracing his steps without advancing to his return. In this sense the Atonement saves time but like the miracle which serves it does not abolish it. As long as there is need for Atonement there is need for time. But the Atonement as a completed plan does have a unique relationship to time until the Atonement is finished its various phases will proceed in time but the whole Atonement stands at time's end. At this point the bridge of the return has been built. The Atonement is a total commitment. You still think this is associated with loss. This is the same mistake all the separated ones make in one way or another. They cannot believe that a defense which cannot attack is the best defense. That is what is meant by the meek shall inherit the earth. They will literally take it over because of their strength. A two-way defense is inherently weak precisely because it has two edges and can turn against the self quite unexpectedly. This cannot be controlled except by miracles. The miracle turns the defense of Atonement to the protection of the inner self which as it becomes more and more secure assumes its natural talent of protecting others. The inner self knows itself as both a brother and a son. You know that when defenses are disrupted there is a period of real disorientation accompanied by fear, guilt and usually vacillations between anxiety and depression. This course is different in that defenses are not being disrupted but reinterpreted even though you may experience it as the same thing. In the reinterpretation of defenses only their use for attack is lost. Since this means they can be used only one way they become much stronger and much more dependable. They no longer oppose the Atonement but greatly facilitate it. The Atonement can only be accepted within you. You have perceived it largely as external thus far and that is why your experience of it has been minimal. The reinterpretation of defenses is essential in releasing the inner light. Since the separation man's defenses have been used almost entirely to defend himself against the Atonement and thus maintain the separation. They themselves generally see this as a need to protect the body. The many body fantasies which men's minds engage arise from the distorted belief that the body can be used as a means for retaining Atonement. Receiving the body as a temple is only the first step in correcting this kind of distortion. It all is part of this misperception but not all of it. It does recognize however that the concept of Atonement in physical terms is not appropriate. However the next step is to realize that a temple is not a building at all. Its real holiness lies in the inner altar around which the building is built. The inappropriate emphasis men have put on beautiful church buildings is a sign of their fear of Atonement and their unwillingness to reach the altar itself. The real beauty of the temple cannot be seen with the physical eye, the spiritual eye on the other hand cannot see the building at all because it is perfect sight. It can however see the altar with perfect clarity. For perfect effectiveness the Atonement belongs at the center of the inner altar where it undoes the separation and restores the wholeness of the mind. Before the separation the mind was invulnerable to fear because fear did not exist. Both the separation and the fear are miscreations of the mind which must be undone. This is what is meant by the restoration of the temple. It does not mean the restoration of the building but the opening of the altar to receive the Atonement. This heals the separation and places within man the one defenced against all separation mind arrows which can make him perfectly invulnerable. The acceptance of the Atonement by everyone is only a matter of time. In fact both time and matter were created for this purpose. This appears to contradict free will because of the inevitability of the final decision. If you review the idea carefully however you will realize that this is not true. Everything is limited in some way by the manner of its creation. Free will can temporize and is capable of enormous procrastination but it cannot depart entirely from its creator who set the limits on its ability to miscreate by virtue of its own real purpose. The misuse of will engenders a situation which in the extreme becomes altogether intolerable. Pain thresholds can be higher but they are not limitless. Eventually everyone begins to recognize however dimly that there must be a better way. As this recognition becomes more firmly established it becomes a perceptual turning point. This ultimately reawakens the spiritual eye simultaneously weakening the investment in physical sight. The alternating investment in the two types of levels of perception is usually experienced as conflict for a long time and can become very acute but the outcome is as certain as God. The spiritual eye literally cannot see error and merely looks for atonement. All the solutions which are physical eyes seek dissolve in its sight. The spiritual eye which looks within recognizes immediately that the altar has been defiled and needs to be repaired and protected. Perfectly aware of the right defence it passes over all others looking past error to truth. Because of the real strength of its vision it pulls the will into its service and impels the mind to concur. This re-establishes the true power of the will and makes it increasingly unable to tolerate delay. The mind then realizes with increasing certainty that delay is only a way of increasing unnecessary pain which it need not tolerate at all. The pain threshold drops accordingly and the mind becomes increasingly sensitive to what it would once have regarded as very minor intrusions of discomfort. The children of God are entitled to perfect comfort which comes from a sense of perfect trust. Until they achieve this they waste themselves in their true creative power on useless attempts to make themselves more comfortable by inappropriate means. But the real means is already provided and does not involve any effort at all on their part. Their egocentricity usually misperceives this as personally insulting an interpretation which obviously arises from their misperception of themselves. Egocentricity and communion cannot coexist. Even the terms are contradictory. The atonement is the only gift that is worthy of being offered to the altar of God. This is because of the inestimal value of the altar itself. It was created perfect and is entirely worthy of receiving perfection. God is learning without his souls and they are learning without him. Men must learn to perceive the world as a means of healing the separation. The atonement is the guarantee that they will ultimately succeed. Healing as release from fear. The emphasis will now be on healing. The miracle is the means, the atonement is the principle and healing is the result. Those who speak of a miracle of healing are combining two orders of reality inappropriately. Healing is not a miracle. The atonement or the final miracle is a remedy while any type of healing is a result. The kind of error to which atonement is applied is irrelevant. Essentially all healing is the release from fear. To undertake this you cannot be fearful yourself. You do not understand healing because of your own fear. A major step in the atonement plan is to undo error at all levels. Illness, which is really not right-mindedness is a result of level confusion in the sense that it always entails the belief that what is a miss in one level can adversely affect another. We have constantly referred to miracles as the means of correcting level confusion and all mistakes must be corrected at the level on which they occur. Only the mind is capable of error. The body can act erroneously but this is only because it is responding to missed thought. The body cannot create and the belief that it can, a fundamental error, produces all physical symptoms. All physical illness represents a belief in magic. The whole distortion which created magic rests on the belief that there is a creative ability in matter which the mind cannot control. This error can take two forms. It can be believed that the mind can miscreate in the body or that the body can miscreate in the mind. If it is understood that the mind which is the only level of creation cannot create beyond itself, neither type of confusion need occur. The reason only the mind can create is more obvious than may be immediately apparent. The soul has been created. The body is a learning device for the mind. Learning devices are not lessons in themselves. Their purpose is merely to facilitate the thinking of the learner. The most that a faulty use of a learning device can do is to fail to facilitate learning. It has no power in itself to introduce actual learning errors. The body, if properly understood, shares the invulnerability of the atonement to two-edged application. This is not because the body is a miracle but because it is not inherently open to misinterpretation. The body is really a fact in human experience. Its abilities can be and frequently are over-evaluated. However, it is almost impossible to deny its existence. Those who do so are engaging in a particularly unworthy form of denial. The term unworthy here implies simply that it is not necessary to protect the mind by denying the unmindful. If one denies the unfortunate aspect of the mind's power, one is also denying the power itself. All material means which man accepts as remedies for bodily illness are merely with statements of magic principles. It was the first level of the error to believe that the body created its own illness. It is the second step to attempt to heal it through non-creative agents. It does not follow, however, that the use of these very weak, corrective devices are evil. Sometimes the illness has a sufficiently great hold over a mind to render a person inaccessible to atonement. In this case, it may be wise to utilize a compromise approach to mind and body in which something from the outside is temporarily given in belief. This is because the last thing that can help the long-right minded or the sick is an increase in fear. They are already in a fear-weakened state. If they are inappropriately exposed to an own dilusive miracle, they may be precipitated into panic. This is particularly likely to occur when upside-down perception has induced the belief that miracles are frightening. Value of the atonement does not lie in the manner in which it is expressed. In fact, if it is truly used, it will inevitably be expressed in whatever way is most helpful to the receiver. This means that a miracle to attain its full efficacy must be expressed in the language which a recipient can understand without fear. It does not follow by any means that this is the highest level of communication of which he is capable. It does mean, however, that it is the highest level of communication of which he is capable now. The whole aim of the miracle is to raise the level of communication not to impose regression in the improper sense upon it. Before miracle workers are ready to undertake their function in this world, it is essential that they fully understand the fear of release. Otherwise, they may unwittingly foster the belief that release is imprisonment, a belief very prevalent. This misconception arose from the underlying misbelief that harm can be limited to the body. This was because of the much greater fear that the mind can hurt itself. Neither error is really meaningful because the miscreations of the mind do not really exist. This recognition is a far better protective device than any form of level confusion because it introduces correction at the level of the error. It is essential to remember that only the mind can create. Implicit in this is the corollary that correction belongs at the thought level. To repeat an earlier statement and to extend it somewhat, the soul is already perfect and therefore does not require correction. The body does not really exist except as a learning device for the mind. This learning device is not subject to errors of its own because it was created but it's not creating. It should be obvious then that correcting the creator or inducing it to give up its miscreations is the only application of creative ability which is truly meaningful. Magic is essentially mindless or the miscreative use of the mind. Physical medications are forms of spells. Those who are afraid to use the mind to heal should not attempt to do so. The very fact that they are afraid has made them vulnerable to miscreation. They are therefore likely to misunderstand any healing they may induce. And because egocentricity and fear usually occur together may be unable to accept the real source of the healing. Under these conditions it is safer for them to rely temporarily on physical healing devices because they cannot misperceive them as their own creations. As long as their sense of vulnerability persists, they should be preserved from even attempting miracles. We have already said that the miracle is an expression of miracle-mindedness. Miracle-mindedness merely means right-mindedness in the sense that we are now using it. The right-minded, neither exalt will depreciate the mind of the miracle worker or the miracle receiver. However, as a creative act the miracle will need not await the right-mindedness of the receiver. In fact, its purpose is to restore him to his right mind. It is essential however that the miracle worker be in his right mind and he will be unable to establish right-mindedness in someone else. The healer who relies on his own readiness is endangering his understanding. He is perfectly safe as long as he is completely unconcerned about his readiness but maintains a consistent trust in mind. If your miracle work in propensity is not functioning properly, it is always because fear has intruded on your right-mindedness and has literally upset it and turned it upside down. All forms of not-right-mindedness are the result of refusal to accept the atonement for yourself. If the miracle worker does accept it, he places himself in a position to recognize that those who need to be healed are simply those who have not realized that right-mindedness is healing. The sole responsibility of the miracle worker is to accept the atonement for himself. This means that he recognizes that mind is the only creative level and that it to arrows are healed by the atonement. Once he accepts this, his mind can really heal. By denying his mind any destructive potential and reinstating his purely constructive powers, he has placed himself in a position where he can undo the level confusion of others. The message he then gives to others is the truth that their minds are similarly constructive and that their miscreations cannot hurt them. By affirming this, the miracle worker releases a mind from over-evaluating its own learning device, the body, and restores the mind to its true position as the learner. It should be emphasized again that the body does not learn any more than it creates. As a learning device it merely follows the learner, but if it is falsely endowed with self-initiative it becomes a serious obstruction to the very learning it should facilitate. Only the mind is capable of illumination. The soul is already illuminated and the body in itself is too dense. The mind, however, can bring its illumination to the body by recognizing that density is the opposite of intelligence and therefore amenable to independent learning. It is, however, easily brought into alignment with the mind which has learned to look beyond density toward light. Corrective learning always begins with the awakening of the spiritual eye and the turning away from the belief in physical sight. The reason this so often entails fear is because man is afraid of what his spiritual eye will see. We said before that the spiritual eye cannot see error and is capable only of looking beyond it to the defense of atonement. There is no doubt that the spiritual eye does produce extreme discomfort by what it sees, yet what man forgets is that the discomfort is not the final outcome of its perception. When the spiritual eye is permitted to look upon the defilement of the altar it also looks immediately toward the atonement.