Special Principles of Miracle Workers
by Tom Baker
Lesson: Chap. 2, V. The Function of the Miracle Worker
Date: August 9, 2009
The theoretical basis of the course is often expressed in language that is hard for people to understand. One reason for this, I would speculate, is that Jesus through what Helen Schuckman called "an inner dictation," had to use Helen's own vocabulary and her rather complicated cognitive patterns to convey some very difficult spiritual concepts. In saying this, I have used a complex sentence structure. A more understandable way to say the same thing would be: Jesus had to use Helen's complex, scholarly mind to convey simple but novel spiritual principles. To be fair to both Helen and Jesus, while the spiritual principles are simple, they do not fit easily into a three dimensional, materialistic paradigm. A ready analogy is how simple white light becomes complex, layered light when it passes through a prism. The light is colorful and beautiful but complicated. To expand on the prism as the analogy of the brain mind, we might imagine many kinds of prisms which produce different kinds of rainbows. If your brain mind is similar to Helen's, as is mine, then the language of the Course seems to flow and the cognitive patterns are familiar. Her rainbow easily blends with mine. But if your brain mind is not like Helen's, not so complicated and convoluted, then your rainbow might clash with hers. My commentary is an attempt to produce a kind of color wheel to make Helen's miracle rainbow more sensible to your miracle rainbow.
The first three chapters are especially complicated and the expression is a bit awkward. However, very basic spiritual principles are explained in these chapters, so they deserve attention. The passage in Chapter 2, section V. entitled Special Principles of Miracle Workers is a good example. I will quote the Course and then attempt to demystify the language with my explanation.
- "(1) The miracle abolishes the need for lower-order concerns. Since it is an out-of-pattern time interval, the ordinary considerations of time and space do not apply. When you perform a miracle, I will arrange both time and space to adjust to it." (T. p. 27). The miracle operates in the present and near and far do not matter. In our ego world view we have an expression "time heals all wounds." Growth, healing, learning, reconciliation, even cooking all happen over time. The need for the passage of time is a "lower-order concern." Jesus promises the miracle worker that he "will arrange both time and space" for us, so we need not worry about timing or appointments, leave all that up to him. Carl Jung called this synchronicity. Working outside time and space concerns is very fearful to us since most of our remembered experience is temporal and spacial, so trusting Jesus to "arrange" them for us is a leap of faith but, ironically, a leap that over time feels safer and even exciting.
- "(2) A clear distinction between what is created and what is made is essential. All forms of healing rest on this fundamental correction in level perception." (T. p. 27). Another way to say this is, God creates us as we are and we make ourselves into an image that is constantly changing. We do not create ourselves. We take what God created and make an unstable image which relies on physical and temporal qualities. Even in our confused state we know we feel more afraid when we take our self image to be all that we are. We call that being too self conscious and are usually advised by our friends to "just be yourself." In other words, be the self that God created rather than the one you made up. When we are playful about our self image by laughing at ourselves and not taking ourselves too seriously, we relax and others relax with us. As a priest I found that if I told funny stories about my own mistakes, I laughed and people laughed with me and our mistakes became lovable mis-steps rather than terrible sins. This healing laughter is an expression of the "fundamental correction in level perception."
- "(3) Never confuse right- and wrong-mindedness. Responding to any form of error with anything except a desire to heal in an expression of this confusion." (T. p. 27). The terms "right-mindedness" and "wrong-mindedness" sound overly technical to me and I almost never use them in everyday conversation. I have never complimented my wife on being right-minded or challenged her on being wrong-minded. The concept conveyed is important however. Right- minded would mean responding to another with the intention of love, blessing, tenderness, open-mindedness, etc. Right-mindedness is without blame or attack thoughts. Right-mindedness is expansive. Wrong- mindedness means a defensive response, full of blame, attack thoughts and thoughts that reduce the person(s) to a something: freak, whore, idiot, monster, squirt, cow, pig, chicken, worm, bleeding heart liberal, knee jerk conservative, etc. The ego has trained our minds to respond to wrong- mindedness with more wrong-mindedness in the name of defending the image we want for ourselves or our group. In the ego's world self images are in constant competition and conflict. Jesus says that wrong-mindedness, whoever has it, is basically fear which is projected as anger and has as its purpose guilt. Fear can be projected by ourselves onto our self image and we feel it as self condemnation or self hate. Right-mindedness is basically love which is projected as blessing or forgiveness and has as its purpose the perception of innocence. When my wife responds to my wrong-mindedness by saying that I have forgotten that I love her and that she is sure I will remember, she is responding with right-mindedness.
- "(4) The miracle is always a denial of this error [thinking] and an affirmation of the truth. Only right-mindedness can correct in a way that has any real effect. Pragmatically, what has no real effect has no real existence. Its effect, then, is emptiness. Being without substantial content, it lends itself to projection." (T. pp. 27 & 28). This is a simple statement expressed in a very complex way, I think in an attempt to convey several things at once. The miracle corrects not by challenging the error (Ah ha! Obvious fear drenched, guilt giving, totally unenlightened gobbledygook) but by affirming the truth (The angelic one has temporarily lost her mind). The miracle worker does not lecture the darkness but simply shines the light of love into "what has no real effect" and "no real existence" and so is in effect empty darkness. Our egoic minds take what is empty and unreal and project it outside of ourselves and then we see it as real. When we shine blessing, love, and forgiveness onto the projection we see what is really there, rather than the projected image. We actually engage in this "projective-corrective" process constantly as we imagine what is going to happen and then experience the real thing, imagine what someone looks like from their voice on the phone and then meet them in person, project a certain meaning onto a phrase or tone of voice and then, in love, realize something more innocent was meant. The miracle simply introduces complete correction into the projected thought and complete innocence is perceived.
- "(5) The level-adjustment power of the miracle induces the right perception for healing. Until this has occurred healing cannot by understood. Forgiveness is an empty gesture unless it entails correction. Without this it is essentially judgmental, rather than healing." (T. p. 28). This again is a convoluted way of saying something fairly simple. "The right perception for healing" is seeing the person already as whole and one with all that is. Forgiveness (the miracle) sees the person "with the face of Christ" or as a being of light, without any emptiness, mistakes, imperfections at all. I have several friends who, when I criticize myself, always say in effect, "I don't see you that way at all, you are noble and honest and caring, that's how I see you. Get a life!" They are offering me the miracle. How simple!
- "(6) Miracle-minded forgiveness is only correction. It has no element of judgment at all. The statement 'Father forgive them for they know not what they do' in no way evaluates what they do. It is an appeal to God to heal their minds. There is no reference to the outcome of the error. That does not matter." (T. p. 28). This is a reinforcement of the idea that miracle correction is not about analyzing or deconstructing the error but is only about seeing what is. For the miracle worker the mind is healed into wholeness and says "Wow, I feel so good!" while for the ego healer the mind is healed into guilt and shame, and says, "I'm sorry, I feel so bad." Wow is always better than sorry.
- "(7) The injunction 'Be of one mind' is the statement for revelation-readiness. My request 'Do this in remembrance of me' is the appeal for cooperation from miracle workers. Only the latter involves an awareness of time, since to remember is to recall the past in the present. Time is under my direction, but timelessness belongs to God. In time we exist for and with each other. In timelessness we coexist with God." (T. p. 28). In the Course there is the concept of levels, Heaven being the first level of conciousness in which we know and there is timelessness and Earth being the second level of con- sciousness in which we perceive and time is put under the direction of Jesus. In the Lord's prayer 'Thy will be done on earth as in is in heaven' may be a reference to these two states of consciousness rather than the more literal meaning of heaven as where God lives and earth as where human beings live. Forgiveness, the miracle, the Atonement release the past by bringing perception into the present. The miracle occurs in time but as stated in the 47th miracle principle: 'The miracle is a learning device that lessens the need for time. It establishes an out-of-pattern time interval not under the usual laws of time. In this sense it is timeless.' (T. p. 6). The present is Eckhart Tolle's starting point in the Power of Now. Forgiveness is Jesus' starting point in A Course In Miracles. Both lead to the same place in consciousness. Wow!
© Copyright Tom Baker 2009