HOW DO GOD’S TEACHERS DEAL WITH MAGIC THOUGHTS?
page 45, paragraph 6
HOW DO GOD’S TEACHERS
DEAL WITH MAGIC THOUGHTS?
HOW DO GOD’S TEACHERS DEAL WITH MAGIC THOUGHTS?
6.How can this unfair battle be resolved? ²Its ending is inevitable, for its outcome must be death. ³How, then, can one believe in one’s defenses? ⁴Magic again must help. ⁵Forget the battle. ⁶Accept it as a fact, and then forget it. ⁷Do not remember the impossible odds against you. ⁸Do not remember the immensity of the “enemy,” and do not think about your frailty in comparison. ⁹Accept your separation, but do not remember how it came about. ¹⁰Believe that you have won it, but do not retain the slightest memory of Who your great “opponent” really is. ¹¹Projecting your “forgetting” onto Him, it seems to you He has forgotten, too. (ACIM, M-17.6:1-11)
Guilt
I have said that I just don’t “feel” the guilt of an opposing God that the Course talks about, and Jesus is telling me that this is my magical solution to my fear. My inability to identify with this depth of guilt is not accidental. It is my way of escaping it. I then project the same forgetfulness onto God. There, problem solved!
But that which is in my mind, no matter how deeply hidden, will affect me. The guilt will peek out of its hiding place and I will experience guilt that I cannot afford to acknowledge directly. So, I make a reason for it, and pretend to myself that I have discovered the cause of my guilt and my fear.
Innocent
Sometimes it appears as a foolish or bad thing that I did to someone. “That must be the reason I am guilty.” Sometimes I make up a story about someone else. “There, that must be the reason I am angry and the reason I must now defend myself. I knew that guy was the guilty one. Whew.” This is endless and it is painful. But through the study of “A Course in Miracles” I have been shown what is actually happening, and through the practice of “A Course in Miracles” I am being gently awakened to the truth that my guilt is self-imposed and my fear is unfounded. Now when I feel guilty, I remind myself that guilt is not real because God did not create it. If I think someone else is guilty, I look within for the belief in guilt and forgive it there. I remind myself that I no longer need a scapegoat because we are all innocent.