ACIM Free Mini-Series – 1: Mind Training

Transcription of Video #1 – Mind Training:

A Course in Miracles came through two prestigious psychologists who worked at Columbia University in New York City around 1965. And they came together, even though they had a very conflicted, tension-filled relationship.

At one point they uncharacteristically joined in their intention to find a better way to work together. In so doing, they facilitated the channeling of the Course.

Helen Schucman received an inner dictation that she took down in stenography notebooks. She used shorthand that her mother had made sure she learned a long time ago just in case she did not have a job. But she went on to become a very respected research psychologist.

She would bring those notes to Bill Thetford, her supervisor, the chairman of her department. And he would type them up as she read them to him. I think of Helen Schucman as the scribe of A Course in Miracles and William (Bill) Thetford as her transcriber. And together they co-scribed A Course in Miracles.

The Course is all about healing relationships. It’s no accident that Helen and Bill channeled A Course in Miracles in a partnership, in a joint effort.

In Chapter 1 they were told, “This is a course in mind training.”

Being psychologists, they were given all kinds of psychological language. The ego was re-defined for them. And Jesus spoke with them about projection, denial, resistance, delusion-ness, how through the five senses we are actually hallucinating.

He explained that what we call the waking state is actually dreaming. Throughout the Course, Jesus explained that what we need to do is train the mind. Not the ego mind. We’re actually helping remove the obstacles that we have deliberately placed between Spirit and awareness of Spirit.

We’re looking at those obstacles with a clarity because we’re humbly asking Spirit to look with us … that shines right through all these blockages and obstacles and delusions we’re having about who we really are.

So you could say that we’re brain-washed by the ego, and we’ve chosen the ego as an inner fantasy. We have chosen to be brain-washed and we have brain-washed ourselves.

A Course in Miracles starts to dissolve that self-imposed brainwashing and through that process we brighten and awaken and have shifts in perception — which is how the Course defines miracles — as we begin to have a fresh perspective, detachment, and clicks of recognition about what we actually are.

We are not a “who.” We are not personified. We are not an individual. However, while we believe we are, we will use our personal life to undo our belief in the personal life and, little by little, gently, increase our awareness of the formless, timeless essence we truly are.

Namaste.