Marianne Williamson, Misconceptions about A Course In Miracles, and Level Confusion

Back story: Gratitude

Gratitude, Renewed

Marianne Williamson’s recent US presidential candidacy, combined with several related New York Times (and other) articles (such as this June 5, 2019 article by Sam Kestenbaum) has again put ACIM in front of millions of potential new readers. I’m again grateful for the possibility that many might be curious enough to directly explore this primary inspiration behind Marianne’s multi-decade career outside of politics. It seems timely to reflect on the principles of A Course In Miracles – what they address, and perhaps at least as important – what they do not address. Hopefully, what follows here might help new ACIM students avoid needless detours and misunderstandings right from the start. These clarifications might also actually dissuade some from reading the book – perhaps those who aren’t quite ready to abandon the notion that the outer world will someday provide what seems to be lacking inside. No matter, says ACIM: We’re all “… home, dreaming of exile but perfectly capable of awakening to reality.” T-10.I.2:1. At some point, we’ll all tire of “beating the dead horse” (our belief in separate interests) and realize we cannot find peace in self-imposed isolation.

Seeking to Not Find

There is a prevalent idea in “new age” culture that envisions a “tipping point” where a cumulative change in consciousness will magically heal the world of its dysfunction … a perfect example of what ACIM refers to as “level confusion” – a very common misapplication of Course principles. In fact, just about everyone – including those who have studied ACIM for decades – does this frequently. Ken Wapnick called this absurd practice a “maladaptive solution to a non-existent problem.” What this means is simply that we’re trying to (paraphrasing Albert Einstein) “solve problems with the same thinking we used when we created (made) them.” As the song goes, we’re “looking for love (and peace and shared interests and innocence, etc.) in all the wrong places.” Another Einstein quote explains our maladaptive solution quite well:

“A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feeling as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.”

ACIM would clarify Einstein’s quote by adding that the level of thinking – where we made up the problems we seem to have in abundance – is not where we can resolve them. This is because ego-based thoughts were made for the express (self-sabotaging) purpose of not being able to keep up with the incessant deluge of quandaries this world presents, thereby justifying blame for just about everyone and everything other than our mind’s decisions. In turn, this arms our defenses for the anticipated counter-attack that our blame-throwing ego assaults instigate on the world’s countless battlefields. The ego’s rallying cry is always some form of “It’s not my fault.” By conveniently abdicating responsibility in the mind for how we think about the world “out there” it becomes our “goatscape” (of scapegoats) with almost infinite variations, constantly mutating into new disguises to minimize the likelihood of our exposing the “inside job” of the ego-mind – the saboteur we all must confront and decommission … through the “quantum forgiveness” ACIM helps us practice, practice, practice.

Undoing our Investments in Ineffective Interpretations

The nature of these problems (and therefore the solution to them) exists in the mind – the interpretations we bring to bear … or the willingness to trust inner guidance (we all have) that leads us away from ineffective interpretations that make us unwitting victims. Ironically, when we are willing to see our involvement and investment in thinking that works against our unconditional peace – and release that investment, we become less and less dependent on outcomes, and more and more capable of making effective decisions in the world because we’re not constrained to the narrow confines of fleeting, personal self-interest. But, and this is the crucial point, we only have that expanded vision when we’re not blinded by a limited identity.

ACIM certainly isn’t pessimistic – actually, it’s anything but that! However, it doesn’t place unwarranted hope where none exists. In fact, it’s very premise is that we each need to look at our own thoughts … moment to moment – particularly our grievances, victimhoods, and even the most seemingly minor annoyances – to gently observe our complicity in keeping our identity in a state of perpetual hellishness (helplessness) by clinging to our miserable self-assessments with their vexing issues. ACIM suggests that we wander the world “… uncertain, lonely, and in constant fear” (T-31.VIII.7:1) by equating ourselves with our personal pet peeves and silly seemingly separate self-interests. Beyond these horrific, but ultimately silly and completely forgivable misunderstandings, our True Nature waits patiently for our decision to leave the battlefield of trying to force and manipulate the world to do our (ego’s) bidding.

“Love waits on welcome, not on time, and the real world is but your welcome of what always was. Therefore the call of joy is in it, and your glad response is your awakening to what you have not lost.” – T-13.VII.9:7-8

What ACIM is NOT about (despite some media to the contrary):

• Anything “New Age” or “miracles” involving one’s body, finances, or any physical conditions or situations
• Form or appearance of any sort: “Nothing so blinding as perception of form.” – T-22.III.6:7
• Behavior or ritual
• Formal religion or philosophy
• Politics or activism
• Fixing the world or anything else
• Fixing my personality or anyone else’s
• Taking anything temporary or specific (limited by space or time) too seriously! :-)

What ACIM is about:

• (Always and ONLY) about the Mind – the “Miracles” in ACIM are always changes in Mind
• In particular, it’s about choosing the sane, inclusive thought system of kindness and shared interests …
• … instead of the insane, exclusive thought system of condemnation, specialness, and making big deals of differences
• It’s about the practice of forgiveness based on our eternal, intrinsic innocence as Spirit … All of Spirit in everyone
• … rather than believing our distorted, personal misinterpretations of temporal bodies
• Seeing everything as either a call for lovingkindness – or an expression of lovingkindness
• Realizing that peace is the result of changing how we see others which becomes how we see ourselves
• Being gently patient with our own enormous resistance to this mindfulness and extending that to everyone
• Allowing the humor, grace and gentle strength of our Inner Kindness Teacher to dismantle our belief in separation

Look past the form

It’s important, particularly when approaching ACIM for the first time, to look past the form to the message behind and beyond the form. ACIM’s scribe, Helen Schucman, took down the words that became ACIM during an era before gender-neutral language was encouraged. She also was versed in Freudian psychology, fond of the King James Bible’s literary style (though not its schizophrenic message), and loved Plato and Shakespeare. All of these influenced the form of the writing which might seem off-putting to someone new to the material. One of the challenges in reading ACIM is to not only remember it’s always and only about our decision-making faculty in the mind (constantly choosing between the divisive, adversarial thinking of ego … and the inclusive, difference-transcending thinking of our “right minds”), but also to be willing to forgive our resistance to making a “big deal” about the form. We all have enormous resistance to looking at the content that the material in ACIM represents, so we need to be patient with ourselves and everyone.

This will go a long way also towards helping us let go of our need to “fix the dream” – fixing the world of spacetime that even modern physics, as well as Eastern mysticism, has maintained is illusory – for millennia. This die-hard wish to be “dream repair technicians” for our little personal holograms isn’t likely to fade away quickly, so we need to be gentle and patient yet persistently vigilant for the tendency we all have for this “level confusion” – the unfounded belief that our peace of mind depends on a very specific set or range of conditions in the world. Sound familiar? What makes this curriculum so challenging is that we all have our own carefully-selected herd of sacred cows consisting of things that must change “out there” before we’ll allow ourselves to find peace. :-)

Feedback helps when we’re not attached to outcomes

There’s nothing “wrong” with wanting specific outcomes in the world. In fact, ACIM suggests that not using the feedback from the world (including our bodies) as an integral daily – even moment to moment – part of our forgiveness classroom is a “… particularly unworthy form of denial” T-2.IV.3:11. The challenge is to keep from crossing the “no big deal” line of mere preference … to the “them’s fightin’ words” turf where we make a fuss (we compromise our peace) for the sake of an outcome that has no power in truth to either give or take away happiness from our mind.

So how does Marianne Williamson fit into this wonderful classroom? Because she is (by many already) perceived as a symbol or representative in mass media for ACIM, even though she doesn’t claim to be an official (or unofficial) spokesperson for either FIP or ACIM. The likely tendency of many will be to assume that everything she says represents ACIM’s teachings, and equate her personal opinions, values, and now political platforms with ACIM, or assume that her activist values, words or interests somehow represent FIP or ACIM. (BTW, any comments I, Bruce Rawles, make on ACIMblog.com or elsewhere do not necessarily represent those of FIP, FACIM, ACIM, or anyone else for that matter.) It’s all to easy to equate message with messenger, and when there are messages on multiple levels, the task of keeping them straight becomes even more challenging. It’s not easy to always specify when one is speaking from personal opinion and then clearly state when one is quoting from a source such as ACIM. Even if that were the case, messages on multiple levels can get wires crossed when we’re not paying attention. Not to worry, Marianne, we all send out mixed messages, as we vacillate between the two thought systems ACIM talks about. This just seemed like a particularly convenient time to provide a reminder that clarity requires mental vigilance to keep levels and messages clear.

Perfect Oneness: More Powerful Than We Can Imagine

Perhaps Marianne’s most famous quote is “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.” This, too, is an excellent example of a quote that can be misinterpreted if we confuse levels and try to apply it on a personal level (where we can get into all sorts of mischief, engaged in unimaginable shenanigans and just generally wasting our time if we apply this as “power over” instead of the all-inclusive “power with” which actually isn’t really necessary in Truth. With practice, we recognize more and more that the level addressed by ACIM is always and only Mind. The ego-mind is woefully inadequate, but our real, all-inclusive nature as One is powerful beyond measure. In fact, the pure non-dual Reality of our shared Being transcends the idea of (or need for) power, since, in pure non-duality, there’s nothing “outside” of that Perfect Oneness to threaten it. Therein, as the Course begins, lies the Peace of God. … With apologies to Obi-Wan Kenobi, Perfect Oneness IS More Powerful Than We Can Possibly Imagine (as separate selves). :-) Thanks again, Marianne, for the re-introduction of ACIM to many more!

Yes, let’s all please continue with whatever ecologic/economic, social, political or other activism where we feel drawn to contribute. Let’s continue doing whatever common sense, every day, responsible actions in the world makes sense to us in the arenas of our primary relationships, family, neighborhood, ever-widening physical and virtual communities we engage in, maximizing expressions of kindness, tolerance, inclusion, and shared interests. But please don’t think for a moment that ACIM is about any of these things on the level of form; its only concern is your mind where the real, truly sustainable change is not only possible but – quite happily – inevitable.

Thanks for reading, and if you are new to ACIM, you might want to explore the FIP FAQs page and the extensive archive history about ACIM there, as well as some of the references and teachers, noted above in my biographical “back story” section. Happy forgiving! :-)

Update (4Aug2019): Having watched the first two pairs of (Democratic) presidential debates recently, I’m struck with a couple of observations:

1) How silly it is that we use our external political processes to divide and conquer … instead of include and integrate – as egos we force the context of conversations into “either-or” adversarial conundrums like picking “the” candidate – instead of transforming our system to include the “both-and” benefits of all points of view.

2) How we do the same thing internally by projecting our expectations (including unconscious, unmet needs which ACIM would suggest are merely unconscious yet unfounded guilt) onto political candidates, authority figures, and the entire spectrum of apparent victims and victimizers that populate our mind’s cast of characters. We forget that (as Sigmund Freud discovered) projection is a way of avoiding looking at thoughts we want to avoid. ACIM adds to Freud’s discovery by encouraging us to look – gently, please! – at those very thoughts with our “Inner Kindness Teacher” to see that the unconscious guilt is also unfounded. Then we can afford to let everyone “off the hook” when we make this happy forgiving discovery, thereby returning our minds to peace.