A Course in Miracles

Rating:
Summary: The Course Simply.............Is
Review: The 365 lessons will take you longer than 1 year. I'm on 320 something after close to 9 years of study. It seems simplistic at first but to re-orient your mind to the lesson changes your perception of reality.

Then there are the teachings for Teachers. No healing need be repeated because faith says no matter what the physical senses show the healing has taken place, outside of your perception of time or matter changes.

Time, Space, the Body and Death----the only things all of our thoughts come down to. And the Course asserts that they do not exist.

We are alive, thought, energy and ultimately love centered.
It is easy to dismiss Schuuchman's channeling of teh COurse until you've had the subconscious/voice of God hit you not with what you or your preconceived religion would expect you tot hear and perceive but somethign totally new.

Clarity. The Course is so dense that it is clairty.
It will take a long time to digest, to disseminate, to assimilate as you must live the Courses teachings.

There is Christ/Jesus terminology. And I recommend that it be ignored. A mature reader can put in whatever they need to to symbolize that portion of the universe.

God is more than a "being"----as God must be. The Course does no advertisement in anyway and all of the proceeds go to publish more Course books. I have a feeling that the Course is something bigger than we can see now. I will tell you the truth when I say that it took me a year to get a hold of this book. There's something about this book that isn't quite tied to the normal spiritual book route.

A lesson, a week, a month. However. The Course is worth it.

Rating:
Summary: OK, it is a difficult read, and...
Review: You know, I seldom read ACIM alone. My opinion is that it might as well have been written so that you needed a study group to understand it. It is rigorous reading, and demands focus and attention, however, that doesn't render it without value.

Someone below recommended that you first go to Marianne Williamson's book A Return to Love. That is a great way to start on this material. I remember that when I read Marianne's book I felt it was the best book I had ever read, and it's still high on my list.

If you do want to get directly into ACIM, I recommend that you find a study group in your area. You could do this from a web search, or Unity churches frequently have study groups, although they don't officially align themselves with the material (at least to my knowledge). If you get into a study group, I suggest that you watch to see that they are working with the book, rather than just having conversations around their interpretations and rememberances. The words of ACIM are crafted so well and so deliberately... there is power in them --Frank Boyd

Rating:
Summary: Must I read this?
Review: Okay well before I begin I will apologise to anyone who likes this book or actually believes in it. I find it to be pure drivel and redundant, and making no sense whatsoever. Sorry but that's my verdict.

Rating:
Summary: nonsense
Review: Who cares what I think. But for the curious, Jung might have this to say against the metaphysics presented here:

"Today as never before it is important that human beings should not overlook the danger of the evil lurking within them. It is unfortunately only too real, which is why psychology must insist on the reality of evil and must reject any definition that regards it as insignificant or actually non-existent. Psychology is an empirical science and deals with realities. As a psychologist, therefore, I have neither the inclination nor the competence to mix myself up with metaphysics. Only, I have to get polemical when metaphysics encroaches on experience and interprets it in a way that is not justified empirically. (...) I must only insist that in our field of experience white and black, light and dark, good and bad, are equivalent opposites which always predicate one another." -- Carl Jung, "Christ, a Symbol of the Self"

Rating:
Summary: false prophet, false christ, wolf in sheep's clothing
Review: To paraphrase in short the massive, thinly-paged, finely-printed, complexly verbose tome that IS the Course in Miracles: Evil does not truly exist; there is only love and it's opposite, fear, is an "illusion".

It's the oldest trick in the book, literally: the devil's greatest deception is to get you believe he does not exist at all. Fear of the Lord loses meaning completely when fear itself is the new evil. Ironicaly, fear is also equated with ignorance, as this book has certainly had its hand in promoting the general consensus nowadays that the concept of "the devil" are outdated superstitions based on ignorance.

The ideas presented in this book are complex. The logic is circular. Abstraction-loving types such as myself would revel in them, including the paradoxes. A few very profound truths are sprinkled in so that you will emotionally and spiritually swoon with such joy that you will buy into all the lies surrounding it. This book in all its intellectualism and distortions is actually a major distraction from true "spirituality" in right relationship with God.

Gnostic ideas redressed are abounding again left and right. New thought is nothing more than heresies of old. The spiritual condition of the human population has never "evolved". Everyone intrinsically and first-handedly wants their own control over their life; everyone wants to be their OWN god; we are inherently selfish by nature; this scenario has not changed. It's called original sin.

Jesus said that if anyone added anything to the Gospel, "let him be accursed". Sounds like that was intended to be some sort of finality, folks ... not a history up for major ideological renovations, follow-ups, and new insights centuries later. So why is a course in miracles gingerly cloaked with Christian verbage even considered? Human nature is weak. Read the Bible. I certainly "wish" I had had a better understanding of it before exploring supposed "updates", "insights", and "supplements".

False prophets, false christs and new and/or additions to the Gospel are abounding like mad these days in place of truth.

I used to buy into the whole course in miracles sham for about six formative years. Then I dealt extensively with hundreds of (often group-witnessed) hardcore poltergeists in my life (inevitably due to all of the occult dabbling in my house and family). I was 17 years old, psychologically-healthy and carefree, wide awake and in my bedroom when suddenly literally paralyzed (I could not move) by three ugly, completely hate-breathing entities hovering over my doorway. Knowing with all my being that some sort of 'projection' was not a feasible explanation, for the first time I realized, "gee, maybe there is something to that silly, superstitious, old 'demon' concept after all" ... as my last resort of praying the "Our Father" consecutively was the only thing to banish them and release me from their grasp. It was all I had. Well, I suppose from that point on I began to "believe" that evil exists after all, as do evil entities who exist to deceive, and with that, a course in miracles was swiftly thrown out the ideological window.

hyperbolic_squiggly

Rating:
Summary: Extraordinary but Marianne Williamson is better?
Review: I am reluctant to criticize such an extraordinary and highly influential work, but I personally got far more out of reading (and re-reading several times!) "A Return To Love" by Marianne Williamson, a book based heavily on "A Course In Miracles". This was some years after having attempted and failed to plough systematically through A Course In Miracles on my own. I know many people have had more success working with the text in a group.

Nevertheless I think there is much to be gained from these extraordinary writings, even if one doesn't have the patience or determination to work through all the text as is recommended. Years after attempting to read it, several quotes have stuck inside my head e.g. "Heaven is the decision I must make", "In my defencelessness my safety lies", "I am never upset for the reason I think". It is easy to see why A Course In Miracles has been acknowledged as an influence by so many great contemporary self-development and spiritual writers and speakers e.g. Neale Donald Walsch (Conversations With God), Anthony Robbins, Chuck Spezzano.

I remain uncomfortable with so many references to the Son of God, the Holy Spirit, and the sheer number of words in the volumes. Perhaps this says more about me than A Course In Miracles!?

Rating:
Summary: My experience of ACIM
Review: ...

I first heard of A Course in Miracles when I was about 18. My mother tongue being French and the book existing only in English didn't help to draw me to this dense-looking book. But I could get an idea of it by reading Marianne Williamson's "A Return to Love" book in French. I recommend this book as an introduction to ACIM, as I think it really gives you an idea of what ACIM is about.

...

A Course in Miracles is a self-study course in spiritual psychology, and like Marianne indicates: it never insults your intelligence. To ACIM, truth is love and fear is but an illusion. Some writings inspire fear, guilt and sadness. ACIM is not meant to inspire fear and if I ever ended-up feeling the slightest fear, then I knew there was something I didn't understand correctly. That was a good indicator. But ACIM brought much peace into my life.

...

A Course in Miracles helps the reader understand how the ego works, how the mind works, why you think you are who you are... ACIM's path will lead you to detach from the ego...

Rating:
Summary: It's a course, so use it!
Review: I first read Course on Miracles 21 years ago during the year I sobered up. I thought it was wierd, but I did about 60 days worth of the meditations over a 3-4 month period. I felt great while I was doing them, but stopped for no reason I can recall. I read the text, but most of it passed over me.
I've read it again every 5 years or so, and used the workbook meditations. Right now I'm on day 80, and the farthest I've ever gotten is about 115. Every time I use it, I feel great, and after a few months (16 months one time), I stop. In a few years I'll be feeling crummy about my life again--crummy enough to begin to practice every day.

I don't know anything about what's real about God and my spirit. But this most recent return to the Course has revealed to me that the Course has deeply changed my life and my thinking. There is very little that I take personally these days. I try to forgive those in my life, and especially myself, because I know it will get better if I do. I don't feel very convinced that I'm right about things, and I don't care much. I don't think much of what I think I see is real, so I don't worry about it too much. If this doesn't sound appealing, well, you probably are either hurting too much or not very much. I didn't think this was what I wanted, really, but it turns out to have been just right for me.

I've never been a part of any workgroup on the course. I've avoided the Williamson etc. etc. interpretations. But this thing is a healing practice, and it really doesn't matter whether you believe it or not, understand it or not, it is just a good thing to do with your mind. I'm grateful to have had it. I rarely recommend it, as most folks I know who need something like this aren't ready to struggle with anything as dense as the language of the Course. I didn't struggle--I was beaten already and I just did it. That worked fine.

Rating:
Summary: A wolf in Sheep's clothing.
Review: Jesus said He was the Way and the Gate to Heaven. He never said He was a way. A Course Miracles makes the person of Jesus Christ nothing more than a way. A Course in Miracles receives it's only credibility from using the name of Jesus. Unfortunately it ends there. The use of Jesus' name is an obvious attempt to attract Christians, but this book is far from Christian.

For anyone seeking good Christian literature, this is not it! A Course in Miracles is much the same as other new age writings. It is warmly presented as a great revelation of truth, but falls short quickly after you pass the dust cover.

If you have been hurt, ill, or lost and seek guidance from a Course in Miracles, you'll find yourself in the same place at the end. The Hope you seek can be found in only one place and that is in Jesus Christ, the Living Word.

Rating:
Summary: a lifelong study guide
Review: For those who are looking for a quick fix, the Course is not it. For those who believe that God is love, and wonder how bad things can happen, this book gives answers. Not quick and easy answers, but ones that will gradually change life for the better. It has a Christian flavor, but I imagine it's more like what Jesus had imagined than what "Christians" teach today. There is no exclusion of anyone based on their religious creed. We are all saved, and not because Christ died for our "sins" but because he showed that there is no death.