Channelling Christ: A Course

A Course in Miracles, its teachings rooted in Christian Science, is one of the most famous writings inspired by inner voice or channeling.

The metaphors may be diametrically contradictary. Some texts will claim that wisdom comes to us by being attentive to the deepest regions of our psyches; others that we must heed the wisdom of a higher component of ouf selves. Still others borrow the language of psychosynthesis (inspired by the idea of the “multiple body” theory in Theosophy), claiming that we are composed of several sub-personalities. These psychologizing metaphors share a similar function in the construction of experience. Whether the author of an Esoteric text structures the narrative of inner knowledge around archetypes in the Jungian sense or around a divine component within a subdivided self, the effect is one of cueing experience. By being coached to understand their experiences in a new language, readers are supposed to adopt a view of themselves in which the self actually embodies distinct components. Carol Adrienne presents this restructuring of experience particularly well in the autobiographical material that introduces her book The Purpose of -Your Life. Adrienne recounts how after a semester of studying archetypal psychology and being assigned the task of writing a paper, she suddenly “realized” that she was constituted of several different personalities. She began to follow up each of these inner voices through dreams, intuitions, emotions and concrete events, finally learning to recognize the distinctive traits of each sub-personality and even giving each of them a name.

The parallels with another culturally constructed theory of the self, Multiple Personality Disorder or Dissociative Identity Disorder are obvious. In Adrienne’s retelling of her sudden “realization” that she was composed of four subpersonalities, one sees traces of an iatrogenic phenomenon. The difference, of course, is that MPD therapists portray multiple personalities as a pathological state, whereas Adrienne’s jungian teacher stressed the importance and the benefits of learning to contact one’s inner (archetypal) voices. Whether one decides to present oneself and phrase one’s experiences in terms of sub-personalities, archetypes or dissociative states is the result of a role-learning process.

The New Thought movement (which includes Christian Science, Religious Science, and Unity Church) was initiated by Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, a student of hypnotist Anton Mesmer. Quimby theorized, influenced by Mesmer’s electro-magnetic theory of “animal magnetism” and the Hindu and Buddhist belief that matter is an illusion, that physical maladies are simply the result of translating into the flesh the incorrect idea of  “illness,” and therefore developing the power of the mind will cure people of illnesses. One of Quimby’s patients during this period was Mary Patterson, later to become Mary Baker Eddy. The central concepts of  New Thought religious groups are the belief that humanity is divine, the understanding that the Mind is all that exists, the practice of metaphysical healing.

According to the founding legend, the message of A Course In Miracles was received from an inner voice speaking to a research psychologist at Columbia University named Helen Schucman (1909-1981). The revelation was sparked by a series of conflicts that, in the mid1960s, had beset the Department of Psychology where she worked. Schucman and Bill Thetford, the director of the Psychology Department at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, vowed to find a way to heal the troubled relationships at the department. In response to this pledge, on October 21st, 1965, a voice in Schucman’s head announced, “This is a course in miracles. Please take notes.”

Schucman considered herself an agnostic, but claimed to have felt compelled to continue taking dictations from the inner voice over the next seven years, with Thetford as an editorial help. The founding legend stresses that Schucman continued throughout the process to be “unbelieving, suspicious and afraid.” However, Kenneth Wapnick’s Absencefroin Feliclo), the most detailed hagiographic account of Schucman and the process of channeling, also notes that Schucman and Thetford were in little doubt as to the source of the inner voice: it was Jesus.

By September 1972, the dictation was nearly completed . The result, the printed Course, is a hefty work of nearly 1,200 pages. The finished text consists of three parts: the Text, comprising 622.

The Course underwent editing between 1973 and 1975. By then, Kenneth Wapnick had become involved in the work.  Wapnick, who had converted from Judaism to Christianity and was vividly interested in mysticism and psychology, was introduced to the Course manuscript through a mutual friend of Schucman’s.  Wapnick became prominent as a Course teacher, a capable administrator and an exegete with a Christianizing hermencutic framework. In 1975,judith Skutch, a figure on the New Age scene, entered the picture and brought the course material to the attention of a larger network of people in the cultic milieu. In 1976, Schucman, Thetford, Wapnick and Skutch jointly decided to have the Course published.  The copyright was transferred to the Foundation for Inner Peace, an organization originally founded in 1972 by Judith and Robert Skutch as Foundation for ParaSensog Investigation to promote parapsychological investigation, but now renamed and given a different purpose.

In 1983, Kenneth and Gloria Wapnick founded the Foundationfor A Course in Miracles to disseminate the teachings. This organization and the Foundation for Inner Peace are formally separate, but share directors and make joint decisions. Together, they have come to be seen by some Course enthusiasts as the beginnings of a new orthodoxy. The copyright and earlier translation tights policy might support this view. In the first twenty years following the publication of the material, only four translations had been authorized, and only in the late 1990s did the Foundation carry out translation projects into a number of new languages. The reason given for this restrictive policy was the fear that the message of the Course could be misrepresented.

The Cosmology and Anthropology of ACIM Despite its length, the Course is organized around a small number of central ideas. The introduction to the Course presents its twin aims: to explicate a cosmology of monist idealism and to introduce a practical psychology aimed at changing the perception of reality along the lines of that metaphysical view:

[The course aims at] removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence, which is your natural inheritance. The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite. This course can therefore be summed up very simply in this way:

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

ACIM proclaims that the cosmos appears to be made of two basic forces, of which one, however, is illusory.  Our everyday consciousness, which does not present us with this picture of reality, is therefore an illusion. We believe that we live in a world in which people are separate from each other and in which suffering, sorrow and enmity abound. In reality, none of this truly exists; the entire world as we perceive it is a gigantic projection of our fear-ridden egos.  We are thus responsible for the world, since we have created it:

I am responsible for what I see.
I choose the feelings I experience, and decide upon the goal I would achieve.

And everything that seems to happen to me I ask for, and receive as I have asked.
Thus, all the evil and suffering that we believe ourselves to be witnessing is, in fact, the projection of our own fear and guilt. When we seem to fall ill and suffer the effects of age, this is the effect the mind has by projecting its attacks on the body. More surprisingly, perhaps, even seemingly positive features of the everyday world of perception such as many close personal relationships, friendships and loves, can prevent us from arriving at the state in which we realize that God and love are all there is.  Personal relationships are yet another way of projecting onto others what we believe is lacking in ourselves. Such relationships, just like sin and suffering, are therefore part of the illusion that the ego makes us live in. ACIM is thus a firmly world-rejecting doctrine. The way out of this illusion is a path that combines religious and therapeutic themes. By forgiving unconditionally, we can begin to draw back our projections.

A Course in Miracles bears a distinct resemblance to Christian Science, constructs a monist cosmology with a distinctly Christian terminology. According to both belief systems, reality is divine, since God is infinite and there is no other power or source.

Unpaginated introduction to ACIM, perceive it is, in a sense, illusory. There is no sin. Evil and good are not real. Matter, sin, and sickness are not real, but only illusions. The Christ in both Christian Science and ACIM does not defeat evil, but demonstrates its lack of any reality beyond our belief in it. The crucifixion was Jesus’ ultimate demonstration of his insight into the illusory nature of the material world. Christian Scientists believe in what they term the “allness of God” and, conversely, the “unreality of disease, sin and death.” ACIM exegete Kenneth Wapnick speaks of seeing the world with the vision of Christ, “God’s alternative to the illusion of separation and to the belief in the reality of sin, guilt and death.”

Cueing Experience

From the sociocognitive perspective, the text presents the metaphysical template according to which the readers’ experience will be cued, the Workbook for students is the set of step-by step instructions that allows this cueing to take place, and the Manual for Teachers is a didactic aid in this process. Having briefly examined the metaphysical presuppositions of the course, this section will take a quick look at the way in which the Workbook and Manual propose that the cueing be carried out in practice..The Course states that praxis is more important than doctrine: “a universal theology is impossible, but a universal experience is not only possible but necessary.” O There is every reason to take the stated aims of ACIM seriously, and see it as a colossal effort at refraining the readers’ experiences.

The belief espoused in ACIM that we create our world is a staple of the New Age, and recurs in quite a few channeled texts. What distinguishes the Course from many other channeled books is its practical aspect. The lessons in the Workbook for Students constitute detailed steps in the process of dismantling the illusory nature of perception that the ego has built up, and then reassembling one’s view of the world according to the idealist monism of the Course.

The student is not required to believe in the doctrines of the Course. The exercises thus begin as an elaborate “as if” act.

The first lessons inculcate a feeling of unreality, a sense that by interpreting our sensory data, we are the creators of everything around us: “this table does not mean anything,” “that lamp does not mean anything,” “this hand does not mean anything,” “I have given everything I see in this room all the meaning that it has for me.”  Even one’s own thoughts are declared to lack meaning. All one’s impressions are to be seen as merely the residue of past conditioning.

There is a rhetoric of progression to these. first exercises. Once one gets the point, it is probably not difficult to assent to the statement that we do indeed orient ourselves in the world by applying what we have learned in the past. Step by step, the reader is led from these not so radical ideas to apply a way of thinking about the world that is increasingly removed from the naive realism of everyday life. Seen as a doctrinal system, these propositions form an enthymatic whole. Seen as cues for structuring appearance, they seem to gently shove the reader from one frame of reference to a radically different one.

Here are some lessons, in order:

I am upset because I see a meaningless world (Lesson 12)
A meaningless world engenders fear (13)
Many lessons are geared at seeing everyday things in a “divine” light: “God is in everything I see” (29), including everyday objects such as coat-hangers and waste-baskets. Others are important in restructuring the readers’ perceptions of themselves as in some sense divine. Thus, “I am as God created me” (162) and “my part is essential to God’s plan for salvation” (100).

The message of the Course is seen as one way of expressing a universal truth. It imparts a strong form of cultural criticism through the world-rejecting nature of its doctrines. Finally, the Christian language and the allusions to God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit impart upon the Course the impression of a profound reformation of Christianity rather than of a radically new faith. This impression is further strengthened by the exegetical efforts of Kenneth Wapnick.

The founding legend that supports Helen Schucman’s prophetic claims rests on two seemingly contradictory tropes. The most detailed hagiography quotes her as writing in a graduate school paper “This is the story of my search for God. It began when I was a very little girl.” 295 In one of the most adulatory passages in Wapnick’s hagiography, Jesus is supposed to have praised Schucman in terms that would have her ranking second only to God fiimself Schucman was more than just a divine instrument:

Before your loveliness the stars stand transfixed and bow to the power of your will. What do children know of their creation, except what their Creator tells them? You were created above the angels because your role involves creation as well as protection. You who are in the image of the Father need bow only to Him, before Whom I kneel with you.

At other times, it stresses Schucman’s later agnosticism, her unwillingness to be the channel of the course, her skepticism towards the entire project. This may be read not only as biographical “fact” but (also) as a modern version of a recurrent legend theme, that has the prophet resist his or her mission.

The biographies are typically ambivalent in this respect, since they note Thetford’s intense interest in various forms of related worlviews, including Christian Science, the readings of Edgar Cayce, and the client-centered psychotherapy of Carl Rogers. It is as if the apologetic biographies record the personal preoccupations of all the people involved in the Course, but resist drawing the conclusions that an outside observer would do. This is the case when Wapnick’s massive biography only mentions Christian Science in passing and New Thought not at all, despite the fact that the doctrines espoused by ACIM would appear to be fundamentally indebted to the tradition of American harmonial religions within which both Schucman and Thetford were raised. This is also evinced by Patrick Miller’s efforts in refuting the suggestion that Schucman and Thetford had more than a fleeting previous acquaintance with alternative religious doctrines, despite admitting that she was profoundly familiar with the Bible and had had at least one visionary experience earlier in life.

Why should Schucman be depicted as such an unwilling and unlikely prophet? There are two potential answers to this question. On one level, this biographical element written in the confessional mode might actually lend increased plausibility to the authenticity of the channeling. The Course, it is implied, could certainly not be the result of autosuggestion or wishful thinking, since the scribe never wanted to be a scribe. On a more profound level, the story of Schucman and the others involved in the early days of A Course in Miracles can in itself be
made to serve as an illustration of the basic principles of the Course. On this view, Schucman was not only a prophet for a highly specific view of the human predicament, but an exemplum embodying that view. Interestingly, Wapnick’s hagiography covers Schucman’s life in terms that are consonant with the schema presented in the Course, and does so explicitly. An outside perspective on the Course might be that it resonates with the split between the concept of a suffering ego and that of a loving self living in the presence of God, because Schucman
conceived of her own life in this way: struggling with a childhood faith that she had lost but always longed for.

Wapnick’s interpretation reverses the link. Helen Schucman’s life was, on his reading, a paradigmatic example of the constant struggle between the ego and the spiritual self that according to ACIM is objectively part of the human condition.

Testimonies and Commentaries

A sizeable devotional literature has been published, disseminating the doctrines of ACIM in an easier-to-digest format. A fair number of books purport to elucidate the “real” meaning of the Course. Probably unique among twentieth century channeled books, there is even a concordance to the Course, a 1,108 page volume that was ten years in the making. These are distinct signs that ACIM has entered the process that leads to the creation of a canonical scripture.

A Course in Miracles is a massive volume, one that is not particularly easy to penetrate. It is also meant to be read actively and to be portion ed out ov er the course of at least a year. A simpler method of getting acquainted with the Course is to read one of the devotional texts that have been written with the doctrines of ACIM at their core. Books by Gerald Jampolsky, Marianne Williamson and others have reached large audiences. Just as certain devotional literature within other traditions, these books popularize the message of the central scripture, make it explicit by means of concrete examples, and anchor it by choosing examples that the ordinary reader can identify with.  The rather austere world-rejecting message of the Course becomes the matter of hopeful and inspiring third-person narratives.

Jampolsky, who was introduced to the Course in 1975, has been particularly effective in spreading its doctrines. His first book, Love is Letting Go of Fear, published in 1979, was endorsed on the Johnny Carson Show, and sales sky-rocketed. By the late 1990s, sales figures had passed three million copies. In this as well as subsequent texts, Jampolsky presents the basic doctrines of ACIM in a self-help format.

The essentialist perspective on the nature of texts can be seen from a title such as Kenneth Wapnick’s videotape production Seek Not to Change the Course. The structure of the text is reminiscent of much American self-help literature. Each chapter is summarized in a short Courserelated statement, such as “All that I give is given to myself,” “Forgiveness is the key to happiness” or “I could see peace in stead of this.” Concrete narratives show how these statements should be applied, and illustrate the beneficial effects that come from trusting them. The heritage from the American harmorrial religions is even more apparent in this popularized version than in the original Course. Thus, the third chapter, “I am never upset for the reasons I think,” is an echo of the belief system of Mary Baker Eddy. Jampolsky claims that we live under the false impression that the world that we see is the reason why we feel upset, depressed, anxious or afraid. Instead, the opposite is the case. Our minds project our own fears onto the world. If we experience pain and suffering, this is ultimately due to ourselves and our own thoughts.

These beliefs are supported by third-person narratives of people who have managed to create a positive life situation for themselves by applying the principles of the book. In Goodbye to Guilt, Jampolsky recalls the case of Mildred, who suffered intensely from attacks of biliary colic. Through relaxation, positive thinking and prayer, Mildred managed to overcome her pain. He tells the story of Laura, who managed to create a lasting relationship by giving up what the Course calls attack thoughts. He narrates the spiritual breakthrough of Marion, who realized that she was not the limited ego she had previously thought, and by means of this insight managed in her fifties to combine a full-time professional career with an active leisure as a marathon runner.

Importantly, Jampolsky includes a first-person narrative that places him within a religious context. One part of his first-person narrative is a classical conversion theme. As in Schucman’s biography, Jampolsky tells of the struggle between the ego and the true identity (“sinner”and “born-again,” to draw a Christian parallel). The other major element of his narrative conveys the effects of living with the principles of the Course. In an episode that fully brings out the fundamental similarity between the harmonial religions and ACIM, Jampolsky tells how he managed to get rid of his own chronic back pains by letting go of his negative emotions towards other people.
 

FOR UPDATES CONTINUE TO:

February 9, 2004