Rating: 
Summary: A Wonderful Journey
Review: I have been a student of the Course for over 2 years. I feel as if I could study for 20 more and still not master this great work. There are so many things I do not understand and, in many instances, ACIM raised more (heretofore unanswerable) questions than it provided solutions. I will leave the Course behind on the 31st of December and begin a new study on a similar path. I am sure I will return for another sojourn. What I take away with me is that God is a loving God, merciful, forever present, forgiving. The doors to His Heart are always open. There is no hell, no one is special, and it does not matter what we do in this body because all roads, all avenues, all paths lead to God. ACIM confirmed for me what I long believed and felt about Jesus: he is/was the embodiment of love. And the Course tell us that we are no different from him. We, too, can embody love in our everyday lives, no matter the circumstances. In fact, we must because all gifts (good and bad) we give to others, we actually give to ourselves. ACIM has brought a lot of comfort into my life. It is comforting to know that God is everywhere, in all things, and His love knows no bounds and fulfills all needs. I feel safe and comforted as I walk this earth. No matter what I do, where I go, my loving Father is with me. If you plan to study this work, devote yourself to it completely, with serious intent, to be transformed. It is not an easy study, but as you read it you will understand that is it not the endpoint that is important (that is certain), but it is the quality of the journey. Buy and enjoy!
Rating:
Summary: What you are is what you see
Review: The course is really only for those who are ready for it. It gives you a reflection of who you are and then shows the path of what is possible. It was when reading this book that I aquired momentarily a state of love so powerful that it even now determines my actions and my whole life is based on achieving this state permanently. People with a negative disposition who try to absorb its content have a different filter, they perceive its teachings at a lower level. I would recommend not so powerful texts such as the conversations with god series or the celestine prophesy. Although not quite as accurate in detail they may soften the change in paradigm shift when you are reading the "Course" text. I would also recommend performing the lessons at least alongside reading the text and preferably before ever looking at the text because the emphasis should be about "Being" instead of becoming and "Knowing" vs. knowing about. The worst thing you could do is read about something and know of the possibility in your heart and yet feel helpless and daunted to even approximate what is taught. It can take years just to recover. Finally it simply helps remove blocks to true Vision and can then reveal simply "what is" in a sense increasing a persons acceptance to a state of love without judgement.
Rating: 
Summary: It Was Like Trading Emotional Novocain For Suicide
Review: Five years ago I was alcoholic and newly abandoned by my husband with two small children. A suicide hotline worker recommended the course. As I read through it's 365 calender days, I found family members commenting on both my new positivity and my complete social and emotional unreality. It is true that the course attacks and severely guilt-trips the very human experience of anger. Fear, also. When I finally let in my loving family's concern about my complete denial of natural anger and fear, I did the right thing and got into university-accredited traditional therapy. A spiritual very 'close call' in my opinion. Therapy has taught me that without natural healthy anger and its healthy expression when others endanger us or attempt to do us dirty, we are indeed sheep lead to spiritual and social slaughter. I used drugs and alcohol out of social cowardice. I was afraid to feel and express - and turn into committed, life-healing determination - my healthy, natural human anger. A Course In Miracles, with it's frightening shaming of -any- experience or expression of anger was just another crutch for me. It appealed to my cowardice in the face of my own desperate need to build and exercise a spiritually healthy social backbone. Be very careful. I don't think what this book puts upon people and their relationship with their FULL emotional self - their full spiritual strength - is at all spiritually healthy. Al-Anon trades jelly beans for hard liquor. ACIM helped me trade near suicide, for living another day - half emotionally 'switched off'. No one can remain emotionally half neutered and lead a spiritually deep immune-healthy life. ACIM was a dangerous bridge, though I thank God -something- was there to catch me and my two beautiful kids on our way back to being powerful take-no-grief human beings.
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Summary: It's taken a few attempts, but I finally get it...
Review: I first came across ACIM in the mid-1980s. A friend loaned me the books (The text and workbook were large, separate volumes at the time). I just didn't get it so I returned the material to my friend. In 1992 I joined a study group that focused primarily on shamanism and a number of subjects that fall under the shamanic umbrella. Five years into it, we started work on ACIM. After about one year, the group disbanded and I stopped my ACIM studies. I give credit to my shamanic studies for preparing me to be able to digest much of the ACIM material. Many of the concepts taught in ACIM reflect much of what I learned from shamanism. It's been 4 years years -- and few different paths later -- and I find myself drawn back to the ACIM material. Not only do I find it very comforting to read, I find it easier to understand this time around. I also find the exercises easier to work with.
Each time I come back to ACIM it sinks in deeper and deeper. It's really quite a process that requires a long term commitment.
Rating:
Summary: Exercise Your Spiritual Integrity; Expose This Book
Review: The text asks us to not feel anger, fear and to give up critical thinking in order to "be ideally spiritual". I actually read this course cover-to-cover several times; I was shocked. The biggest shocker was reading that it claimed to be "channeled by Jesus". It has been pointed out that Jesus was no stranger to intense, directed appropriate anger. Case closed. In my opinion the content of A Course In Miracles represents classic spiritual strength-robbing new age cult flim flam. Reader please beware.
Rating:
Summary: My opinion after A Course In Miracles? Use mindful caution.
Review: The book A Course In Miracles is the foundation for a now world wide, destructive new age cult. Through the use of A Course I Miracles "Study Groups" it socially 'love bombs' and thereby emotionally hooks desperate people; often at the very bottom of: alcoholism, newly diagnosed HIV infection, suicidal depression, drug addiction, etc.
Ask yourself if this sounds spiritually empowering: A direct quote from the book A Course In Miracles: - "There is never any reason to be angry." That -by definition- is spiritually crippling, destructive cult guilt. Specific criteria of destructive thought reform from Margaret T. Singer, Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley: 1. Control Over Time Especially thinking time. Use techniques to get a person to think about: the group and the beliefs of the group as much of their waking time as possible. 2. Create A Sense Of Powerlessness Provide models of behavior (cult members) Use in-group language. New people tend to want to be like others (acceptance, feeling part of a group). 3. Manipulate Rewards, Punishments, Experiences In Order To Suppress Old Social Behavior Manipulate: social rewards / intellectual rewards. Rewards: support positive self-concept for conformity to new thought system. Punishments: attack person's (spiritual) self-concept for non-conformity. Behaviors Rewarded: participation, conformity to ideas/behavior, zeal, personal changes. Behaviors Punished: criticalness, independent thinking, non-conformity to ideas/behavior. Punishments: peer/group criticism, withdrawal of support/affection, isolation, negative feedback. 4. Manipulate Rewards, Punishments, Experiences In Order To Elicit New Behavior. Models will demonstrate new behavior. Conformity: language, behavior. Using group language will eventually still the thinking mind. 5. Must Be A Tightly Controlled System Of Logic No complaints from the floor. Leaders must maintain absolute control/authority. Persons in charge must have verbal ways of never losing. Anyone who questions is made to think there is something inherently wrong with them to even question. Guilt manipulation. 6. Persons Being Thought Reformed Must Be Unaware That They Are Being Moved Through A Program To Make Them Deployable Agents, To Buy More Courses, Etc. You can't be thought reformed with full capacity, informed consent. Thought Reform System: Coordinated programs of coercive influence and behavior control. Use of pop psychology techniques found in sensitivity training and encounter groups. 2nd Generation Thought Reform Systems (attacks on central elements of self): 1. enlist recruit's cooperation, offer something they want (personal growth, salvation, etc.) 2. develop dependency by direct social pressure to influence a decision that the group has special power or knowledge or can solve a problem. Further references: Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism. Robert J. Lifton, M.D., University of N.C., Chapel Hill, 1989 "The Utilization of Hypnotic Techniques in Religious Conversion" Jesse S. Miller, The Cultic Studies Journal,Vol. 3 #2, Fall/Winter 1986 Another direct quote from A Course In Miracles: - "Guilt is the cause of all illness." Can A Course In Miracles' spiritually authoritative, socially crippling guilt about ever feeling anger cause illness? In the opinion of many authoritative accredited medical experts, yes absolutely. Both physical and psychological. Suppressed anger is now fully acknowledged by main stream psychology and western medicine to be clearly destructive to human health and well being. Helen Schucman the self-proclaimed 'channel' that marketed A Course In Miracles claims in her book that it was quote: "Channeled by Jesus". Historically -- and very clearly: Jesus was known to become extremely angry -- and to direct his anger in socially responsible, highly productive and constructive ways. Remember when he beat the living tar out of the money changers in the temple? Is there practical spiritual value in A Course In Miracles? I invite you to name a destructive cult (or odometer rolled-back highly polished used car) where there is no initial cosmetic value. My opinion after reading A Course In Miracles cover-to-cover -- twice? Be aware of its many thought reforming 'cult hooks' as carefully -and clearly- outlined by Dr. Margaret Singer, Ph.D, absolutely insist upon thinking for yourself and use mindful caution.
Rating:
Summary: A way out of the confusion
Review: I am not one of those people who write book reviews just to get my picture on the about me page on amazon. In fact this is the only review I have ever written. I was prompted to write it because, as I read the some of the more negative reviews of this book, it was quite obvious that the people who wrote these reviews, had not read this book. I don't know why they felt the need to write the derogatory things about this material that were written, but I'm certain that they had not read this book before writing there review of it. I have read this material; I have studied it for over 3 years. At first glance the concepts it spoke of seemed at the very least, unlikely. They certainly did not match up with the formula consensus reality had given me to work out the problems that I encountered in my life. That really didn't matter to me by that time because the old formulas had not served me that well anyway. If you are happy with everything about your life this is not a book that you should be reading. If by chance, there are aspects of your life that seem to trouble you, then this is a book that you should be reading. If 3 years ago you had told me that one simple book held the key to every single problem that I was faced with in my life, I would have laughed in your face, and thought that you must be a fool to say such a thing. Yet after 3 years of living and working with the concepts that this book teaches, I feel more strongly about their ability set things right in my life than ever. I came into my encounter with this material a jaded skeptic, who believed in nothing. I had tried, and rejected nearly every path, finding truth in none of them. Yes, each seemed at first to be truth, but the initial lift that they gave proved not to stand the test of time. This material is different, It seeks to correct the errors in thinking that are currently causing the conflicts, and disappointment in our lives before they can happen. It also shows the folly of approaching the idea of love from the conventionally acceptable way. That is, reserving love only for those we have judged worthy of it. It has taught me that this is not love at all, it is only judgment. This is not a book that you can sit down and read in a night, or even in a week. The concepts that it teaches are so fundamentally different from the ones that are currently causing all the problems in your life, that it will take some time for you to readjust them. Perhaps years, After all, how long has it taken you to get to this point where you truly longed to find a better way. Did you really expect it would happen over night? I gave this book 5 stars only because I wasn't given the option of giving it 1,000 stars. If this book can help someone as lost as I was, it can most likely help you too. But only if you actually read it!
Rating:
Summary: gnosticism for a new generation
Review: As a religious studies scholar, I was fascinated the first time I heard about "A Course in Miracles." But, as the book of Ecclesiastes says, "There is nothing new under the sun." Anyone who likes this book should pick up the Nag Hammadi Library - you will find the same ideas, in thier original terminology (rather than New Age lingo), and from a time period that is within a few hundred years of Jesus. Many of these ancient texts also purport to be conversations with, visions of, or messages from the "spiritual" or "post-resurrection" Jesus, who is presented as the revealer/redeemer to the enlightened of this world. The message: realize that none of your problems are real, because the world isn't real, "creation" was a just a huge cosmic mistake, you are really a part of God, and as soon as you "realize" it, you will know your divine self and rise above the illusion in which we live.
While I definitely see the appeal of this type of philosophy, (for example who DOESN'T like the movie "The Matrix"?) I still think it is ultimately destructive. I do believe that God is Love, and that dualistic thinking is a trap...but I choose to think that creation is from God and also good and real, that my body is good and real and that I that my actions in this world DO have meaning and can be used to accomplish something good and real. Why, I ask all of you followers of 'the Course' would we be given the world, our bodies and everything we know just to be told that none of it matters and that the only thing that REALLY matters are things you can't see - that the only point of life as we know it is to escape it. Coincidentally, this is the same problem I have with mainstream Christianity. Whether you're thinking is dualisitic or non-dualistic, if you think you can only be "spiritual" by denigrating the physical - hence denying our bodies and our world and the possibility that any experience in them is meaningful- then that is just more denial than I am willing to swallow. As for me, I will take the world as it comes, with both its ugliness and pain AND its beauty and joy, and treasure life as a gift while I have it.
Rating:
Summary: I Wish I Could Give It
Review: one and one-half stars because it is in reality just a little better than one star. This mammoth treatise is just about one of the most confusing and impractical things I have ever read. The one good thing about it is that it urges the reader to be done once and for all with the idea of a vengeful, angry god. It also states (appropriately in my view) that behind most negativity is fear and a call for love. Yet that could have been said in one page. Another problem is that the course never truly explains the concept of evil in any meaningful way. Oh, I know that it says evil is an illusion, having no true reality, but one look at Adolph Hitler, Osama Bin Laden and 9-11, and you are forced to deal with this "illusion." The reading of this book is akin to the feeling one gets after eating cotton candy-for a moment it is there and very sweet, and then in an instant it is gone because there is no true substance to it...
Rating:
Summary: A course in "mind training," not behavior
Review: A COURSE IN MIRACLES is an astonishing set of three books that are now available in one combined volume printed on "bible-thin" paper. For those unfamiliar with "the Course" (as "students" are inclined to call it), it is not a class, a cult, or a religion. The Course is set up in the format of a class, with a Text, a Workbook For Students, and a Manual for Teachers and is primarily intended to be studied on one's own. But many students like to form "study groups." Neither approach to studying the Course is "right" or "wrong." The Course is a non-dual system of spiritual psychotherapy. Non-dual means that there is no "good" or "bad," there are no opposites. A common mistake people make in interpreting the non-duality of A COURSE IN MIRACLES is to think it means that only the "good" things in the world are real and that the "bad" things aren't. The Course could therefore be seen as just an extension of "New Age Positivism." A next logical step in this misunderstanding of Course theory is to focus on the "good" things in the world and to be contemptuous of those who do not agree with you about what is good. This is where we can get caught in the trap of attempting to "enlighten" others. What the Course's non-duality really means is that the very concept of "good" and "bad" is an illusion. This points to the profound metaphysical teaching that our personal identities themselves are illusions. And since the Course aims at "removing the blocks to the awareness of love's presence" (Introduction, p. 2), it could even be thought of as a type of "negativism." Ultimately, Love is all that is real. But the Course teaches that this world was not made by Love and is not a loving place. Trying to make this world loving is futile. Many people have commented that the Course really is not all that "new" in this point-of-view because Hinduism and schools of Buddhism have been teaching non-duality for millennia. But the Course even goes beyond those forms of non-duality by saying that the world is not only an illusion, it is an illusion made by the ego as an attack on God (workbook p. 403). God is all perfect, loving, eternal, changeless, formless, and no division or opposites reside within Him. (The Course uses the masculine term for God exclusively, but acknowledges that this is just a symbol. Since God is formless and timeless and is not anthropomorphic, God does not have a body and cannot be either male or female.) If we look around the world we will see that everything in it will either change or die, has an opposite, and has a physical form. God cannot have created the world we see since God only creates like Himself. The Course says this is a dream world, and there is no difference between our "waking" and "sleeping" dreams. Both are insane. Everything the Course says is on the level of content, not form. The Course only offers advice on how we should "perceive" things, not how we should "do" things. When the Course says to be defenseless it is really just pointing back to its metaphysical teaching that we are not our bodies but are Spirit. If we are Spirit then we are defenseless because Spirit is eternal and changeless. When the Course says to be defenseless it means to "remind ourselves" that our true reality is not in this world but in the "Real World" of Spirit. And that is what the Course refers to as a "miracle": a change in perception. We are to change our perception of ourselves. No behavior in this world, no rituals, no amount of group study, no advertising the Course itself, will bring us salvation. The Course teaches that "my salvation comes from me," and it means that only we can "save" ourselves by changing our minds about ourselves. The Course is not "literally" channeled from Jesus. In A COURES IN MIRACLES "the Name of Jesus Christ as such is but a symbol. But it stands for a love that is not of this world" (Manual For Teachers p. 58). Jesus in A COURSE IN MIRACLES could easily be replaced with the words "Higher Mind" "Christ Consciousness" "Cosmic Consciousness" or any other name to denote Eternal Love. When Helen Schucman said the Course was channeled from Jesus, she meant it came from that place in her mind that is still in touch with the completely abstract non-temporal and non-physical awareness of only Love. The reason she chose the word "Jesus" to denote that awareness is because there is so much pain centered on the word and figure of Jesus ("Some bitter idols have been made of him who would be only brother to the world." Manual for Teachers, p. 88). Jesus is the most powerful and important man and concept in the western world. Indeed, even our calendar marks the days since his death. If we in the Western world are to truly heal from the pain we are in and the mess we have made of things we will need to look at our most powerful symbols and teachers. As the Course teaches, individual identity is ultimately illusory and so Jesus is just an illusion as well. But in the Course he is used as a symbol for our Inner Teacher and for Eternal Love. This helps to correct the idea that our supreme symbol of love, as indeed Jesus has been purported to be, wants us to suffer. Ultimately, all concepts of Jesus only exist in our minds and we therefore need to change our minds about Jesus. The Jesus of A COURSE IN MIRACLES is not the Jesus of the Bible, and the Course is not Christianity. The Course is actually an erasing of 2000 years of Christian doctrine because it says we got it all wrong from the start.
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