Confessions XIV (Suffering Regarded As Illusion)

Dear Friends, Known and Unknown,

I have been suggesting that the New Age milieu can be characterised by a frequent tendency to either minimise suffering and tragedy or even deny it outright as illusory. Again I want to emphasise that this tendency is only 'frequent' - it is not consistent. There are significant exceptions.

But today I am going to focus on a book, which I believe exemplifies this frequent pattern – and which has gathered wide respect indeed within the holistic orbit.

The book is called A Course in Miracles – and it impossible for me to deny that it is a work of Genius. First, a word of what I mean by that term.

I recall when I first met Shakespeare. I met Shakespeare, when first I realised, what it was to stand in awe of Genius.

Stunned, I realised there was so, so, SO much in his tragedies, operating on so many levels, simultaneously. Layer upon layer of characterisation, penetrating psychological insight, spiritual wisdom, pathos, irony, social commentary and more – all woven together in a way which far surpassed any literature I had ever come across.

To top it all off, Shakespeare had managed to express his vast, complex vision in **poetry**. All was in iambic pentameter and included some of the most beautiful and memorable lines ever committed to English.

I actually feel something like that in response to A Course in Miracles.

Now one may wish to call it a towering work of ANTI-CHRISTIAN Genius, if one likes.

But I defy any thoughtful person to spend much time with this book, and not conclude that its author possesses an extroadinarily – I want to repeat EXTROADINARILY - sophisticated mind.

A vast and consistent vision of the nature of reality is presented, laden with **brilliant** insights into the dynamics of human psychology. And like Shakespeare, an immense amount of the text is in poetry – in fact, the same iambic pentameter employed by the bard. At many points, the language is very beautiful indeed.

As it happens, this is a 'channelled' text. The woman who received it, could not have possibly authored it in her normal every day consciousness.

But when it comes to the Course -unlike 99.8 % of New Age channelled texts - I must confess to feeling awe.

Now, the basic thrust of the Course’s message is that the world we see is illusory.

The Course posits two orders of perception. One order is real. The other is unreal.

At the outset, the Course itself states that its message can be "summed up very simply in this way:

Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God."

Thus, the course has definite similarities to Platonism, Gnosticism, Vedanta – and so on. All of which posit that we experience a world of shadow or Maya – illusion.

This thinking is not even completely foreign to Christianity – inasmuch as Christianity is not dualist. Unlike certain Gnostics, Christians do not propose two equal, opposed orders of darkness and light. The world of Darkness does not have the same, ultimate eternal validity as that of God …

But the implications the Course draws from its position are radical indeed.

Now I must confess that I have never studied the Course in its 1,200 page entirety. Nonetheless I have substantially engaged with it over the years – also through the writings of its leading commentators.

Although one must be wary indeed of reducing a vast system to a simple summary, for my part I truly believe the following words represent the message that the Course is giving. Friends, I have struggled, really struggled to do justice to the Course, and this is what I believe its message necessarily **entails**:

In reality – Hitler never murdered the Jews. The genocide committed by Stalin, Mao, the European conquerors of the indigenous Americans and so forth, in reality never happened.

Similarity – in reality – global warming, the ravages of poverty, third world sweatshops, child abuse … the list goes on – all of these are not happening. Threats are unreal and what is unreal does not exist.

And it is only through understanding this basic unreality behind all suffering, that forgiveness is even possible.

The Course is a call to forgiveness at every level. Forgiveness for the Course is THE means of salvation.

But forgiveness **only** becomes possible for the Course, when we realise that every wrong done - from the most minor insult to the most sadistic torture - has not been done – in reality.

‘In reality’ is the key here. Whatever is precisely meant by these two words ‘in reality’. I am struggling to do justice here, and in that spirit, I ask you to focus on these two words I am repeatedly stressing as the key …

Now, on this basis, the Course goes on to deconstruct a vast, vast amount of Christianity.

According to the Course, the ONLY meaning of the Crucifixion was ‘to demonstrate that the most outrageous assault, as judged by the ego, does not matter’ – again, because ‘in reality’ it never happened. The Course amplifies its message about the Crucifixion by saying ‘destruction itself is impossible, anything that is destructible cannot be real’.

Thus two millennia of Christian (traditional and esoteric) understandings of the Crucifixion, which stand in the most profound contrast to this idea, are repeatedly dismissed by the Course as misunderstandings.

Tomorrow, I shall continue with the Course’s deconstruction of Christianity.

But in doing so, I hope never to get too far away from my main theme – which is that of New Age teachings, which serve to efface tragedy and suffering.

For I believe the Course, which met with deep respect wherever I ventured in the New Age milieu, is but an outstandingly developed example of a general New Age tendency of thought.