The Mysteries of A Course in Miracles, Chapter 23

The Mysterious Path to Health

A Course in Miracles says quite a bit about the health of our bodies and minds, and some of it is quite controversial, even among believing students. However, if one sees the Voice that spoke to Helen Schucman as coming from Jesus, or a divine source exceeding the intelligence of our earthly authorities, one must take the information seriously, even if it goes against orthodox thinking.

Here is just one of many statements that some find difficult to accept:

“Sickness is a decision. It is not a thing that happens to you, quite unsought, which makes you weak and brings you suffering. It is a choice you make, a plan you lay,” W-pI.136.7

Just about all of us have been quite ill one time or another, and in the midst of great discomfort, who among us have had this thought: “This illness is just what I planned and have chosen for myself. This is working out great!”

I doubt if anyone reading this actually thinks this way, but obviously the author of the Course knows this and is trying to instill a truth in us that is beyond our normal consciousness.

It also says some controversial things about how illness and pain can be eliminated such as:

“Healing is accomplished the instant the sufferer no longer sees any value in pain.” M-5.I.1

Most who are suffering pain would not agree with this and respond something like this: “Are you kidding? This pain has no value to me and I sure did not choose to have it.”

What we frail mortals fail to realize is that while we may not consciously choose to have pain and disease, they are still the result of our choices. For instance, many choose to eat or drink things that are not good for them that causes discomfort they did not consciously choose. Then, as the quote says, many receive some type of value from the pain itself, such as sympathy, others waiting on them, or an excuse to avoid unwanted work.

We’ll delve more into causes and cures as we go along, but first let us see exactly what the Course means when it speaks of sickness:

“Healing is the opposite of all the world’s ideas which dwell on sickness and on separate states. Sickness is a retreat from others, and a shutting off of joining. It becomes a door that closes on a separate self, and keeps it isolated and alone. Sickness is isolation. For it seems to keep one self apart from all the rest, to suffer what the others do not feel. It gives the body final power to make the separation real, and keep the mind in solitary prison, split apart and held in pieces by a solid wall of sickened flesh, which it can not surmount.” W-pI.137.1-2

The teaching is then that the core cause of illness and pain can be traced to our original separation from God. Before the separation there was equality, and what one felt, all felt which was unbounded joy and love. No one wanted to share anything painful, so all sharing was the desirable feelings of love, joy, peace etc.

Then, after the separation, we found ourselves in the illusion of being isolated in bodies. Whatever you felt was not shared, but kept to yourself. In our current situation one person can feel intense pain and a loved one next to him will not feel the pain at all. He may have empathy for the pain, but will not actually feel it.

According to ACIM, then, the core cause of pain and illness is this illusion of separateness and isolation. The Course speaks of a number of things that will help with removing illness, but the foundation of all healing is found in removing the separation between the Sons of God trapped in the illusion of their own making.

Think of it this way. You may have a friend who is very ill and undergoing intense suffering. You feel bad for him but are suffering no actual pain yourself. You go about your business during the day and maybe give him a passing thought of sympathy a couple times, but outside of that your life proceeds as normal.

But let us suppose you actually felt his pain. What would change then?

There would be an instant change in thinking. Immediately you would want to eliminate the pain and bring healing. Think of it. If we all felt this way now and shared our brother’s pain, it would not last for long because decisions would be made to do something about it and replace it with positive feelings.

Look at it another way. You see a homeless guy on a corner with a sign asking for money. You may feel sorry for him and give him a few dollars. But let us say you completely shared his mind and were no longer separate. Suddenly, you would want him to have as much as you, or at least enough to have some comfort. You may wind up withdrawing some money from your bank account so he can get some relief. If we all had the barriers of separation dissolved, then poverty would greatly diminish as your brother’s poverty would be your own.

Few, if any of us, have the barriers of separation completely removed in our consciousness, and when we suffer pain or illness we suffer alone as does our brother.

“The idea of separation produced the body and remains connected to it, making it sick because of the mind’s identification with it.” T-19.I.7

However, reversing this separation is a major key to healing:

“All sickness comes from separation. When the separation is denied, it goes. For it is gone as soon as the idea that brought it has been healed, and been replaced by sanity.” T-26.VII.2

That is interesting. As soon as the idea of separation goes, so does the illness associated with it for “No mind is sick until another mind agrees that they are separate. And thus it is their joint decision to be sick.” Then it tells us the cure is that “Uniting with a brother’s mind prevents the cause of sickness and perceived effects. Healing is the effect of minds that join, as sickness comes from minds that separate.” T-28.III.2

Then it makes this interesting statement:

“No one is sick if someone else accepts his union with him. His desire to be a sick and separated mind can not remain without a witness or a cause. And both are gone if someone wills to be united with him.” T-28.IV.7

This makes the key statement that an individual cannot remain sick without a “witness.” In other words, a separation that produces sickness cannot be maintained unless one has others to witness that it is real, or happening to him.

And what do we naturally do when a loved one is ill or in pain? We witness to him that it is real by showing sympathy and helping him get the medical care he seems to need.

According to ACIM this is the wrong approach, for it just reinforces the belief in the separation and the illness.

What then should we do? Should we be like a Vulcan from Star Trek, show no empathy and merely declare that all their suffering is an illusion, and that he needs to just acknowledge this and get over it?

No. That will not work either. In addition to suffering pain, the patient will become angry at you for your lack of sensitivity.

So, if you believe in the advice of the Course, how will you help your brother in distress?

For starters, you do not blatantly declare to him that his whole problem is an illusion in his mind. Even though this is technically true, saying such things may just increase the separation between you.

Ask him to describe his problems and listen to him with a caring attitude, but not saying anything to reinforce the belief. Then after you have established a rapport, seek the Holy Spirit with him in a way that is acceptable to his belief system. The Holy Spirit is essential here because it is our only means of healing separation while we seem to be in physical bodies here on earth.

If the use of the term “Holy Spirit” goes against his belief system, then you can use soul, higher self or just Spirit or God. The important thing is to join with your brother and seek union through the contacting of Higher Intelligence. This can be accomplished through mutual prayer or meditation.

Healing with the Mind

So, the ultimate key to good health for you and your loved ones is to remove barriers and share consciousness as if you were one. Unfortunately, the Course tells us that there are a number of problems that create barriers between individuals, and these barriers must be surmounted before success can be obtained.

The first and perhaps the greatest barrier is wrong thinking. Our thoughts are potent forces that can lead to health or disease:

“Are thoughts, then, dangerous? To bodies, yes! The thoughts that seem to kill are those that teach the thinker that he can be killed. And so he “dies” because of what he learned.” T-21.VIII.1

“The sick are healed as you let go all thoughts of sickness, and the dead arise when you let thoughts of life replace all thoughts you ever held of death.” W-pI.132.8

“Healing is a thought by which two minds perceive their oneness and become glad.” T-5.I.1

One common wrong thought concerning health is that the body and not the mind is the source of all or at least some disease. When the average person becomes ill, he rarely will attribute the problem to his mind or thinking, and instead see it as a problem produced by the body. To the contrary, the Course gives this view:

“The body cannot heal, because it cannot make itself sick. It needs no healing. Its health or sickness depends entirely on how the mind perceives it, and the purpose that the mind would use it for.” T-19.I.3

“Thus is the body healed by miracles because they show the mind made sickness, and employed the body to be victim, or effect, of what it made.” T-28.II.11

So, the first correction of thinking needed is the realization that illness comes not from the body, genes, inheritance, etc., but from our wrong-minded thoughts.

“These patients do not realize they have chosen sickness. On the contrary, they believe that sickness has chosen them.” M-5.III.1

The Course does not differentiate much between physical and mental illness. Instead, it seems to categorize illness or pain of any kind as coming from the mind. It is written:

“all sickness is mental illness,” P-2.IV.8

The problem is that “What you made has imprisoned your will, and given you a sick mind that must be healed.” T-6.V.C.9

Indeed, it tells us that all discomfort, pain and illness come from a mind that has chosen illusion over truth, which is said to be insane:

“As you look with open eyes upon your world, it must occur to you that you have withdrawn into insanity. You see what is not there, and you hear what makes no sound.” T-13.V.6

“the content of individual illusions differs greatly. Yet they have one thing in common; they are all insane. “ T-13.V.1

The world itself is sick and insane:

“This is an insane world, and do not underestimate the extent of its insanity.” T-14.I.2

The mental illness of general insanity seems widespread as indicated in this quote:

“The insane protect their thought systems, but they do so insanely. And all their defenses are as insane as what they are supposed to protect. The separation has nothing in it, no part, no “reason,” and no attribute that is not insane. And its “protection” is part of it, as insane as the whole. The special relationship, which is its chief defense, must therefore be insane.” T-17.IV.5

Again, it is pointed out that the “separation” is the cause of all insanity as well as any mental or physical health problems originating from it. Here is the basic problem that needs solved:

“For you have taught yourself how to imprison the Son of God, a lesson so unthinkable that only the insane, in deepest sleep, could even dream of it.” T-14.XI.2

And here is the cure: “When a brother behaves insanely, you can heal him only by perceiving the sanity in him. If you perceive his errors and accept them, you are accepting yours.” T-9.III.5.

So, according to ACIM, we have the situation where our wrong thinking creates an insane world where lots of pain and illness becomes the norm. Unfortunately, just accepting that we need to get our mind right and thinking straightened out is not enough. That only indicates the general direction we need to proceed. Fortunately, the Course gives us a number of problems we must circumvent in order to achieve healing. Let’s examine several of them.

Obstacles to Master

  1. FEAR

The Course tells us that fear is a great obstacle to right-mindedness and hence to good health. It gives the controversial thought that many are actually afraid to be healed.

“An individual may ask for physical healing because he is fearful of bodily harm. At the same time, if he were healed physically, the threat to his thought system might be considerably more fearful to him than its physical expression. In this case he is not really asking for release from fear, but for the removal of a symptom that he himself selected. This request is, therefore, not for healing at all.

“The Bible emphasizes that all prayer is answered, and this is indeed true. The very fact that the Holy Spirit has been asked for anything will ensure a response. Yet it is equally certain that no response given by Him will ever be one that would increase fear. It is possible that His answer will not be heard.” T-9.II.2-3

This tells us that we consciously say we want healing because of fear of bodily harm, but there is something else of which we are even more afraid. We are more afraid of a change to our thought system required by the healing.

Then it tells us that we may pray and ask for healing and the answer will be given, but we may not hear that answer because of our fears.

The bottom line is we fear changing from wrong-minded to right-minded thinking more than we fear pain, illness and even death.

“If your miracle working inclinations are not functioning properly, it is always because fear has intruded on your right-mindedness and has turned it upside down.” T-2.V.4

“All healing is essentially the release from fear. To undertake this you cannot be fearful yourself. You do not understand healing because of your own fear.” T-2.IV.1

We are promised that the overcoming of fear can lead to healing:

“If you are afraid of healing, then it cannot come through you. The only thing that is required for a healing is a lack of fear. The fearful are not healed, and cannot heal.” T-27.V.1

  1. GUILT

We do not need a revelation from on high to convince us that guilt has a negative effect on both physical and mental health. It is obvious that guilt can cause great emotional pain and stress to the nervous system. Most also realize that the stress it produces can have physical effects and weaken the body, making it more susceptible to illness. But according to the Course, its physical effects and relationship to fear are more powerful and pervasive than realized by most.

“Under fear’s orders the body will pursue guilt, serving its master whose attraction to guilt maintains the whole illusion of its existence. “ T-19.IV.B.13

“Guilt, too, is feared and fearful. Yet it could have no hold at all except on those who are attracted to it and seek it out.” T-19.IV.C.1

Guilt is also related to wrong-mindedness or insane thinking:

“It is guilt that has driven you insane.” T-13.in.1

“For you must learn that guilt is always totally insane, and has no reason.” T-13.X.6

Sickness itself is a sign that guilt is present:

“For sickness is the witness to his guilt.” T-27.I.4

And finally, it tells us that overcoming guilt is a key to eliminating sickness:

“The guiltless mind cannot suffer.” T-5.V.5

“Sickness where guilt is absent cannot come, for it is but another form of guilt. Atonement does not heal the sick, for that is not a cure. It takes away the guilt that makes the sickness possible. And that is cure indeed. For sickness now is gone, with nothing left to which it can return. W-pI.140.4.

Guilt not only aggravates illness, but it robs those with it of their peace of mind. Such a lack of peace can be a greater disturbance than many physical problems.

Earlier in this book we discussed guilt and how to eliminate it completely. It is advisable for those having problems with this negative emotion to review those teachings and take them to heart. After all, peace of mind of the guiltless is priceless.

  1. FORGIVENESS

True forgiveness is essential to healing according to ACIM. It says that “To forgive is to heal” M-22.1, and “that forgiveness is healing needs to be understood.” M-22.3 It is essential to the miracle of healing for, “Only forgiveness offers miracles.” T-25.IX.8 “Forgiveness recognized as merited will heal. It gives the miracle its strength to overlook illusions.” T-30.VI.5

These quotes make a lot of sense when you think of it, for if one holds a grievance toward another, he is holding in a lot of negative emotional energy which has no constructive effect on any level. Much ill health is caused by a blockage of the free flow of life and emotional energy, and grievance caused by unforgiveness certainly contributes to this problem. Letting go of a grievance toward a brother can open the door to a miraculous healing on both physical and emotional levels.

Forgiveness not only heals the one doing the forgiving but also the one forgiven:

“Therefore, those who have been forgiven must devote themselves first to healing because, having received the idea of healing, they must give it to hold it.” T-5.IV.7

So, the one forgiven can also be healed if he seeks to heal others. He “must give it to hold it” for “Forgiveness is not real unless it brings a healing to your brother and yourself.” T-27.II.4

The forgiven and the forgiver must ask this question: “And who is there whom his forgiveness can fail to heal?” M-18.4

The power and extent to which healing can affect us is profound, for it says: “no one in whom true forgiveness rests can suffer.” T-27.II.3

That is quite a statement that would be difficult for many to accept who are suffering. If it is literally true then this would tell us that there are dimensions of forgiveness that is beyond the current consciousness of many, and we need to examine ourselves to see where the principle of forgiveness yet needs to be applied.

Indeed, the Course asks: “Does pain seem real in the perception? If it does, be sure the lesson is not learned. And there remains an unforgiveness hiding in the mind that sees the pain through eyes the mind directs.” W-pI.193.7

The fact that it speaks of “unforgiveness hiding” tells us that some are deceived into thinking that they have forgiven all when they have not for “there can be no form of suffering that fails to hide an unforgiving thought. Nor can there be a form of pain forgiveness cannot heal.” W-pI.198.9

The important thing that is healed through forgiveness is our “sight” or the way we look at things, especially separation:

Rejoice in the power of forgiveness to heal your sight completely. W-pI.75.9

“Forgiveness is the healing of the perception of separation. Correct perception of your brother is necessary, because minds have chosen to see themselves as separate.” T-3.V.9

This healing of the perception of separation coincides with the healing of the mind:

“So does your healing show your mind is healed, and has forgiven what he did not do. And so is he (your brother) convinced his innocence was never lost, and healed along with you.” T-27.II.6

We are given this advice:

“From knowledge, where He has been placed by God, the Holy Spirit calls to you, to let forgiveness rest upon your dreams, and be restored to sanity and peace of mind. Without forgiveness will your dreams remain to terrify you.” W-pII.7.4

Finally, we are given this as a goal:

“My forgiveness is the means by which the world is healed, together with myself.” W-pI.82.1

  1. LOVE

We have just noted the importance of forgiveness in relation to healing. This is important, but healing cannot be complete without the foundation emotion leading to completeness.

“It (forgiveness) is the source of healing, but it is the messenger of love and not its Source.” T-18.IX.10

When we return to our Source, forgiveness will no longer be needed, but there will still be love which is a basic aspect that God shares with all creation. When true healing occurs, love is always there manifesting in some way.

The other two barriers to healing of fear and guilt are also neutralized by love.

“all healing involves replacing fear with love.” T-8.IX.5

“Be not afraid of love. For it alone can heal all sorrow, wipe away all tears, and gently waken from his dream of pain the Son whom God acknowledges as His.” W-pII.10.4

“The attraction of guilt produces fear of love, for love would never look on guilt at all. It is the nature of love to look upon only the truth, for there it sees itself, with which it would unite in holy union and completion.” T-19.IV.A.10

Many spiritual healers recognize the importance of love in producing positive results. Even experiments with growing plants verifies this. Plants. that are sent loving thoughts become much healthier than those sent negative thoughts.

A Course in Miracles reveals that love has more power than is generally realized:

“Love cannot suffer, because it cannot attack. The remembrance of love therefore brings invulnerability with it.” T-10.III.3

 

That is quite a statement telling us that love cannot suffer and brings “invulnerability with it.” Many may wonder at this statement as we have all seen many decent and loving people endure suffering. The Course does give us this clue:

“by not offering total love you will not be healed completely.” T-13.III.9

So, for a real miracle of complete healing to occur, love must be given with no reservations

“Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love. The real miracle is the love that inspires them. In this sense everything that comes from love is a miracle.” T-1.I.3

The full expression of love is the greatest miracle. Even so, many who suffer seek the miracle of physical healing and seek to achieve it. But even though the suffering places great attention on the body, one must force his focus on love instead so miracles can take place, for “If a mind perceives without love, it perceives an empty shell and is unaware of the spirit within.” T-1.IV.2

The miracle of healing requires us to not let the discomfort of the body distract from awareness “of the spirit within.”

The one who is ill must take responsibility for his health and fulfill his own needs for love because, “When you do not value yourself you become sick, but my value of you can heal you, because the value of God’s Son is one.” T-10.III.6

We are all valuable to God and to be whole we must value ourselves.

“Miracles are merely the translation of denial into truth. If to love oneself is to heal oneself, those who are sick do not love themselves. Therefore, they are asking for the love that would heal them, but which they are denying to themselves. If they knew the truth about themselves they could not be sick.” T-12.II.1

And what is the truth about ourselves that heals? It is that we were created through the love of God and we are agents of love. To see ourselves as otherwise causes ill health.

To love yourself is to heal yourself, and you cannot perceive part of you as sick and achieve your goal.” T-11.VIII.11

However, one cannot have completeness of healing without assisting and sharing love with others:

“Perceive in sickness but another call for love, and offer your brother what he believes he cannot offer himself. Whatever the sickness, there is but one remedy. You will be made whole as you make whole, for to perceive in sickness the appeal for health is to recognize in hatred the call for love.” T-12.II.3

“You will be made whole as you make whole” is reinforced in this statement:

“A miracle is a reversal of the physical order because it brings more love to the giver AND the receiver.” UR T 1 B 10

The goal of love in healing is summarized in this passage:

“There is no sadness where a miracle has come to heal. And nothing more than just one instant of your love without attack is necessary that all this occur. In that one instant you are healed, and in that single instant is all healing done.” T-27.V.4

  1. MIND

God extended His mind in us, giving us power to create anything which we imagine and make it real. This worked out fine as long as the Sons of God were in harmony with Divine Will and saw truth as it is. But then the Sons got this “mad idea” and wondered what it would be like to live in a world of time and space where even separation from God would be possible. This could not happen in eternity, but the power of the mind was so powerful that the Sons went to sleep, and in their dreams “miscreated” many strange things that led to nightmares and produced the possibility of pain and disease.

you have used your own mind, which He created in the likeness of His Own, to miscreate.” T-3.II.4

The Course tells us that in this dream where fear prevails, we still have all powers of creation, but often misuse it when we choose fear instead of love:

“The fearful must miscreate, because they misperceive creation. When you miscreate you are in pain.” T-2.VII.3

“The very fact that you are afraid makes your mind vulnerable to miscreation. You are therefore likely to misunderstand any healing that might occur, and because egocentricity and fear usually occur together, you may be unable to accept the real Source of the healing.” T-2.V.2

Even though we are in a dream of separation, we are still linked to our Creator:

“you cannot depart entirely from your Creator, Who set the limits on your ability to miscreate. An imprisoned will engenders a situation which, in the extreme, becomes altogether intolerable. Tolerance for pain may be high, but it is not without limit. Eventually everyone begins to recognize, however dimly, that there must be a better way.” T-2.III.3

The “better way” is to remember who we are and use the mind for perfect creation instead of imperfect miscreation.

“The lesson (of healing) is the mind was sick that thought the body could be sick.” T-28.II.11

The ego takes advantage of this power to miscreate:

“The ego regards the body as its home, and tries to satisfy itself through the body. But the idea that this is possible is a decision of the mind, which has become completely confused about what is really possible.” T-4.II.7

We must realize our true situation as prisoners of the ego and the body so we can use the mind to eliminate pain and ill health:

“It (the body) holds in prison but the willing mind that would abide in it. It sickens at the bidding of the mind that would become its prisoner. And it grows old and dies, because that mind is sick within itself… Let us be glad that you will see what you believe, and that it has been given you to change what you believe. The body will but follow. T-31.III.4&6

The solution then is simple. We change what we believe and creation will follow:

“The mind is very powerful, and never loses its creative force. It never sleeps. Every instant it is creating. It is hard to recognize that thought and belief combine into a power surge that can literally move mountains.” T-2.VI.9

There is no miracle you cannot have when you desire healing. But there is no miracle that can be given you unless you want it. T-30.VIII.4

That sounds pretty simple. We just need to desire the miracle of healing to make it happen. But, one must realize that wholeness is required for miracles:

“All forms of sickness are signs that the mind is split, and does not accept a unified purpose.” T-8.IX.8

“Wholeness heals because it is of the mind.” T-8.IX.3

In other words, all the ingredients of the healing must be desired to produce results.

For instance, if one has diabetes because of a bad diet with lots of refined sugar he, of course, would like to be healed of the disease, but is he willing to cease eating the processed foods that caused it? We are like little children who do not want to go to the dentist but also do not want to brush regularly and cut down on sugar.

A split mind cannot be healed. To be healed, the mind has to be directed to wholeness physically, emotionally and mentally. When all the ingredients of health are embraced by the mind, then there will be wholeness in thought and the miracle can happen.

The Course gives this solid advice in connection with the mind and healing:

“All mind is whole, and the belief that part of it is physical, or not mind, is a fragmented or sick interpretation. Mind cannot be made physical, but it can be made manifest through the physical if it uses the body to go beyond itself. By reaching out, the mind extends itself. It does not stop at the body, for if it does it is blocked in its purpose. A mind that has been blocked has allowed itself to be vulnerable to attack, because it has turned against itself.

“The removal of blocks, then, is the only way to guarantee help and healing. Help and healing are the normal expressions of a mind that is working through the body, but not in it.” T-8.VII.10-11

  1. FAITH

In discussing factors that lead to healing, the subject of faith must indeed be included. In the New Testament, faith was credited by Jesus more than anything else as being responsible for the healing miracles. He often gave credit to people’s faith for their healings. Here are just several statements:

“thy faith hath made thee whole.” Matt 9:22

“Then touched he their eyes, saying, According to your faith be it unto you.” Matt 9:29

“great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt.” Matt 15:28

This is perhaps his most famous statement concerning faith:

“If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.” Matt 17:20

Moving a mountain would indeed be an impressive feat, on par with the resurrection itself. It was His way of saying that “all things are possible to him that believeth.” Mark 9:23

The Course mentions this great power of faith as if it should be a common thing:

“Why is it strange to you that faith can move mountains? This is indeed a little feat for such a power. For faith can keep the Son of God in chains as long as he believes he is in chains. And when he is released from them it will be simply because he no longer believes in them, withdrawing faith that they can hold him, and placing it in his freedom instead.” T-21.III.3

The passage goes on to tell us why we do not see more acts of significant faith saying: “It is impossible to place equal faith in opposite directions.”

It tells us that we can place our faith in illusion and falsehood as well as truth: “Faith and belief are strong in madness, guiding perception toward what the mind has valued.” T-21.V.8

Thus, we cannot move mountains because we have faith in our own limitations rather than the real source of power which is within us.

It is interesting that we see that the people who gathered in the home synagogue of Jesus had misplaced faith that Jesus could not perform miracles. He found the people had little positive faith in Him because they knew His family. The people figured that one of their own with whom they were familiar could not be the source of such miracles. Concerning them it is written:

“And he did not many mighty works there because of their unbelief.” Matt 13:58

Even Jesus could not assist in healing those who thought it was not possible.

We are told that, “Faith goes to what you want, and you instruct your mind accordingly. Your will remains your teacher, and your will has all the strength to do what it desires” W-pI.91.5

To have the faith that produces miracles, we must merely “instruct” our minds so we can accept the fact that “will has all the strength to do what it desires.”

Sounds pretty simple, but few fully incorporate such instruction because we have more faith in sickness than in health:

“Because the miracle worker has heard God’s Voice, he strengthens It in a sick brother by weakening his belief in sickness, which he does not share.” T-10.IV.7

It is certainly obvious that many have much more faith in illness than health. The miracle worker must therefore work to weaken that negative faith and redirect the mind to positive faith for “faith can be rewarded only in terms of the belief in which the faith was placed.” T-13.IX.2

 We are told that our basic problem is that our “lack of faith in the power that heals all pain arises from your wish to retain some aspects of reality for fantasy.” T-17.I.3

The problem always goes back to the divided mind, which is especially true concerning health. We desire good health, but we also desire things that are not good for our health. We desire to have positive faith, but we tend to focus on a belief in negativity.

A united mind can indeed manifest miracles through faith, and nothing unites the mind more than truth: “Where the goal of truth is set, there faith must be. The Holy Spirit sees the situation as a whole.” T-17.VI.6

Faith is increased by the sharing of truth and right-mindedness. Jesus taught this when he was here:

“Again I say unto you, That if two of you shall agree on earth as touching any thing that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven. For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” Matt 18:19-20

Just two or three uniting in faith can make anything happen. The Course expands on this idea:

“Every situation, properly perceived, becomes an opportunity to heal the Son of God. And he is healed because you offered faith to him, giving him to the Holy Spirit and releasing him from every demand your ego would make of him. Thus do you see him free, and in this vision does the Holy Spirit share. And since He shares it He has given it, and so He heals through you. It is this joining Him in a united purpose that makes this purpose real, because you make it whole. And this is healing. The body is healed because you came without it, and joined the Mind in which all healing rests.” T-19.I.2

Faith, healing, the Atonement, forgiveness and sharing all work together:

“To have faith is to heal. It is the sign that you have accepted the Atonement for yourself, and would therefore share it. By faith, you offer the gift of freedom from the past, which you received. You do not use anything your brother has done before to condemn him now.” T-19.I.9

Finally, before the fulness of miracles can manifest, we all must work on ourselves and our own healing:

“There have been many healers who did not heal themselves. They have not moved mountains by their faith because their faith was not whole. Some of them have healed the sick at times, but they have not raised the dead. Unless the healer heals himself, he cannot believe that there is no order of difficulty in miracles. He has not learned that every mind God created is equally worthy of being healed because God created it whole. You are merely asked to return to God the mind as He created it. He asks you only for what He gave, knowing that this giving will heal you. Sanity is wholeness, and the sanity of your brothers is yours.” T-5.VII.2

  1. PEACE

Peace is an important ingredient in the healing process, as none of the six categories we have covered so far would be effective without it.

The attainment of peace is essential to overcoming fear and guilt. Peace is a sign that true forgiveness has taken place. Love and peace go hand in hand. We cannot be in a positive state of mind if we are not at peace, and without it we cannot center ourselves on our inner core to exercise true faith.

The state of peace is a sign that the miracle worker has all the ingredients together to proceed with his or her work of love, service and healing.

You would think that all students would greatly desire this quality, but the Course indicates this is not the case.

Lesson 185 encourages students to embrace this statement:

“I want the peace of God.”

 Then it makes these remarks:

To say these words is nothing. But to mean these words is everything. If you could but mean them for just an instant, there would be no further sorrow possible for you in any form; in any place or time… No one can mean these words and not be healed.” W-pI.185.1-2

Obviously, there are a lot of people dealing with sorrow and ill health who would tell us that they desire peace, but according to the Course there must be something lacking in such desires, else their suffering would end. What is it that could be missing? Here is a clue:

“When a brother is sick it is because he is not asking for peace, and therefore does not know he has it. The acceptance of peace is the denial of illusion, and sickness is an illusion. Yet every Son of God has the power to deny illusions anywhere in the Kingdom, merely by denying them completely in himself.” T-10.III.7.

This points out several helpful things to aid in the attainment of peace and healing. First, we already have peace in our core, but one “does not know he has it.”

Secondly, one has to ask for it so the barriers can be removed. How many are there who are not at peace and in ill health, but have not made the simple gesture of asking their Source for peace and healing?

Third is “the acceptance of peace.” True peace comes from focusing on the Christ at the core of our being, for this state of mind has to be accepted to be retained. This is easier said than done as many distractions of life force us to look upon the world without more than the world within.

The fourth key to peace is “the denial of illusion” for “sickness is an illusion.”

Denial is often seen as a negative motion but the Course tells us that it can be put to positive use. We can use it to deny those things that are not true, not real or illusion. Since sickness of any kind is a part of the illusion, then a denial of it may be in order.

The question is, how do we go about denying pain and ill health? The key is to see that which is true rather than that which is not true. We are told that sickness is an illusion. An illusion is something that seems to be there but is not. This tells us how to deny sickness. One must attain the state of mind that sees and accepts it as something that does not exist in reality. I like to call this a state of “not seeing” rather than denial. When you do not see the imperfection, that which remains is perfection.

There is a spiritual maxim that says “energy follows thought.” The Course says something similar: “every thought you have brings either peace or war; either love or fear.” W-pI.16.3

Wrong-mindedness and miscreation guides energy in directions that produce disease. Taking thought away from the illusion removes the energy that feeds the illness and thus it has to disappear.

To accomplish this one has to honestly examine his thoughts and desires to see if he is really willing to let the destructive ones go and be replaced by the right-mindedness of the Holy Spirit which includes forgiveness. “The Holy Spirit calls to you, to let forgiveness rest upon your dreams, and be restored to sanity and peace of mind. Without forgiveness will your dreams remain to terrify you.” W-pII.7.4

As stated earlier, peace is strongly connected with the previous six factors needed for healing. The first, which is fear, is huge. We are asked this:

“Can pain be part of peace, or grief of joy? Can fear and sickness enter in a mind where love and perfect holiness abide?” W-pI.152.2

Unwise thinking creates the problem:

“You have chosen to create unlike Him, and have therefore made fear for yourself. You are not at peace because you are not fulfilling your function.” T-4.I.9

But it offers solutions:

“For the instant of peace is eternal because it is without fear.” T-15.II.2

“You have escaped from fear to peace, asking no questions of reality, but merely accepting it.” T-18.VI.11

The second problem, which is guilt, is on the opposite side of peace:

“Peace and guilt are antithetical, and the Father can be remembered only in peace.” T-13.I.1

“Peace and guilt are both conditions of the mind, to be attained. And these conditions are the home of the emotion that calls them forth, and therefore is compatible with them.” T-19.IV.B.10

We are called “to lay all guilt aside. Reflect the peace of Heaven here, and bring this world to Heaven.” T-14.X.1

The Course stresses several times the importance of forgiveness in the attainment of the peace that heals:

“When peace is not with you entirely, and when you suffer pain of any kind, you have beheld some sin within your brother, and have rejoiced at what you thought was there.” T-24.IV.5.

“How willing are you to forgive your brother? How much do you desire peace instead of endless strife and misery and pain? These questions are the same, in different form.” T-29.VI.1

The fourth point is love, which goes hand in hand with peace:

“Love has now returned to our awareness. And we are at peace again, for fear has gone and only love remains.” W-pII.323.2

“Peace be to you to whom is healing offered…What occurred within the instant that love entered in without attack will stay with you forever. Your healing will be one of its effects, as will your brother’s.” T-27.V.11

A whole mind is essential to peace:

The Wholeness of God, which is His peace, cannot be appreciated except by a whole mind” T-6.II.1

Peace is closely associated with mind, as evidenced by the fact that the phrase “peace of mind” is used 34 times in ACIM. Here is just one example:

“There are no small upsets. They are all equally disturbing to my peace of mind.” W-pI.5.4

Finally, we see that peace is essential in the use of faith:

“Your faith must grow to meet the goal that has been set. The goal’s reality will call this forth, for you will see that peace and faith will not come separately. What situation can you be in without faith, and remain faithful to your brother?” T-17.VII.4

“Then follow Him in joy, with faith that He will lead you safely through all dangers to your peace of mind this world may set before you.” T-13.VII.15

Peace is indeed an essential ingredient for healing and it is a journey without distance to find it:

“There is a place in you where there is perfect peace. There is a place in you where nothing is impossible. There is a place in you where the strength of God abides.” W-pI.47.7

Find that peace within and “nothing is impossible,” anything can be healed.

That said, we cannot end this section on peace without including the most famous quote of all from ACIM:

“Nothing real can be threatened.

Nothing unreal exists.

Herein lies the peace of God.” T-in.2

  1. OTHER HEALING FACTORS

In addition to the seven factors we have covered, ACIMs tells us of others to which we need to pay attention.

THE HOLY SPIRIT

The miracle of healing cannot take place without the Holy Spirit:

“Every situation, properly perceived, becomes an opportunity to heal the Son of God. And he is healed because you offered faith to him, giving him to the Holy Spirit and releasing him from every demand your ego would make of him. Thus do you see him free, and in this vision does the Holy Spirit share. And since He shares it He has given it, and so He heals through you. It is this joining Him in a united purpose that makes this purpose real, because you make it whole. And this is healing. The body is healed because you came without it, and joined the Mind in which all healing rests.” T-19.I.2

The Holy Spirit is the link for us between the worlds of heaven and earth. If we are to bypass the laws of this world and use the laws of the higher, we need His assistance. When a miraculous healing is attempted and met with failure, it is because the Holy Spirit was not fully involved and His messages of healing not entirely heard and followed. We must always include him for “the Holy Spirit is the only Healer.” T-13.VIII.1 In addition: “The Holy Spirit will direct you only so as to avoid pain.” T-7.X.3.

That which we seek must be in harmony with the Spirit, for even the scriptures tell us that “Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss.” James 4:3 We must ask for that which is in harmony with the will of heaven which takes us from pain to joy, from incompleteness to wholeness.

JUDGMENT

Ego judgments interfere with healing:

“peace must come to those who choose to heal and not to judge.” T-21.VIII.2

“It must be true the miracle can heal all forms of sickness, or it cannot heal. Its purpose cannot be to judge which forms are real, and which appearances are true.” T-30.VI.7

“Instead of judging, we need but be still and let all things be healed.” W-pII.in.10

DISTORTED PERCEPTION

We live in a world of time and space where we learn through what is perceived. The trouble is that we perceive many things incorrectly, as well as wrongly interpret that which is perceived. This leads to many problems including ill health.

Correct perception is a miracle itself and is essential for healing:

The level-adjustment power of the miracle induces the right perception for healing. Until this has occurred healing cannot be understood. Forgiveness is an empty gesture unless it entails correction. Without this it is essentially judgmental, rather than healing.” T-2.V.A.15

Healing involves perceiving our brother accurately:

“To heal, then, is to correct perception in your brother and yourself by sharing the Holy Spirit with him. This places you both within the Kingdom, and restores its wholeness in your mind.” T-7.II.2

And how do you tell if your perception is off?

“How can you tell when you are seeing wrong, or someone else is failing to perceive the lesson he should learn? Does pain seem real in the perception? If it does, be sure the lesson is not learned.” W-pI.193.7

The wrong perception of separation is the main correction needed:

“Forgiveness is the healing of the perception of separation. Correct perception of your brother is necessary, because minds have chosen to see themselves as separate.” T-3.V.9

REMEMBERING

To be a true miracle worker we are told that we must remember our origins. When we recall who we are, get a sense of heaven and a difference between laws that govern reality and illusion, then the presence of the Holy Spirit is fully invited in and miracles can occur.

Here we are told that if we could remember the truth about ourselves, we “could not be sick.”

“Miracles are merely the translation of denial into truth. If to love oneself is to heal oneself, those who are sick do not love themselves. Therefore, they are asking for the love that would heal them, but which they are denying to themselves. If they knew the truth about themselves they could not be sick. The task of the miracle worker thus becomes to deny the denial of truth. The sick must heal themselves, for the truth is in them…”

We must remember “that all power is of God. You can remember this for all the Sonship. Do not allow your brother not to remember, for his forgetfulness is yours. But your remembering is his, for God cannot be remembered alone. This is what you have forgotten. To perceive the healing of your brother as the healing of yourself is thus the way to remember God. For you forgot your brothers with Him, and God’s Answer to your forgetting is but the way to remember.” T-12.II.1-2

The very power to manifest miracles is inherent of what we are:

“Your claim to miracles does not lie in your illusions about yourself. It does not depend on any magical powers you have ascribed to yourself, nor on any of the rituals you have devised. It is inherent in the truth of what you are.” W-pI.77.2

what you are you must learn to remember.” T-6.V.C.5

The path to true remembering is through the Holy Spirit:

“He (the Holy Spirit) is perfectly aware that you do not know yourself, and perfectly aware of how to teach you to remember what you are.” T-12.VI.2

Yes, He will teach us but we must first “Listen, and you will learn how to remember what you are.” T-10.V.11

When remembrance comes, “You are entitled to miracles because of what you are. You will receive miracles because of what God is. And you will offer miracles because you are one with God.

“Your claim to miracles does not lie in your illusions about yourself. It does not depend on any magical powers you have ascribed to yourself, nor on any of the rituals you have devised. It is inherent in the truth of what you are. W-pI.77.1-2

This understanding leads to unlimited power:

“The Oneness of the Creator and the creation is your wholeness, your sanity and your limitless power. This limitless power is God’s gift to you, because it is what you are.” T-7.VI.10

 This remembrance will bring “perfect healing.”

“Into this empty space, from which the goal of sin has been removed, is Heaven free to be remembered. Here its peace can come, and perfect healing take the place of death.” T-27.I.10.

Discovering this remembrance of our true identity is the purpose of the Course itself:

“This course will teach you how to remember what you are, restoring to you your Identity. We have already learned that this Identity is shared. The miracle becomes the means of sharing It.” T-14.X.12

SHARING

The Course stresses many times that we must assist and join with our brothers to obtain heaven. Here it tells is the effect on our health by going it alone:

“For healing is the opposite of all the world’s ideas which dwell on sickness and on separate states. Sickness is a retreat from others, and a shutting off of joining. It becomes a door that closes on a separate self, and keeps it isolated and alone. Sickness is isolation. For it seems to keep one self apart from all the rest, to suffer what the others do not feel.” W-pI.137.1-2

True miracles happen through sharing:

“You have done miracles, but it is quite apparent that you have not done them alone. You have succeeded whenever you have reached another mind and joined with it. When two minds join as one and share one idea equally, the first link in the awareness of the Sonship as One has been made.” T-16.II.4

Those who are centered on themselves alone will not be able to manifest miracles for “God cannot be remembered alone” T-12.II.2, for we, along with our brothers, must tune into where we were in creation to become miracle workers.

We are told that “The cause of pain is separation, not the body, which is only its effect” T-28.III.5

If the cause of pain and illness is separation, then the cure is again to be united:

“No one is sick if someone else accepts his union with him. His desire to be a sick and separated mind can not remain without a witness or a cause. And both are gone if someone wills to be united with him.” T-28.IV.7

Not only must healing be shared but it is also essential to enter back into the kingdom of heaven:

“The Kingdom cannot be found alone, and you who are the Kingdom cannot find yourself alone.” T-8.III.6.

On the other hand, we do not want to share in the illusions or sickness of our brothers:

We should not “give support to someone’s dream of sickness and of death. It means that you share not his wish to separate, and let him turn illusions on himself.” T-28.IV.1

     

The Course stresses that we are all in this together and healing is a shared experience:

“Do not accept your brother’s variable perception of himself for his split mind is yours, and you will not accept your healing without his. For you share the real world as you share Heaven, and his healing is yours. To love yourself is to heal yourself, and you cannot perceive part of you as sick and achieve your goal. Brother, we heal together as we live together and love together.” T-11.VIII.11

We find that union and sharing are the ultimate healing solution:

“Healing is shared. And by this attribute it proves that laws unlike the ones which hold that sickness is inevitable are more potent than their sickly opposites. Healing is strength. For by its gentle hand is weakness overcome, and minds that were walled off within a body free to join with other minds, to be forever strong.” W-pI.137.8

ACIM and Orthodox Medicine

Many students read along in the Course about the principles of healing and think it is wonderful how a healed mind in tune with heaven can have perfect health, but then when the moment comes that illness threatens, what do they do?

Do they review the Course’s teachings that “illness is a form of magic” T-5.V.5 and seek to apply the non-magical instructions of the Course in healing?

Often the answer is no. Instead of using ACIM principles, they seek orthodox healing techniques which the Course says “are restatements of magic principles.” T-2.IV.4

I am reminded of a good friend I had a few years back who was an avid student of spiritual philosophy and alternative medicine. Seemingly, out of the blue she developed cancer, and after the doctors scared the dickens out of her with a diagnosis and needed treatment, she seemed to throw all her previous beliefs out the window and placed all her faith in orthodox medicine. She lived a few months more in great pain and distress before a painful death took her.

I see this happening with ACIM students. They study the Course and think it is great, but then when they get a few sniffles they run to their doctor, take antibiotics, and whatever else the establishment advises.

The Course uses the word “magic” quite a lot in describing illness as well as the orthodox methods of treating it. Concerning physical illness, it says:

“Only the mind is capable of error. The body can act wrongly only when it is responding to misthought. The body cannot create, and the belief that it can, a fundamental error, produces all physical symptoms. Physical illness represents a belief in magic. The whole distortion that made magic rests on the belief that there is a creative ability in matter which the mind cannot control.” T-2.IV.2

So, the health problems caused by magic comes from the belief “that there is a creative ability in matter which the mind cannot control.”

Then it tells us that it is wrong minded to attempt to cure magically-induced disease with magical treatments on the body.

“All material means that you accept as remedies for bodily ills are restatements of magic principles. This is the first step in believing that the body makes its own illness. It is a second misstep to attempt to heal it through non-creative agents.” T-2.IV.4

“Magic is the mindless or the miscreative use of mind. Physical medications are forms of “spells,” T-2.V.2

So, if we do not use orthodox healing techniques, what should we do?

First of all, the Course tells us that if we follow its precepts, we will never be ill in the first place. We’ve already covered numerous statements to this effect that if we follow the teachings on love, forgiveness, correct use of mind, etc., the health of the body will take care of itself.

Unfortunately, none of us are perfect and just about all of us have physical challenges now and then. So, when this happens what should we do?

The problem is that any illness we have is generated through a misuse of the mind and has nothing to do with the body itself according to ACIM. Since the illness is caused by belief in magic outside the mind, the tendency is to seek for a cure in the same place. We thus seek for outside doctors and medicines that treat the body when in reality the mind has the problem that needs correction. We are told that:

“The body cannot heal, because it cannot make itself sick. It needs no healing. Its health or sickness depends entirely on how the mind perceives it, and the purpose that the mind would use it for.” T-19.I.3

The creative power of the mind is all powerful and if we use it correctly, we are told we will never be ill in any way and even death will be overcome. Some Course students are overwhelmed by the ideals the Course presents to us and are dismayed by their inability to reach them. Some feel uneasy seeking orthodox means of healing because of the statements ACIM made about them. It is stressed that using the laws of God is associated with the mind and the laws of the ego with the body:

“When you heal, you are remembering the laws of God and forgetting the laws of the ego.” T-7.IV.2

Orthodox medicine is thus ego centered, and the Course gives some controversial statements about certain practices. As of this writing, vaccination is a hot topic among Course students. It says this:

“Think of the freedom in the recognition that you are not bound by all the strange and twisted laws you have set up to save you…You really think a small round pellet or some fluid pushed into your veins through a sharpened needle will ward off disease and death.” W-pI.76.3

So right here it dismisses the need for prescription drugs as well as natural supplements in pill form. The “sharpened needle” would refer to vaccinations and other medical injections.

In that same section these thoughts are reinforced. It speaks of “‘laws’ we have believed we must obey. These would include, for example, the ‘laws’ of nutrition, of immunization, of medication, and of the body’s protection in innumerable ways… Dismiss all foolish magical beliefs today.” W-pI.76.

The Course even dismisses the use of glasses to improve vision:

“Thus you believe that you can change what you see by putting little bits of glass before your eyes. This is among the many magical beliefs that come from the conviction you are a body, and the body’s eyes can see.” W-pI.92.1

One may wonder how the scribe Helen Schucman felt about this since she wore glasses. Not only that, but both she and Kenneth Wapnick died after a painful bout with cancer. Helen, though, told us that she was far from the perfect student of the Course. There were parts of the Course that even she had difficulty in accepting.

In speaking of magical or orthodox dealings with pain it says:

“All belief in magic is maintained by just one simple-minded illusion;–that it works. All through their training, every day and every hour, and even every minute and second, must God’s teachers learn to recognize the forms of magic and perceive their meaninglessness.” M-16.11

So, the Course acknowledges that orthodox treatments work, but if true teachers see correctly, they will “perceive their meaninglessness.”

Then Jesus is quoted as saying this:

“I am repeating here a Biblical injunction of my own, already mentioned elsewhere, that if my followers eat any deadly thing it shall not hurt them. This is what Cayce could NOT believe, because he could not see that, as a Son of God, he WAS invulnerable.” UR T 3 C 39

Here Jesus was referring to this scripture concerning believers:

“They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.” Mark 16:18

So, if miracle workers accept the laws of God above the laws of the ego, they will be “invulnerable” and can even “eat any deadly thing it shall not hurt them.”

The question is – how many are awake enough to be invulnerable and not be subject to the laws of the ego? Even Socrates, as evolved as he was, died when he ate the poison hemlock. How many students do we know that are of the caliber of Socrates, let alone Jesus?

Apparently, just proclaiming that you believe is not enough. There are Christian groups that take this scripture seriously and handle deadly snakes to demonstrate their faith and some get bitten and die. While the Corona Virus has been raging, some Christian ministers have publicly declared they are invulnerable to it because of their faith, yet have caught it and died. The media loves to publish stories of such people and make light of their faith.

Yes, there have been many who fell short in their faith, but there have been a few who have not and many students of the Course have reported witnessing miracles in their lives. The problem, even for a strong believer who has witnessed some miracles, is this. Under the law of God there is no order of difficulty in miracles, but under the ego there definitely is. It is very difficult for the mind of even the most fervent believer of ACIM to fully accept that there is no order of difficulty.

He can therefore accept the idea that a certain disease may be cured by a miracle, but raising the dead or moving a mountain is another matter. How many can fully accept something like these that seems utterly impossible to the ego? None that I know of to the point where they can accomplish them. Or how about restoring the sight to one blind from birth as did Jesus?

For the rank-and-file students, letting go of this order of difficulty by the mind is a great obstacle, and though there may be some who make such claims, rare are the actual demonstrations of such power and invulnerability.

Fortunately, for those of us who have not yet reached invulnerability, the Course recognizes that most have need for some of the ego’s magic. Many who seem spiritually evolved and shun orthodox treatments still wear glasses, take food supplements, and are selective about their diet. For those lacking in full-fledged faith in invulnerability, the Course indicates it is because we have a fear of using the mind to heal above applying medicines to the body. It says:

“If you are afraid to use the mind to heal, you should not attempt to do so. The very fact that you are afraid makes your mind vulnerable to miscreation. You are therefore likely to misunderstand any healing that might occur, and because egocentricity and fear usually occur together, you may be unable to accept the real Source of the healing. Under these conditions, it is safer for you to rely temporarily on physical healing devices, because you cannot misperceive them as your own creations. As long as your sense of vulnerability persists, you should not attempt to perform miracles.” T-2.V.2

`

So, if we perceive ourselves vulnerable enough to need medicine, vaccinations or medical assistance to heal the body, an attempt at miracles may lead to “miscreation.” If nothing is impossible for the mind, then indeed, we must be careful what we create with our thoughts.

The Course adds this about orthodox treatments:

“All material means that you accept as remedies for bodily ills are restatements of magic principles. This is the first step in believing that the body makes its own illness. It is a second misstep to attempt to heal it through non-creative agents. It does not follow, however, that the use of such agents for corrective purposes is evil. Sometimes the illness has a sufficiently strong hold over the mind to render a person temporarily inaccessible to the 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 healing belief. This is because the last thing that can help the non-right-minded, or the sick, is an increase in fear.” T-2.IV.4

Again, it associates the problem of vulnerability with fear. The problem is that fear is a very subtle thing, and many think they have no fear when they merely have fear that is suppressed that still makes them vulnerable. When the student still has vulnerabilities, we are told that the use of regular medicines is not evil, but may be the right thing to do because the “healing belief” is in the orthodox medicine. If that is where our belief is, then that is where we must go for treatment. If we believe in the medicine, the doctor or the vaccine, that is where the benefit may be until the student is able to place more faith in mind/spirit than directly treating the body.

“So do we lay aside our amulets, our charms and medicines, our chants and bits of magic in whatever form they take. We will be still and listen for the Voice of healing, which will cure all ills as one, restoring saneness to the Son of God. No voice but this can cure.” W-pI.140.10

The Course does give us an interesting hint as to how wrong thinking can cause physical problems. In speaking of Helen’s vision problems, it says:

The result is a kind of “double vision,” which would have produced an actual diplopia, if she had not settled for nearsightedness. This was an attempt to see the concrete more clearly through the ego’s eyes, without the “interference” of the longer range. Her virtual lack of astigmatism is due to her real efforts at objectivity and fairness. She has not attained them, or she would not be nearsighted. But she HAS tried to be fair with what she permitted herself to see. … B., you were more capable of a longrange view, and that is why your eyesight is good. UR T 4 C 6&9

Notice how it tells us that physical vision problems corresponds to wrong thinking. Helen’s nearsightedness was caused by “an attempt to see the concrete more clearly through the ego’s eyes, without the “interference” of the longer range.”

In addition, “Her virtual lack of astigmatism is due to her real efforts at objectivity and fairness.”

Bill had good eyesight because he was “capable of a longrange view.”

This concept that physical problems correspond to misdirected thinking has been picked up by a number alternative healers and authors. It is said, for instance, that if we allow someone to bother us too much, we may develop a headache or pain in the neck, for we see them as a pain in the neck. If one doesn’t have the backbone to stand up for himself, he may develop back problems. If we let others get under our skin, we may develop skin problems. If another does not give love when needed, he could develop problems with the heart and so on. Fear is said to greatly lower our defenses against contagious diseases.

Numerous writers who have contemplated the mind/body connection have come up with corresponding wrong thinking behind every physical problem. It is an interesting subject that a student of ACIM might want to investigate.

CONCLUSION:

The Course presents a number of ideals concerning health and healing. Sometimes it makes it sound like students should have perfect health if they just grasp its basic elements. Other times it seems to tell us that healing others who are ill is a simple matter of following the teachings. These ideals cause some students to get a little frustrated with themselves.

Let me encourage all readers to forge ahead no matter how small or great your results have been so far. Very few have mastered the teachings to be able to perform miracles as did Jesus in the Bible, but it is essential to keep in mind that he set the example of what all of us can and will eventually accomplish. The important thing is to honestly examine ourselves to see where we are now, and then to take the next step.

Copyright by J J Dewey

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McCall Gathering, 2007, Part 24

This entry is part 24 of 54 in the series McCall Gathering 2007

The Magic Quarters

JJ: I will tell it quickly, Artie, Wayne and I went to this Chinese restaurant and we all got these fortune cookies and we opened them up and they all had exactly the same wording. This was unusual to say the least. They all said that we would have a fortune come into our hands in the near future or something like that. In other words the message was that we were really going to get rich. I thought, this is kind of interesting, so Wayne signals the waitress and says that something is wrong with these fortune cookies. We all got the same thing and that never happens, please bring us three more.

So the waitress brings us three more and Artie and I opened ours and again they said exactly the same thing and Wayne’s said the same thing but with a little bit different wording. We thought, wow all the fortune cookies must say the same thing here  but the waitress assured us this was a rare occurrence – that there were many different fortunes.

I did not think much of it and then the next morning when I got up and put on my bathrobe and started walking down the stairs. Suddenly, quarters started falling from somewhere on the stairs! I thought what in the world, I was looking around and I thought well that is kind of odd.

The next day I got up, put on my robe and started walking down the stairs and quarters started falling from somewhere again. I thought what in the world, so I took off my robe and started searching the pockets for this was all I had on. There was nowhere those quarters could have come from. I started thinking about the fortune cookies and that was kind of miraculous, quarters falling down the stairs twice that seemed to appear out of thin air – could this be a miracle? Nah, there must be a logical explanation, I was thinking like Larry there, logical,

It happened a third time and I was just beside myself and I figured it must have been something in my robe that I had not seen or I missed something. The next day I was taking a shower and all of a sudden, plunk, right on the bottom of the shower a quarter had fallen from somewhere and I thought where did this quarter come from? I picked it up and said it can’t just materialize from out of thin air; that is impossible. So I thought to myself, this might be a real sign and I am not a big believer in sign type miracles, but this might be a sign that we are going to get rich, so I want to keep this quarter! !

Audience: Laughter!

JJ: Anyway, I put it aside and I started telling everybody about the miracle of the quarters and it looked like it was our destiny to get rich. Well this was about ten years ago and I am not rich yet so you can read the tea leaves here.

Audience: Maybe you should have asked dollars.

JJ: For about a year I believed it must be type of real legitimate sign. Until I finally discovered what happened. I got out of bed from taking a nap one time and I walked in the bathroom and looked in the mirror and there stuck on my body was a couple of quarters and then I put it together. It was not a miracle after all and I made a fool of myself telling all my friends about the miracle of the quarters.

Here is the explanation… I was taking a nap with my pants on during that time period and I had a bunch of change that had fallen out and on to the bed and then when I went to bed at night, I slept on the quarters and they stuck to my body and then when I was walking down the stairs they fell off my body and when I was taking a shower one was stuck on my tummy and it fell off and landed on the floor, seemingly coming out of nowhere.

Audience: Laughter

JJ: I was kind of disappointed because I had told everybody about the miracle of the quarters and that it must be our destiny to get rich quick. So I was pretty disappointed and what reminded me of that again, is when I took my last shower quarters mysteriously appeared at my feet again. I do not know where they came from. Did anybody go and stick quarters in my shower within the past hour? Is somebody playing a trick on me?

Audience member: When I came in the room I heard some quarters0 fall and I think they fell out of your pocket.

JJ: Well how did they get in the shower because I did not have my pants on while I was taking a shower?

Audience: Roaring with laughter!

JJ: Two quarters and I was thinking I remember telling this to somebody over the past couple of days and I thought it was Susan but I wasn’t sure. Perhaps the person I told it to is trying to pull a trick on me. Have you been in my shower?

Audience: No, laughing!

JJ: I am wondering where those quarters came from.

Audience: At the Wendy’s where me, Eddie and Lorraine stopped in, I went over to get a spoon and someone left a ton of change on top of this one spoon packet over there and I just picked up the change spoon.

Okay what we are going to demonstrate is something quite magical, the point we are going to show you the physical correspondence where land water and air meet. We did this at the very first Gathering and it did not work very well, after we did it about 20 times then we finally got it to work but it was very agitating and I have practiced it this time and I know it will work. But we can make mental float on water. It floats on the point which is neither wet nor dry where land, water and air meet. We are going to do it in this order here.

Everybody walk up here and please don’t shake this because if you shake it, it will make it harder. We are using a paper clip and last time we used a needle and a needle works pretty good but I found a paper clip and this seems to work even better and is actually heavier than a needle. Have you ever seen a needle or a paper clip float on water?

Audience: Some yes and some no.

JJ: Okay we are going to make this paper clip float on water, This is so weird, it I told myself that this was not going to happen again and we are having a little bit of a problem here, again. I did this a half a dozen times at work and the tissue sank with like 6 seconds. (The paper clip finally floats) Anyway we have metal floating on water, now look at the point where air, water and land meet, it is neither wet nor dry.

You have surface tension, you can see the clip floating on it and you can see the surface tension holding it. Where the paper clip is touching the water it is not wet, but it is also not dry because it is touching water. So you have the little correspondence, which is where the land, air and water meet which is neither wet nor dry. I am glad we got it to work this time, thank God. Let’s see how long it floats.

Audience: So eventually this will sink?

JJ: If it is not disturbed then it will go on forever. If we walk around and create some ripples then it will eventually break the surface tension. It’s funny at the first gathering we did this and I did it over and over and over and I could not figure out what the problem was until found out that I was using distilled water which has a little bit less surface tension than regular water.

It is still floating and will continue until someone jumps around and disturbs it. Anyway I thought that was a very interesting demonstration here of how this corresponds to the point. Everything that is true has a correspondence on different levels and when I read rule number eight I thought now what could be the correspondence on the physical level? Then it occurred to me that we do have a correspondence on the physical level where metal can actually float on surface tension and the surface tension has to be broken before the metal can get wet and as long as the surface tension is not broken then the metal that is floating is neither wet nor dry.

And the same thing with us; we create a point of tension to enter into the soul contact. And that point of tension creates a place, which is neither emotional nor mental, nor earthly, but it is pure soul energy, as DK said, this is where magic takes place.

Copyright by J J Dewey

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The Dragon of Authority

150

Jan 1, 1999

The Dragon of Authority

New Years Day! And the best part is that I have the day off to kick off my shoes and do anything I want. Maybe I can be awake enough here to keep the typos out of my writing since I have the luxury today of writing in the middle of the day rather than late at night.

The Question… What is the first major step toward soul contact? The answer is somewhat of a judgment call and I would say that some of the answers given could be argued as being the major one.

Let me briefly cover several.

(1) Making a decision to seek or BECOME. This can be major except there are some who seek for a short time and then quit and then go into limbo for a few lifetimes. This then becomes the major step that was not taken. If the seeking attitude and the Decision to do so is maintained then that is a major event in the life of the soul.

(2) Awareness, recognition that there is something out there beyond the physical – looking for it – looking within.

(3) A point of crisis in our lives causing us to reflect.

(4) Observing ourselves with detachment.

(5) Finding a true spiritual teacher who has himself received soul contact.

All of these are good points and we may expand on them later, but I want to cover an important step which occurs as the mark of the Beast is replaced by the name of the Father. What makes this possible?

Glenys writes:

“True soul contact can only take place when the mark of the Beast is replaced by the seal of the Father on our foreheads and when we look to ourselves and no one else for the ultimate truth and authority in our lives.”

She is heading us the right direction here, but I would reword her statement to “within ourselves” rather than “to ourselves.” If looking to ourselves leads us to the Ego then we only have an illusion of being free from the Beast, as the ego is part of his realm. Semantics is involved here because if we find and look to our true self who is one with God then the mission is accomplished. But the safer wording for the seeker, who has not yet found, is the direction to look within – implying that something will be found that has not been discovered before.

If you look within and find that still small voice then you shall have to slay the dragon who gives authority to the Beast. You will not have to look for the dragon for he will come after you in a myriad of ways and his approach will always be sensed.

At this point you have two choices.

(1) Fear the dragon and let him immobilize or slay you.

(2) Face the dragon and slay him.

Then even if you face the dragon and seem to slay him you may discover you have just wounded a head, which is healed, and have to slay him again until the body of the dragon is “cast alive into a lake of fire and brimstone.” Rev 20:20. The fire of the Holy Spirit from God finally consumes the dragon and at last you are able to maintain your focus on the name of the Father in the forehead.

The sign that you have taken your first great step is when you show a willingness to act on a true message from within in defiance to all the clamoring messages from without in the face of risk of life, reputation, eternal damnation or loss.

Notice I say “true message?” There are many who believe they have received a true message from the soul when in reality their action can be traced to the blind following of a guru, religious leader, book or the ego pretending to be the soul.

The subtle difference is this: He who still has the mark of the Beast will either be enhancing someone else’s ego or his own, whereas he who follows the soul will always feel humbled by it.

Perhaps a personal story here will help.

When I was around sixteen I started reading the scriptures for the first time and as I read I began to wonder why there are not miracles today, as there seemed to be in abundance in ancient times. The church I attended rambled on about miracles a lot, but I hadn’t ever actually seen one or met anyone who had faith to perform one.

Then one day I was walking home from school and passed by a fellow student’s home that had been stricken with an incurable disease (multiple sclerosis). I stopped a second and looked in her direction. I was saddened as I watched her hobble around in her yard on crutches, barely able to move from one location to another, and in my mind I reflected back to how she was just a short period before – healthy and vibrant with a whole life in front of her. Then a thought occurred to me.

“What is preventing me, even at this moment, from stretching forth my hand and commanding in the name of Jesus Christ for her to be healed, even as did the prophets of old?”

This was an exciting thought for me to have at that young age, but as it ran through my mind a great cloud from the dragon descended upon me and another thought came:

“Don’t you know that no one of your age has this type of authority? The leaders in the church have told you that you have to have authority from the church to heal, and you do not have it. God would be displeased with you or maybe even curse you if you should attempt to use power that doesn’t belong to you.”

This thought brought me great disappointment and overwhelmed me with discouragement for a moment, but before I moved on I looked again in the direction of my friend as she hobbled along to another location in the yard. Then another thought came to my mind from the still small voice. It said: “Whatsoever you ask in the name of Christ shall be done for you.”

This statement seemed to reflect the essence of what I had been reading in the scriptures and again I took courage and reconsidered that I could be an instrument of healing. But as soon as I reflected upon this, the voice of the dragon again spoke: “Who do you think you are? You’re just a kid! Even the adults who are faithful in the church and are authorized by church leaders can’t do a miracle such as you are thinking. God will probably strike you dead for even trying to go against established rules. And besides, this girl is not even a member of the church and is not to be included in church blessings.”

This decree of darkness caused me to fear. Would I truly offend God by using this power that may not belong to me? No one in my family, church or angel from heaven had ever given me authority to do miracles. Perhaps I would anger God by going out of my bounds and put my very soul at risk…

As I thus reflected and stood in silence for a moment my attention went back again to the still small voice:

“Whatsoever you ask in the name of Christ shall be done for you.”

I considered this statement and asked myself: “Do these words have any limitations to them? I am not being told that I can ask for a miracle only if I am an adult, or only if I have a position in the church, or even if I am perfect? The words of the soul that I had received merely told me that I could ask and it would be done.

Then for a period of about a minute (which seemed like an hour) my mind went back and forth between the two polarities:

Play it safe and do not attempt to heal. If God really wants her healed He’ll do it without me. Why put my soul at great risk and trust the words of the inner voice which may just be my imagination.

Unknown to me at the time the real risk was trusting the dragon rather than the soul but of this I had no knowledge and thus the point of tension in my mind was great.

After this long moment of reflection where my mind seemed to go back and forth between the two decisions about a hundred times I finally settled on the inner voice. I thought to myself that I did not have a good logical reason to doubt these inclusive words and if I need to put myself at risk to help a friend then so be it.

Upon making the decision to proceed I gazed upon my friend in the distance again who had her back turned to me. Fortunately, she had not noticed me staring at her. As I looked her direction I raised my right hand whispered these words: “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to be healed.”

Instantly, upon completing this sentence I felt a surge of divine energy going through the warp and woof of my being to the extent I almost collapsed on the ground. This was very unexpected, for I had never associated any energy transference with miracles, and my immediate thought was that perhaps God was in the midst of punishing me by dissolving my body and soul back to the nothingness from whence it came.

I used what little energy I had left to head toward home as fast as I could and did not notice whether the decree had any effect on my friend. For a while I was more concerned about my own well being than any one else’s, but after a while my state of being seemed to return to normal and I thought that perhaps God was just sending me a warning not to mess around where I do not belong.

I put the experience out of my mind until about two days later. I saw my friend at school walking with no crutches. I was curious about this and walked up to her and asked about her recovery.

She smiled and said that the doctor had told her that her disease went into remission – that it may not last, but she was feeling fine for now.

When she said this the truth then dawned on me. God was not trying to punish me. I had made the right decision after all. A true miracle had happened and the power which I had felt was some type of spiritual energy going through me into her. Evidently, I thought, this was just part of some natural process. I was just an instrument in the hands of one greater than me.

I left her presence realizing that perhaps the greatest miracle of all was the knowledge that I now possessed and that from that point on I should trust the highest I receive from within more than all the voices without.

The interesting thing is that at the time I had a beloved uncle who was dying of MS, but when I contemplated doing the same thing for him I felt restrained from doing so.

I later found out the reason for this. That is each illness is sent to us to teach us something and that the problem can be permanently removed when the lesson is learned. My Uncle had lessons to learn from his struggle that I was not supposed to remove from him.

I believe I was allowed to heal my friend more as a teaching lesson to me than anything else and it was the right thing to do because of the inward message to go ahead. Of all the sick people I have met I have only been impressed one other time to silently heal without the cooperation of the patient.

An interesting ending note here is that about 36 years after the healing of my high school friend my wife and I were dining in a restaurant and we were accosted by a middle aged lady who said to me: “You’re Joe Dewey aren’t you?”

I looked up and the person looked a little familiar, but wasn’t positive who she was.”

She saw the puzzled look in my eyes and then identified herself. It was the same girl who had MS and was healed. I hadn’t seen her for over thirty years.

I asked her about her illness and if it had ever returned.

She responded that her husband had died but she has been in good health ever since her “remission.”

We visited a while and she returned to her table. Then I said to my wife, “Do you remember me telling you about that miraculous healing of my friend back in High School?”

She said she remembered.

“The lady we just talked to is her.”

“Haven’t you ever told her what happened?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I’ve just never been impressed to do so.”

This is the basic account of my first confrontation with the dragon of authority, but not my last.

Confronting and slaying your first dragon of authority is the first major step for when the Spirit of God through your soul sees that you will listen to It more than the multitude of voices without then the lines of communication swing open wide.

But then the problem of focus begins. The disciple must keep his attention on the Inner Light and when a communication from the soul is received he or she must learn to trust it and follow what is revealed. If he does not then the door shuts again until the message is heard and incorporated.

I have written this account in the hope of giving inspiration to others to face the dragon and slay him in your own lives.

Copyright by J J Dewey

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Lessons from Miracles

April 6, 2016

Lessons from Miracles

A reader asked me to comment on the meaning of the healing of Jairus’ daughter by Jesus. It is really a story of two miracles. Here is the account from the New International Version:

When Jesus had again crossed over by boat to the other side of the lake, a large crowd gathered around him while he was by the lake.

Then one of the synagogue leaders, named Jairus, came, and when he saw Jesus, he fell at his feet. He pleaded earnestly with him, “My little daughter is dying. Please come and put your hands on her so that she will be healed and live.”

So Jesus went with him. A large crowd followed and pressed around him. And a woman was there who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years. She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse.

When she heard about Jesus, she came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, because she thought, “If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed.”

Immediately her bleeding stopped and she felt in her body that she was freed from her suffering.

At once Jesus realized that power had gone out from him. He turned around in the crowd and asked, “Who touched my clothes?”

“You see the people crowding against you,” his disciples answered, “and yet you can ask, ‘Who touched me?’

But Jesus kept looking around to see who had done it. Then the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came and fell at his feet and, trembling with fear, told him the whole truth.

He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.”

While Jesus was still speaking, some people came from the house of Jairus, the synagogue leader. “Your daughter is dead,” they said. “Why bother the teacher anymore?”

Overhearing what they said, Jesus told him, “Don’t be afraid; just believe.”

He did not let anyone follow him except Peter, James and John the brother of James. When they came to the home of the synagogue leader, Jesus saw a commotion, with people crying and wailing loudly.

He went in and said to them, “Why all this commotion and wailing? The child is not dead but asleep.” But they laughed at him. After he put them all out, he took the child’s father and mother and the disciples who were with him, and went in where the child was.

He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha koum!” (which means “Little girl, I say to you, get up!”). Immediately the girl stood up and began to walk around (she was twelve years old). At this they were completely astonished.

He gave strict orders not to let anyone know about this, and told them to give her something to eat.

Mark 5:21-43

There is a lot to be gleaned from these verses, but will just cover several important points.

The first thing of interest is how little things have changed as far as medical expenses go for orthodox treatments. Concerning the sick lady it was written:

She had suffered a great deal under the care of many doctors and had spent all she had, yet instead of getting better she grew worse.

How many times do we hear patients today tell this same story? People get sick and, even with insurance, they spend all they have trying to survive but often to no avail.

The second thing of interest was the identity of the man who initially sought the help of Jesus. He was the leader of a synagogue. And why is this important?

Because the Jewish leaders, as a whole, scorned and mocked Jesus. This would be comparable to Bernie Sanders today going to Donald Trump asking for help.

The guy obviously loved his daughter and most likely, like the lady, had tried everything available to help his daughter and nothing worked. For both people Jesus was the last resort. Nothing else worked so let’s see if the crazy guy can actually do something.

The lesson here is that we should start thinking out of the box before we become desperate. Those who search for answers through self-imposed motivation are richly rewarded. Those who wait until they are desperate will rarely encounter a helper like Jesus who can turn things around at the last minute.

Another thing of significance is that when the woman touched his garment Jesus felt power go out of him, or through him. This tells us that there is a universal power source that can be tapped into that will stimulate healing. We must seek to be good conductors of it as was Jesus.

Another point is that Jesus did not tell Jairus to go jump in the lake merely because he belonged to a group of sworn enemies. He responded to a plea for help without casting negative judgment.

Then as he proceeded to assist Jairus another miracle happened along the way.

The lesson here is that as the seeker willingly serves with all his strength, more strength and power to serve are made available and opportunities blossom.

Finally we come to the most significant lesson. When Jesus began the journey he only allowed Jairus and three believing disciples to come with him. Then after he arrived he made everyone leave his presence except for Jairus, his wife and his three disciples.

Why was this?

Raising the dead was a miracle few could accept and if unbelievers and mockers were present, even Jesus could not have performed the miracle.

After all, we are told that he could not perform any miracle in his hometown because the people there had no faith in him.

Miracles will be few and far between if you are in the midst of a crowd hostile to them or those attempting to perform them.

If one person has a consciousness directed toward Spirit and finds another so directed then their power is amplified. If he finds many their power is magnified beyond belief.

This principle will eventually be demonstrated in the Molecular Relationship.

Copyright 2016 by J J Dewey

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Do Miracles Really Happen?

This entry is part 48 of 57 in the series Mysteries

Question Forty-Nine

Do Miracles Really Happen?

There are two types of people in this world:  Those who believe in miracles and those who do not.

Those who do not believe see all the miracles of the Bible as being fables that are passed down, and if there is any truth to the stories that there is a natural explanation for it.

These people explain away modern day miracles as either something accomplished by the power of mind over matter or the story was exaggerated.

It is interesting that these non-believers are in the minority.  All polls show that over 70% of the U.S. public believe in miracles and over a third claim to have experienced one themselves. 63% say they know someone who claims to have experienced a miracle.

For those who say these believers are uneducated consider this. 73% of medical doctors believe that miracles happen in the present time and 55% say they have witnessed one or more with their patients.

So, who is right here, the minority or the majority?  In this case I side with the majority.  Miracles definitely occur.  I personally know this to be true because I have experienced a number of them myself. Once a person experiences a thing he must either accept it or deny reality.

So what are we talking about when we speak of miracles? “If we are just talking about a quick recovery from sickness, that is no miracle, “says the skeptic.

Though healing of any kind is pretty miraculous when you think about it – that is not what we are talking about when we speak of miracles.  We are talking about events that standard science would deem to be impossible, such as:

(1) A terminal, supposedly incurable disease, cured quickly or even instantly.

(2) Receiving some supernatural communication that warns of danger and saves a life.

Here is a LINK to an example.

(3) A near death experience.

(4) Seeing an angel or a vision.

There are many more that could be listed. Most of us have heard some pretty fantastic accounts that even stretch credibility for a believer.

So, does a miracle defy the laws of nature or of science?

No, they do not. Miracles happen through the application of law, not bypassing it. Imagine that you were driving down the highway and suddenly were transported back in time a couple centuries and found yourself surrounded by a group of people. They watch you drive your horseless carriage and think this is the greatest miracle they have ever witnessed.  You get out of the car and show then your iPad that has a Star Wars movie loaded into it. Not only are they amazed by the iPad, but the spaceships and the Deathstar seem way beyond anything man could put in a tablet. It isn’t long before the group is arguing whether you are a god or a devil.

Just as modern humanity uses electricity, engineering and intelligent application of law to produce our miracles, even so does Higher Intelligence use subtle energies and laws unknown to us to manifest miracles beyond normal human ability.

A question that many ask is, “Why do not miracles happen to me?” This question is asked by a wide range of people, from the mildly curious to those who are desperately ill or distressed.

It does appear to many that miracles appear somewhat randomly. It seems that many very good people suffer and die with no miracle whereas another who may not seem that deserving gets one.

Since most miracles revolve around physical healing let us ask what one could do to manifest a miracle if he had an incurable disease?

To understand the answer we must realizes that there are two sources of miraculous healing power.

(1) Each of us has a connecting thread that links us to God, the Source of all higher power. It is possible to draw spiritual energy from this Source that will produce a miraculous healing.

(2) There are highly intelligent beings in the spirit world who assist humans from time to time. If you get their attention and a healing does not violate the plan of your soul, then they can assist with a miracle.

Of course, most of those who manifest a miracle in their lives have faith that God has power to help them, but there is an ancient law that applies here and it is this.

Energy follows thought.

Those who manifest miracles generally place a lot of positive thought, prayer and contemplation toward being healed.  There is a point reached when enough energy is directed toward an end that something happens. Just like when you place a certain amount of sugar in a glass of water you will reach a saturation point where the sugar no longer dissolves.  Even so, applying a certain amount of positive thought energy toward a goal eventually creates a point of tension and makes the impossible happen.

We must realize though that there is a reason behind all illness and any miracle must not take away from the lessons we may learn from it.  We’ll talk more about this in the next chapter.

 

Copyright 2014 by J J Dewey

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What is Love? Part 5

This entry is part 40 of 49 in the series JJ Lectures

A number of the miracles that happened back then were pretty fantastic. For instance shortly after Pentecost the Jews were upset with Peter and so they captured him and had the Romans put him in prison and they must have figured he was a pretty slippery character because they chained his arms and feet in irons and put him behind bars and on top of all this they placed 16 guards to watch him day and night. The guards fell asleep and Peter gets up and the chains fall off of him and he then walks through the wall and finds a place nearby and preaches to them.

Audience: With all this power ushered in why would there be arguments and disagreements and chaos between the twelve apostles?

JJ: For one thing these twelve were trained, Jesus called John the Baptist the greatest prophet that ever lived and I used to wonder why Jesus called him this because we hardly hear anything about John the Baptist – there are only a couple small versus about him. But when you understand the John the Baptist was the one that prepared the disciples and when Jesus showed up he turned them over to him. So John spent a lifetime preparing these twelve disciples to work with Jesus. The common thinking is Jesus was just strolling one day and he says hey come and follow me and they followed him. Why did they follow Jesus so easily? Because John prepared them, he taught them that the Messiah was going to come and when they were called they were to respond.

This is why Jesus called John the Baptist the greatest prophet that ever lived because he actually prepared people to unite their soul energy. It just did not happen easily and even with all that preparation they still had some difficult times and they had arguments and they had a hard time believing what Jesus was teaching them but they also performed amazing miracles. There is also the story where Phillip was teaching a eunuch and then the eunuch turns and Phillip disappears and then he learns that Phillip was in a nearby city 50 or so miles away and he was beside himself how Phillip was able to get there so quickly. So this shows that when these people were united by the soul and connected with a Master, such as the Christ, that they became something more than human.

Audience: Does it work the opposite way too; do the dark brothers work with twelve as well?

JJ: What they do is work with the personality energy and groups – like if you are in a business and there is like 12 people in it then it is not going to produce the spiritual molecule because it does not use pure soul energy and it is not linked to a Master. But if you get a group of people together it does produce an energy where you have a sharing but it does not call down a higher life form. This is what the dark brothers work with quite a bit – they work in group formation but it is only to benefit the guy at the top the guy at the top is only willing to bless everybody below him if it benefits hiself.

They have mastered how to siphon energy out of people. The story of the vampires really applies to the dark brothers because the dark brotherhood understands vampirism – that they can take life energy from other sources. This is why they like to work with fresh blood so to speak because they get fresh people in and siphon off their life force and that is how they work. The brothers of light work by creating new life and the dark brothers work by destroying life and by destroying life they take the energy to them selves.

Audience: Speaking in tongues is being revived and Pentecostal being the one at the Ezekiel conference and they are saying that evidence of the spirit as you are describing here is the existence of prayer language and so you are saying that it is coupled together with an act.

JJ: supernatural manifestations by themselves are not evidence of a molecular relationship of a higher life form.

Audience: Or even spirituality?

JJ: You can get in touch with parts of your self that can speak in tongues and maybe an astral entity can occupy your body and speak in tongues but that is totally different than the molecular relationship.

Audience: People can also fake this.

JJ: Wayne faked it one time and I don’t know if he can do it again.

Wayne begins to speak in tongues in a very funny way.

JJ & Audience: Laughing!

JJ: That sounds good Wayne and hey maybe we can make some money off of this!

Audience: If Jesus had twelve disciples would that not be thirteen in the group?

JJ: Yes.

Audience: So then our molecules would have 12 plus a Master.

JJ: Yes and no.

Audience: Did Jesus have a female?

JJ: What produced the strong authority of the Piscean age was the physical presence of Jesus being the thirteenth and now that we have grown as a human race we need to go beyond the physical authority and find the inner authority so the thirteenth is the invisible Christ, rather than the visible Christ and instead of having the Pope being in the place of the son of Christ, we have no one in the place of the Son of God and we have no physical person in the middle of the circle. In the middle of the circle is the invisible Christ. In this way the true Christ is found within. In that day they needed a physical authority and now we have reached a point where authority has to be outgrown. So in this day the thirteenth will be a Master but it will be the invisible Christ.

We diverted away from love a little but love is really kind of a boring subject in a lot of ways.

Audience: Laughing!

JJ: I know our friend Bryan has had a little problem and we would like to have a little healing period for him and for any others that have need. We want to keep our people in good as shape as possible so we will finish off with one of the greatest services by sharing spiritual energy with our friends that we love, respect and want the best for.

Audience: Before you change the subject though you said that were three aspects of love and so far you have said love is an attractive force.

JJ: We were talking about friendship respect and trust, which are kind of sub-aspects. The true major divisions of love are love wisdom and understanding. These are the three main branches of the love aspect of God.

Audience: How do we create a molecule?

JJ: Well that is the main purpose of everything I have ever taught and that is to draw people together and eventually find twelve male female units that are capable of soul contact between each other and totally able to overlook the flaws in the other individual and that is the hard part. Almost everybody has difficulty in overlooking the flaws and almost everybody reaches a point where he says, “Well yes but what about Jim over there. He has something wrong with him so how can we create a molecule with a lazy person like that in the group?”

Overlooking flaws is one of the last things that the disciple has to learn and also one of the most crucial. You can see that even Jesus had a problem with it, James and John, two of the lead disciples were arguing over who was going to be found at the right hand of God and Jesus said to them that it is not his place to decide who is going to be at the right hand of God but just be happy where they were.

Another time they were with Jesus and they were rejected at Jerusalem. They said well, you know Jesus you are a greater prophet than Elijah and he made fire come down and destroy his enemies so lets make fire come down and consume this city. And Jesus said, “Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are. The son of man came not to destroy but to save.”

I thought to myself that is a beautiful statement. Yet what does everybody expect at the last day? They think that the non-Christian is going to be out mowing his lawn and the Christian is doing the same next door and the non-Christian is going to be zapped and burned up right there with his lawnmower in hand and the Christian is going to be next door saying boy I am sure glad I am not going to get zapped like that. And all the wicked are going to burned to a crisp because Jesus said this. Yet Jesus said, when he was with his apostles who wanted to burn a city because they were rejected, he replied, you know not what manner of spirit you are. I did not come to destroy but to save. In other words, these people that think that when Jesus comes that He is just going zap everybody and burn them to a crisp it is they who do not know what manner of spirit they are according to the Master’s own words.

Audience: So is it that I do not become a god but I become one with God?

JJ: Yes and depends on how you define God. If you define God as a super human then you become a god and if you define God as the one life that permeates all things then you become one with that in your consciousness.

Audience: Why did Jesus weep when Lazarus died?

JJ: Because he was his friend.

Audience: So was He really sad then?

JJ: Probably.

Audience: Okay the problem I have with that then is that I was reading this book and it said that if Jesus knew He could restore life. You wouldn’t think he would cry then.

JJ: Well maybe He doubted Himself a little.

Audience: So maybe He did not know He had these abilities.

JJ: No He knew that He had it and here is my belief on that, When He came to Lazarus He didn’t know for sure that He was going to raise him from the dead. He waited three days and some would say well He waited three days so He could really perform a great miracle but maybe He waited three days because He was seeking permission from God for the power to do this. He stands there before Lazarus’s tomb and do you know what He did?

Audience: He asked for Mary’s permission.

JJ: He turned to Martha and said “Believest thou that I can do this?” and she said I know lord that if you command him to be raised then God will give you the power to do it. And then He says Lazarus come forth. In other words, it was a combination of male and female energy and He needed that female energy to be able to raise Lazarus from the dead. He may not have known for sure that there was somebody with the faith of Martha to tap in to and He needed more than just His male energy or faith. He needed to tap in to the female faith of somebody in the group and He picked the person that He thought had the most faith, “Believest thou that I can do this?” And Martha answered, I believe that you have power over life and death and I believe you can do this. He did not wait because maybe the belief would have faded a bit, but He said immediately afterwards, “Lazarus come forth!” And he came out of the grave all wrapped up and looked like a mummy coming out of there.

I do think He cried because He was sad and at that time and maybe He did not know for sure that He could tap in to somebody’s faith but at the right moment Martha showed the faith that could be tapped into to raise Lazarus from the dead.

Audience: For God there is no order of difficulty for miracles but for human beings I believe that there are. The greater the fear is that is attached to something than the greater the difficulty for it to be healed. For instance 40 years ago cancer was a death sentence and now people believe that it is not necessarily a death sentence and that belief alone makes a huge difference in the healing process.

JJ: Yes and I have always wondered about that statement from Course in Miracles because certainly it would take a bit more energy to part the Red Sea than healing a wart or something like that or to raise Lazarus who was dead for more than three days.

Audience: Well Jesus must not have known for sure that He could raise Lazarus because he cried.

JJ: The trouble with people is that they think that Jesus knew everything that was going to happen like me snapping my fingers right now and that He knew I was going to do this at this moment right here, right now 2000 years ago. Nobody knows all the details of the future, not even the highest life.

Audience: We all have free will right, and what if Jesus did not know if Lazarus wanted to come back.

JJ: Yes that is possible too though he most likely tuned into to Lazarus before he raised him up and received his permission to bring him back.
End of class

 

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The Birth of the Christ Within, Part 1

This entry is part 28 of 49 in the series JJ Lectures

The title of tonight’s class is “The Birth of the Christ Within.” Now it is interesting that wherever the name Christ is circulated it seems to create and cause a lot of controversy. Even as innocent a thing as Christmas does this. We turn on the TV these days and we see an assault on Christmas itself. There are arguments about taking the Christ out of Christmas. They want to call a Christmas tree a holiday tree and want to say happy holidays instead of merry Christmas. So even the most innocent appearance of the name of Christ is creating a controversy.

It is interesting that when Jesus was sending His disciples off He said to them, “Ye shall be hated of all the world for my name’s sake.” It is interesting that where the name of Christ manifests there is controversy created. And the last element of controversy around the name of Christ seems to be the celebration of his birthday. Just even wishing somebody Merry Christmas seems to upset a lot of people these days.

When I was kid it did not upset anyone you just said Merry Christmas and you did not even know about that happy holidays thing you just said merry Christmas and there was just a Christmas tree and that was it. Now there is a controversy over this very innocent sounding holiday. If you wish somebody Merry Christmas you are going to leave out the Muslims, Jews, Buddhists and the new agers like us. So it is interesting how just the name of Christ in circulation causes controversy and friction even though He is called the Prince of Peace. What happened when the Prince of Peace came?

Audience: War

JJ: Was there peace around Him where ever He walked? No wherever He went people wanted to kill Him. So doesn’t that seem strange that He appears as the Prince of Peace and the first thing that happens is that all the authorities around Him become upset and begin to have secret little conferences as to how to get rid of the guy. Finally they crucify Him and they think they are finally rid of Him. He is dead and gone and just one more troublemaker that they don’t have to worry about anymore. Well about three days later they had to change their minds on that idea. And so it is fascinating that as the name of Christ was circulated over the ages we had the crusades and the crusades was fought over what?

Audience: Fought over the name of Christ.

JJ: Fought over the name of Christ and to secure the name of Christ in Jerusalem. They wanted to re-take Jerusalem and secure the name of Christ there so the name of Christ could dominate. What did Constantine see in a vision that made him want to go out and conquer the world? He saw a vision of a cross in the heavens and he heard these words spoken “by this you shall conquer.” So all of a sudden Constantine changed from being a Roman Emperor and became a Christian Emperor and he decide to conquer the world in the name of Christ.

It interesting that the name of Christ, the one called the Prince of Peace creates disturbance wherever His name manifests. Admittedly it is most probable that Constantine did not receive a vision from Christ or the higher spheres but from the lower astral realm. He was probably given information from a lower vibration to go and conquer the earth. As a matter of fact he corrupted a lot of the teachings of Christ and he was one that initiated the great changes away from real truth. He told the Christians basically, look we are going to stop persecuting you if you change your doctrines to what we tell you. If you change your doctrines and teachings to the way the State wants then we will quit persecuting you.

So a lot of Christians thought, well I guess that would be worth About 95% of them went along with the changes but there was a small number that thought they are not going to change and continue to teach what they have been taught. Well this small percentage that was left over were persecuted more than ever and the Empire did everything it could to get rid of this group that held out. They were hunted down like dogs and persecuted because they did not go along with the changes of the Roman Emperor.

Ironically, He was called the prince of peace. Often times when He met with His disciples one of the first things He said to them was what, do you remember what His introductory statement was when He met with His disciples?

Audience: Peace be with you.

JJ: Right peace be unto you. What do you suppose it felt like to be in His presence and have Him say that to you? Peace be unto you. Now imagine that I am the Christ; visualize that I am He and I say to you, peace be unto you. Do you think it would feel a little bit different than if say Wayne said it to you?

Audience: Chuckling!

JJ: I’ll tell how Wayne would say it you, Hey you want a piece of me!

Audience: Laughing!

JJ: But anyway that was His introductory statement and I believe that when He said that to them that they did feel something, they felt a presence about Him and they felt an inner peace around Him because He had such a great peace within Him self. It is interesting that when they were on the ship and this giant storm came up and the disciples were doing everything they could to save the boat from sinking – it was tossing and turning all over the place and as they were trying to save the boat from sinking they were saying, where is Jesus at – we haven’t seen Him around.

They went down below deck and Jesus was down there sleeping! And they were shouting, good grief how can He sleep? The boat is tossing and turning like crazy and there Jesus is sleeping! So they wake Him up and they said Master awake and save us we are going to sink here in this great storm and you can’t be sleeping! So Jesus yawns and got up and goes up on deck and says, oh ye have little faith!

Audience: Chuckling!

JJ: Then Jesus said, peace; be still. All of a sudden the storm went away. The boat just sat there on very still waters. At that time when He said the word peace it really had an affect, not only on His followers but on the sea, the ship and the people that were there. One person on the ship said, who is this man that even the elements obey Him? Why did the elements obey Him and why was it that when He said peace, something happened? Curtis

Curtis: Because He was connected with the elements and the deva’s and the all the powers that be and He was the Christ. He had the power of Christ and the power of God in Him.

JJ: I thought you knew the answer, darn it!

Audience: Laughing!

JJ: When He said peace it had an affect because within His soul, the inner part of His being was a tremendous peace. The words that you speak will have no power unless that word is within you and the word peace was within Him. This was His greeting to His fellow man, peace be unto you. It had an affect because within Him was a great sense of peace, a peace that passes all understanding. Have you ever had a peace that seemed to surpass all understanding and was so great that you could really not put it into words?

There is a peace that is like an absence of noise but that is kind of tranquility and not necessarily peace. Then there is a peace that goes beyond the absence of noise, what the scriptures call a peace that passes all understanding. If the person has that peace within him then when he speaks the word peace, he speaks it from his soul. Have you ever considered how it was that Jesus had the power to heal people?

 

Copyright 2011 by J J Dewey

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Mission Experiences, Chapters 21 & 22

This entry is part 11 of 18 in the series Mission

Chapter Twenty-One
Magic Fingers

After Elder Eldridge went home I was sent a new companion named Elder Cooper. Now when I was with Eldridge the members called me the quiet one, but it was not because I had nothing to say but that Eldridge had a very outgoing personality and it was often hard to get in a word edgewise.

On the other hand, Cooper was truly a quiet one. I tried to give him plenty of opportunity to speak but he never had much to say. The members of the branch thought that I had undergone a personality transformation as now I had to be the main person to interact and Elder Cooper was happy to let me dominate.

Elder Cooper had majored in chemistry back home and one of the first things he communicated to me was that his grade average was a perfect 4.0. I remember the first time we were to teach a lesson together. The way it worked was that one missionary taught one half and the other the second half. I told Cooper that we had to teach a lesson that evening, I believe it was number three. I noticed a short time later that he was intensely involved in studying. I asked him what he was doing. He said he was studying the lesson that we were going to give that evening.

This surprised me as I was only about an average student and he had a perfect 4.0. I thought to myself that with my average scholarly ability I never had to review the lessons because I had them memorized but Cooper here was the perfect student and a year into his mission he had to review his lessons.

As we worked together I noticed that he could never give a lesson without first spending about an hour in preparation and review first, and I never had to review them and could give them very close to word for word.

This started me thinking about what true intelligence was. Elder Cooper was the perfect student yet his emotional growth seemed to be stunted and he seemed to lack the ability to apply intelligence in a practical way.

Later on a book was to become popular called “Emotional Intelligence” where the idea was presented that there are a number of levels and layers of intelligence and for making a success of yourself one has to have emotional intelligence which aids in human interaction.

Something else occurred to me and which was that Elder Cooper had a good short term memory but not so good on the long term. After reviewing a lesson he then had it pretty good in his head, but he would lose it and have to review again if he had to give it a few days later.

My memory seemed to work differently than his. My short term memory was not so great which explained why cramming for tests in school wasn’t a lot of help for me. On the other hand, when I did actually learn a thing I usually retain it for a long period or for life.

For instance, I am writing this account from memory as I did not keep a journal. I do have the letters I mailed to my mom but they contained very little to help recall the story.

I guess if I had to choose between having a good long term or short term memory I would chose long term, even though that puts one at a disadvantage in taking standardized tests.

Now my wife has a good short term memory and had a good grade point in school but her long term is not so great. This kind of works well because between the two of us we have a petty good composite mind. She’ll see a movie listed and ask if we have seen it. If we have I’ll say yes and tell her what it was about. Then she may ask me if she liked it. I will then clearly recall how she felt about the movie and relate that to her.

Then I will often make use of her excellent short term memory. If we both meet a new person and are introduced I will often forget the name within a few seconds. I’ll then ask her, “What was that guy’s name?” She’ll just about always remember and tell me. Then sometimes I’ll come up with an idea and explain it to her and then forget what it was five minutes later. I’ll ask her what it was and she will recall and remind me.

So, as it works out between the two of us we have a fairly good brain.

So Elder Cooper got me started thinking about intelligence, but I didn’t stop at examining memory or even emotional intelligence. Later on I did a lot of thinking about how intelligence works out on many different levels. I could probably write a book on the subject, but that’s for another day.

I could see why they were keeping Elder Cooper in a junior position because he was not a leader and seemed happy to let others take charge. At least he was supportive

Now I was in charge we set out the best way possible to establish a good pool of people to teach. It was difficult because of the age of the residents in Scarborough and the other duties foisted upon me as the District Leader. Even so, we did make some progress, but nothing like happened in Peterlee.

Most of the work with Elder Cooper and the other missionaries at that time was pretty routine but still several interesting things happened.

Shortly before my mission I had taken several hard knocks on the head. I noticed that the pupils in my eyes were different sizes and I had heard this was a bad sign. Throughout my mission I sensed that something was not quite right with my computer brain. Then one day we were working in an area of mobile homes and as we approached one I hit my head on a metal open window pane that I didn’t see. I struck it so hard that it made the whole mobile home shake.

During the next few days I really seemed to be out of it and let Elder Cooper teach as much as he was willing. I looked in the mirror and saw that my pupils, which had been returning to normal, now really looked off size. I figured that if I didn’t start feeling better soon I’d have to see a doctor about taking some tests.

Then one evening we had one lesson to teach and I told Elder Cooper to just teach it as long as he wanted. I sat in a comfortable chair and just about went to sleep. I felt surprisingly peaceful and at ease.

Shortly after Elder Cooper began teaching I felt a presence. I sensed that the were at least two invisible beings near me and I felt a message entering my mind which said:

“Do not be alarmed. We are here to help you. Just relax and sit perfectly still.”

Because of the peaceful feeling I thought I could trust whoever this was and complied. Then a most amazing thing happened. I felt their hands on my head and sensed they were spiritual physicians from the other side. They spent the first couple minutes in some type of preparation as I felt their fingers moving around on my scalp. Then after this process was finished I felt an actual instrument enter right through my scull into the center of my brain. I was surprised but not alarmed as the feeling of peace continued and again was reminded mentally to remain perfectly still.

The instrument was not made of physical matter and produced no pain, but made a tingling sensation. On hindsight I would guess I was sensing it through my etheric instead of my physical body.

This instrument did some probing for around five minutes or so and then another instrument was introduced. This seemed to be some kind of etheric laser and I sensed the real work of repair was now happening. Again, this produced no pain, but a rather pleasant tingling sensation right in the physical brain itself. This process took another ten or fifteen minutes and finally I sensed they were finished as the instruments were withdrawn.

Shortly after this the entities left. Their presence felt so good I would have been happy to have them hang around indefinitely.

After we left the home I took note of how I felt and my sense of well being was much better. Later, when I looked in a mirror, I was delighted to see that both my pupils were the same size. I took this to be a good sign.

My head felt much better the rest of my mission but it seemed I did need a final repair. Right after I got home I had to head up to college at the University of Idaho, 300 miles north. During the drive I felt their presence again. Again I felt their fingers on my scalp and received the impression that that I needed a final touch up. Then for about 20 minutes I drove onward keeping my head as still as possible while they repeated a similar process to the earlier one. After they were finished they left just as they did before.

After this my head felt great and the ole brain has served me very well ever since. As it turns out some people are happy with what my mind turns out and some are not but hopefully I can leave a legacy of an overall good effect.

I know that I personally will always feel indebted to those spiritual servants.

.

Chapter Twenty-Two
Miracles

Somewhere around this time period we had a couple more interesting, or what some might call “faith promoting,” experiences.

One evening we received a call that a sister in the branch had been in a serious car accident and we were requested to give her a healing blessing.

We went to the hospital and were allowed into her room. She was in bad shape indeed for her face was so bruised we would not have recognized her if he hadn’t known it was her.

She was conscious though and looked our direction and I knew she recognized us. She could not speak though for her jaw was broken badly in several locations and we were told that she was going to require some major surgery to reconstruct it.

We did our best to speak consoling words to her and then laid our hands gently on her head and gave her a blessing promising her a quick healing.

Several days later when we attended church we were surprised to see her there, a little beaten up, but well on the path of recovery. This quite surprised us as everyone was expecting a long hospital stay following several major surgeries. As we approached her she recognized us and we also discovered that she could now speak.

She pointed her finger at me and said, “It was you!”

“Me what?” I said curiously.

“You healed me.”

I, of course, replied that none of us has any power to heal on our own but any healing is done through the power of God and the person’s faith. We then asked her for more details and here is what she said:

“Shortly before you visited me they took X-rays of my jaw and they saw it was severely broken in several locations and would require major surgery. Then after the blessing I began healing very quickly and after a couple days they did another X-ray just before they were going to do the first surgery.

“I was in the room when the doctor pulled the second X-ray and looked at it. He then pulled the first X-ray and look at that. He then kept looking at one X-ray and then the other and saying over and over, ‘This cannot be. There must be some mistake. These cannot belong to the same person.’

“I asked him what the problem was and he said apparently there is no problem for if the second set of X-rays are accurate the bones in my jaw have moved perfectly into place and no surgery will be required.

“Then they released me to go home and now here I am almost as good as new.”

We were thrilled with her story but that was not all. When visiting with her a month or so later she related one more thing. She said the dentist had taken an X-ray and after examining it asked her if she had ever broken her jaw. She then related the recent accident.

He then said that he could barely tell that her jaw had ever been broken for the pieces were knitted back together with more exactness and precision than he had ever seen before. There was only a very slight hairline witness that her jaw had ever been broken.

Another lady in the branch was having major problems with pernicious anemia and was at the end of her rope and confined to her bed. She had received several blessings from several elders but was no better. She asked us for another.

When we laid our hands on her head I did my best to tune in to the Spirit and discern as to whether she could be healed. I didn’t sense any go-ahead so I just gave as encouraging of a blessing as I could.

We saw her a few days later and were not surprised that she was no better. She then requested another blessing. We gave her one but again felt no go-ahead.

A while later we visited her again and she was worse than ever. She requested still another blessing. This time I felt a different direction was in order.

I took her hand and told her that even though she had not been healed that I did receive the reason for this. I told her hat her faith was at a low ebb.

She then insisted she had lots of faith.

“You do have lots of faith in the normal sense,” I said, “but I picked up that you are very depressed and feel you are at the end of your rope. This depression you feel is interfering with your faith and is causing you to not be able to use it. If you want to be healed you must let the negative thoughts and depression go and tune into the joy that comes from God. If you can do this then you will be healed.”

“You are right about the depression,” she said. “Maybe it has caused me to expect the worst. What can I do to rid myself of it so I can be healed?”

“Over the next couple days we will fast and pray for you,” I said. “During this time you must pray and tune into the spirit of God and sense the joy and fullness that is there. Then when we reach the end of our fast we will come back and give you another blessing.”

She agreed and as we left, for the first time I saw real hope in her eyes.

I do not recall whether we fasted for two or three days but I do remember that my own personal faith also had an increase because of it. When we visited her again she said that she had been thinking of what I said and that she now saw that her depressed state was indeed getting in the way of healing and that she felt that her state of mind was much better.

I told her that was encouraging and we laid our hands on her head ad gave her another blessing. This time the feeling I had was different and I felt permission from the Spirit to give her a positive healing blessing.

I didn’t sense a powerful spiritual feeling as we left and was hoping I had said the right thing. That evening though something strange happened. As I laid down to go to sleep I felt a powerful spiritual presence and suddenly as clear as a bell I saw the inside of her body. I saw that there was a great sore or wound near her stomach and this was draining her body of energy and its ability to heal. Then I saw that this sore was being closed up and would be as if it never was. I then went to sleep and slept sound as a baby.

I never saw her for a while after that but then one day at church there she was. I saw her cheerfully talking to friend and approached her, telling her she looked pretty good and asked her about her recovery.

She said she started feeling better right after the blessing that the doctor had given her a clean bill of health and the pernicious anemia was healed wad no longer a problem.

As an ending thought let me add that spiritual healing is not an exact science. It would be nice if we could do a ceremony or speak certain words and always get a result, but it doesn’t work that way. There are many factors involved and sometimes no matter what you do the person may not be healed. That can be troubling for all involved. Even so, I have seen enough miraculous healing in my life to know beyond any doubt that when higher will gives approval that there is nothing impossible for us. May we always be open to all possibilities.

Copyright 2010 by J J Dewey

True Faith

This entry is part 52 of 62 in the series 2010

Posted Oct 17, 2010
Dan asked this some time ago:
JJ, you have expounded upon the conventional definition of true faith giving this improved definition: “proving a thing true or false by evidence, argument, reason or experiment and through the guidance of your inner authority”, just as 1Thes 5:21 admonishes us to “test all things”.

But in applying true faith as you have defined it, specifically in the context of discerning the truth/falsehood of a matter (for instance whether XYZ is a true principle or not), how could pre-judging XYZ as true (or false) according to my desire and trying to maintain an unshakeable conviction/belief (the conventional definition of “faith”) in it’s truth (or falsehood) in advance of testing it possibly be anything but a hindrance to correct judgment/discernment of (the truth of) XYZ?

JJ
With true faith you do not pre-judge a thing to be true, or perhaps I should say one does not make any rigid judgment. It’s more like the guy at the carnival who guesses your weight. He doesn’t know but he makes his best guess. But he doesn’t leave it at that or assume he is correct. He gives his estimate a test by having you get on the scales and when the number of pounds appears then you know. His estimate may have been right on, close or far off. But if he was correct then we have a rough example of faith for that which he thought to be true was proven to be true.

Let me give another example that brings us closer to true faith.

Let us say that Jim, Bob and John are all inventors and have all created household items that they think many people will want to buy and if they just had enough money to start production and buy some infomercials that they could make lots of money. They all believe hey could succeed and believe they have faith. But do they?

Then an investor comes along and fulfills their dreams and finances them. Here are the results:

Jim’s toilet paper with jokes printed on the sheets didn’t cut the mustard and lost money.

Bob’s improved hamburger grill about broke even.

But John’s barbecue sauce was a big hit and customers couldn’t get enough of it.

Did Jim have true faith? No. He had a belief, but a false one. He didn’t have true faith because he could not manifest his belief.

Bob didn’t lose money. Did he have faith?

No. He was closer to true faith, but he also fell short of manifesting his belief.

Did John have true faith?

Yes. He calculated that his sauce would be a hit and make money and his actions manifested and proved his belief.

Most people mistakenly think faith is an unfounded belief, but according to the Biblical Greek an unfunded belief is not faith, but blasphemy.

Only beliefs which are provable as being true can manifest faith.

If you believe in miracles but die without ever experiencing one then you die with a belief only and no true faith in this area.

But, if you believe in miracles and proceed to manifest them in your life then you have demonstrated true faith.

You gave some good quotes from the archives on faith. I’ll repeat them here.

JJ [archives]: “What’s interesting about that is when you look up the Greek word for “faith” which is PISTOS it means the same thing. […] It basically means to formulate something in your mind and focus upon it until you prove whether it is true or false. So if you have faith in God, according to the way it is used in the Greek, it means you’ll prove to yourself whether or not there is a God.” – https://freeread.com/archives/4611.php

JJ [archives]: “Proclaiming a belief does not make it true.” – https://freeread.com/archives/1157.php

JJ [archives]: “Without the testing of a belief that belief cannot be turned into a real experience, and without a real experience the truth cannot be fully known and the seeker cannot be truly free.” – https://freeread.com/archives/1156.php

JJ [archives]: “The final test of the validity of a belief is whether or not the belief can be demonstrated.” – https://freeread.com/archives/1236.php

JJ [archives]: “An open-minded person needs logic and facts to convince him. A mere statement of belief by another person will mean little to him.” – https://freeread.com/archives/447.php

JJ [archives]: “When has blind belief or blind faith ever brought more benefit to humanity than the reasonable course of action? Never. There is not one example in history.” – https://freeread.com/archives/655.php

JJ [archives]: “The word “faith” is not really a belief but it is a state of mind that is aligned with Purpose that can override all the influences on the physical world even to the production of great miracles including the overcoming of death.” – https://freeread.com/archives/4250.php

JJ [archives]: “When the disciple becomes one with the mind of God and discerns Purpose then true faith can manifest. Purpose does not have to be believed to manifest faith, but accepted.” – https://freeread.com/archives/2737.php

JJ [archives]: “When you know then no faith is needed. Faith is a means to discover truth so you can know.” – https://freeread.com/archives/2914.php

JJ [archives]: “True faith is always logical …” – https://freeread.com/archives/3778.php

JJ [archives]: “In the New Testament faith comes from PISTIS, which is derived from the root word PEITHO which basically means ‘to prove a thing true or false by evidence, argument, reason or experiment and through the guidance of your inner authority.'” – https://freeread.com/archives/4398.php

JJ [archives]: “If a teaching or principle is true, faith will prove it. If a teaching or supposed principle is false, true faith will prove them false and lead to the true.” – https://freeread.com/archives/4398.php

JJ [archives]: “… many of the people Jesus healed were simple folk who didn’t apply much reasoning, but just believed and were healed. Isn’t faith then just a simple belief? […] If all faith was or is a simple belief, then why is it that most of the things that people believe in do not materialize? Some people believe they will be healed and are healed. Others also believe and are not healed. Did the second just not believe strong enough? I’ve seen some pretty strong believers not get that they want. […] Even so it is with the simple folk who Jesus healed. They must press the right button of faith or it just will not work. […] Again, the meaning I gave for faith is “to prove a thing true or false by evidence, argument, reason or experiment and through the guidance of your inner authority.” Timothy believed a spiritual healing was possible and sought to prove the truth of this through experiment, through reason, through evidence and through guidance from his inner authority.

Even though the first three healers did not work for him he believed that a healer with the correct knowledge could help him. By faith he proved his belief to be true when he met Jesus.

He did not give up on proving his belief to be true and when it was proven true he, at that moment, realized he was exercising true faith.

If a teaching or principle is true, faith will prove it. If a teaching or supposed principle is false, true faith will prove them false and lead to the true.” – https://freeread.com/archives/4398.php

JJ [archives]: “Those who boast of great religious faith remind me a lot of a neophyte in a multilevel marketing program. When entering the program they are pumped full of zeal by various distributors. I have met many of those individuals who think they are going to make a million dollars or so in the next year and they have unshakable faith that this will happen. But sooner or later hard facts and reality hits them […]

So the born again full-fledged gospel believing Bible thumping proselyter who does not want to apply works will want to change the subject when his faith is put to the test. If he reads his Bible perhaps this scripture will glare him in the face: “He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool.” Psalms 28:26 Those with unworkable faith merely trust in their heart, or their feelings, which is not faith at all. “Faith” comes from the Greek PISTIS and literally means: “a mental conviction one has proven true by argument or reason”. Thus if one has faith he will go to heaven he should be able to justify it by logical argumentation. One will notice that Paul, a big believer in faith, spent much of his time in logical argumentation.

The book of Hebrews gives an expanded definition: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Heb 11:1 We can again find that the Greek will give us a much clearer translation here. “Substance” comes from HUPOSTASIS and in modern translations it is usually rendered “assurance” or “confidence” but in reality one English word cannot do it justice. It more literally means “That state of mind which supports an idea through a sustained effort.” “Evidence” comes from ELEGECHOS which means “to prove a matter true or false”. The word indicates that faith establishes the true reality. Thus a clearer translation of the preceding verse would be: “Now faith is having that state of mind which sustains that which is hoped for and reveals the truth of those things we do not see.” This definition corresponds much better with the root meaning of the Greek PISTIS which is translated faith.

If we have faith, we can sustain an idea until it is proven true or false. It is never a blind unreasoning belief.

The correct definition of faith should make the word more acceptable to the more enlightened and intelligent persons who were previously repulsed to using it. We see that Edison, for instance, had great faith. He sustained the idea of the light bulb until he proved its validity by making it a physical reality. When faith is sustained on a true principle a physical manifestation occurs. “Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed.” Heb 11:2 We are also told, “But without faith, it is impossible to please Him” (God). Heb 11:6 Unless we can sustain an idea or conviction and prove it by argument or externalization we cannot please God.

By this scriptural definition of faith I know of very few pious religious people who have any semblance of faith, but ironically, there are numerous non-religious people who have it.

If those who claim to have faith do not actually have it, then what do they have? After searching through numerous words in the Biblical Greek the closest I can find to match what is commonly miscalled “faith” is BLASPHEMOS which in the English means “blasphemer”.. BLASPHEMOS literally means “to hinder by stating an unfounded, rumored’, or unreasonable statement”. Interestingly, most of those who claim to have faith cannot support their belief with any logical foundation or reasoning, but merely repeat what they have been taught, therefore, instead of having faith they are committing blasphemy.” – https://freeread.com/archives/2176.php

Dan writes:
So true faith requires 1) testing that which one believes and 2) manifestation of that thing – or it is not true “faith”.

1. Does it matter how one arrives at that initial “best guess” or belief?

JJ
Good question – one I was hoping you would ask as a full realization of faith requires this be answered.

Yes, it does matter how the initial belief was arrived at.

As they say, a stopped clock is right twice a day. If you have a watch stopped at 5 o’clock and someone asks you the time at that hour do you deserve any credit for being right?

No. You were just lucky.

Even so there are some who have a belief in a thing and it is just pure luck that their belief turns out to be correct.

Did such a person have true faith?

No.

True faith requites that the seeker first tune into the source of all truth, the Spirit within.

But faith is more than a matter of just tuning in, getting a clear message and then going for it. When the seeker first attempts this, the truth is not clear. The Still Small Voice is competing with the roar of many other voices, accumulated from ages past, that speak very loud and make the true voice extremely difficult to hear and understand.

Still, when the birth of the Inner Christ commences, a new voice seems to be heard, however faint. The seeker is not sure if he imagined it or not. He must test it out. When he applies various tests and discovers the voice was true he has exercised true faith.

But… the quest is far from over. The next time he may be deceived by a competing voice from the past. This is why he must test the message and apply. If the message proves to be true then he proves his faith.

Time and time again the disciple must test his faith and each time the loud voices of the past quiet down a bit and the true voice becomes a little clearer. In the quest the seeker becomes the disciple who becomes a master who is one with God and becomes the Voice. He and the Word of God are one.

Dan:
So, in regard to the search for the truth of a particular teaching – take reincarnation for instance. True faith in this teaching cannot really be expressed until/unless one achieves continuity of consciousness because there is no way to test/prove it for oneself until then, correct?

JJ
The seeker may prove a truth like reincarnation or some other teaching in a number of ways. I had many proofs of reincarnation before I proved it solidly to myself.

Here was my first encounter with this truth as mentioned in my previous writings:

The first person I regressed to a previous life was a young lady. I was quite surprised at the ease and familiarity with which she went back. She recalled a life over one hundred years ago in the North east of England and began speaking in an English accent recounting events from that life. Anyone listening would have been amazed at the accent coming from one who had never been to England in this life. However, I was particularly startled because I had spent several years in Britain and most of it in the area she described.

Anyone who travels England becomes acutely aware that most of England does not speak the “Queen’s English”, but there are numerous dialects. There can be a noticeable accent change in a distance of fifty miles. However, there is a marked difference between the way the people in the North and South of England speak. I believe it is a greater difference than the accent change between the North and South of the United States.

What amazed me is that this young lady said she had lived in the northeastern part of England and her accent exactly duplicated the dialect in that area. We must take into consideration that the Northeast British accent is much more difficult to imitate than the Queen’s English which is usually used by movie stars.

In America one rarely hears a North British accent over the media and I was 99% sure that the female involved had never even once heard a North Englander speak – at least in this life.

Another time I was attending a church party and decided to liven it up somewhat. I told the group that I could take people back to any point in their lives, even the day of birth, and have them re call it. People seemed interested in this and the first volunteer was a newly married lady whose husband was out shopping for some snacks for us.

I not only took her back to her youth, but before the entire non believing crowd I took her back into three past lives. In two of them she knew her current husband. One life was back in prehistoric times when they had no names and the other was in the days of the Roman Empire. She said she was married to a Roman senator named Marcus Aurelius who was later killed in a battle.

The details she gave certainly awed everyone there, but the best was still to come. When her husband came home everyone insisted that I take him back also. He was a good subject and regressed to prehistoric times and described the same surroundings that his wife had. But then, amazingly, he went back to the days of the Roman Empire and said his name was Marcus Aurelius, a Roman senator who was killed in Battle.

Everyone was so stunned at this that they began to doubt their belief in the church and I found myself being the one to reassure them that the church was correct and not to let this bother them for I still felt that there must be some logical explanation besides reincarnation. Even this and other amazing regressions did not make me cast aside my church’s doctrine in the one mortal life.
End quote

Finally, I was hit with even stronger proof that forced me to consider it. It was at that point I went within and for the first time began to get a sense from the inner voice about its truth and implications. I then began to have faith that it was true and since then proof after proof has come to me to verify this turning faith into knowledge.

LWK writes:
I presume that since JJ said this particular Marcus Aurelius was a Senator who died in battle he was not talking about the much more famous Marcus Aurelius who was an Emperor of the Roman Empire (and did not die in battle).

JJ
You are right Larry. this person was not the famous emperor but evidently someone named after him – similar to Martin Luther King being named after Martin Luther.

Often when someone identifies themselves with a famous name the reason is because he lived in the same time period in a past life and admired the person so the name comes up in his consciousness more than his own name in a past life. I ruled this out as being the case though because both the husband and wife produced the same name and background independently.

Ruth:
Just out of interest, what was this husband and wife doing in their current lifetime?

JJ
I think they were gong to college at the time. The recognized each other when they first met and decided to get married after a few weeks.

Blayne writes:
Anyone with an open mind who spends a little time researching Dr Stevenson’s
life work will be convinced of reincarnation if they doubted it before.

JJ
You are right there Blayne. His work is very convincing and I’m surprised even atheists do not take note. in fact I used some of his material in one of the chapters of my book – Eternal Lives.

Blayne:
Also you do not need to be hypnotized to be regressed. JJ does not hypnotize you when he helps people go back you are in complete control.

JJ
In my youth I experimented with hypnosis and determined that it was not good to use it repeatedly on people – that it affects their will and self determination. A deep hypnosis state should be used very sparingly – maybe to retrieve important information. Instead I use guided meditation. It is not as potent but harmless as far as I can tell.
Copyright 2010 by J J Dewey