reinforced by the study of the White Eagle literature. White Eagle was the spirit guide of a woman called Grace Cooke. In Jesus Teacher and Healer by White Eagle, I found the following statement:
When the body is sick, it is in some way lacking the light. All disease will in due time be traced to this.
Intuitively I felt I had come across the key I needed to understand the causative level of disease. I saw that the condition of the body depends on the state of the mind. If we use the body in a loveless fashion, it starts to break down and disintegrate. If we use it as a tool of loving communication, it will remain healthy and serve us well.
I now realised that if my clients wanted a healing that lasted, they would need to participate in the healing session. They would have to be willing to go deeper than their bodily symptoms and learn to heal some dark spot in their minds, of which the bodily condition was just a shadow. I was no longer satisfied in offering my hands as ‘aspirins’ to be taken twice a week by clients until they were well. What seemed important now was to provide a supportive and non-judgemental presence which would facilitate my clients’ changing their minds about some issue in their life. Later, I would realise that I was trying to aid them in their process of forgiveness.
At about this time I visited an international spiritual community in the north of Scotland called the Findhorn Foundation. It was here that I discovered a book that was to change the direction of my life.
A Course in Miracles
One day, after finishing my lunch in the Community Centre at the Foundation, I visited the Phoenix Craft and Book Shop. In the window were displayed the three volumes of a book entitled A Course in Miracles. The title did not appeal to me very much but I was drawn to inspecting them. I picked up the largest volume called the ‘Text’, opened it at random and read a paragraph. I cannot remember what I read, but I do recall its impact. It was like receiving a shock and it made a deep impression upon me. The book seemed to have no author, just the name of the publishers — the Foundation for Inner Peace, USA. The second largest of the three volumes was called ‘Workbook for Students’ and contained 365 lessons designed to apply the theoretical foundation described in the Text on a practical level in our everyday lives. The smallest volume was entitled ‘Manual for Teachers’ and contained summaries of the Course’s principal themes in a question and answer format.
The following day I was drawn back to this window display, whereupon I again read at random from the three books. I kept this up for two weeks until I had to return to London. The memory of the impact of the book stayed with me and I wrote to the Phoenix Bookshop for a copy. I soon discovered that I had come across another channelled book which would deeply affect my approach to healing myself and others.
How A Course in Miracles Came
The way the Course came to be written illustrates very well the principles to be found within its pages. In 1957 William Thetford, a professor of medical psychology, was made Director of the Psychology Department at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City. The following year he appointed Helen Schucman, an associate professor of medical psychology, to head a research project. Although they worked well together professionally, their personal and departmental relationships were marked with much criticism, anger and blame. Each felt the other to be the cause of their unhappiness.
During 1965 Bill said to Helen that there had to be ‘another way’ to relate to each other and within and between departments. Helen agreed with him and said she would help him to find it. This is an example of what the Course would call ‘a holy instant’, where instead of holding on to a grievance, forgiveness is chosen instead. This shift of perception is what the Course calls a miracle.
The moment of joining between them was the moment that the Course was born. Helen soon began to experience dreams, visions and psychic experiences which she found very disturbing to her logical, rational and scientifically-oriented mind. Bill was very supportive towards her and managed to convince her she was not going mad.
During the October of 1965 Helen ‘heard’ in her mind the words "This is A Course in Miracles. Please take notes." In desperation she rang Bill who tried to placate her and suggested she take down this inner dictation and bring it to the office the following day. He told Helen that if it was found to be nonsense, they could simply discard it and no one need ever know anything about it.
However, it soon became clear that the Course contained profound teachings and they could not easily dismiss it. For the next seven years, Helen continued to receive this inner dictation which she wrote down in shorthand. She said it was like having a tape recorder in her mind which she could start and stop at will, even in mid-sentence. Bill continued to support and encourage Helen in this process and would daily type the notes as Helen read them from her shorthand notebook.
The Course comes from Jesus, with much of it written in the first person. Several references are made to his life 2,000 years ago, especially regarding his crucifixion which he describes in a very different light to what we have been taught to believe. Helen was shocked to realise who the source of this material was. At this time of her life she described herself as an atheist. She had sought to find God in her early years but felt she had failed. She had retained an anger against a deity whom she felt had not made the same effort towards her. Her ambivalence towards God now extended to Jesus, with whom she maintained a love/hate relationship for the rest of her life. In the Course, Jesus tells us he understands that many of us experience difficulty in relating to him and that we need not believe he is the author of the Course to benefit from his words. (See M84; C-5.6)
The Course has been published as it was received except for the removal of material personal to Helen and Bill. The Text was received in one block and needed editing in the form of inserting chapter and section headings, punctuation, paragraphing and capitalisation. They were helped in this work by Dr. Kenneth Wapnick, a clinical psychologist. Ken tells the whole fascinating story of how A Course in Miracles was born in his book Absence from Felicity — The Story of Helen Schucman and Her Scribing of 'A Course in Miracles', published by the Foundation for A Course in Miracles. Bill looked upon his work with Helen as a ‘sacred trust’. The Course was the answer to their joint need for ‘another way’ of relating.
Two further channelled writings came through Helen from Jesus in the form of pamphlets. The first was completed in l975, three years after the Course was written. It is entitled Psychotherapy: Purpose, Process and Practice and is a summary of the Course’s teachings on healing as applied to the profession of psychotherapy. In 1977 Helen channelled The Song of Prayer. This was in response to questions Ken had raised about the correct use of prayer. It is a poetic summary of prayer, forgiveness and healing.
After Helen’s death in 1981, a book of her inspired poetry was published, entitled The Gifts of God.
What the Course Is
Much of the material in this book is based upon my understanding of some of the principles of the Course. I have included below some introductory material about what the Course says.
It is a book about how to heal our minds, for this is where the source of all our physical and psychological suffering lies. The aim of the Course is for us to achieve a state of inner peace, a quiet joy, no matter what we are doing, who we are with, or where we may be. It does this by teaching us a new way of looking at the world. This change of perception is the miracle — hence the title of the book.
The Course teaches that everything in this world can be used as a mirror to what we believe. Our relationships are the most powerful of all our mirrors. By relationships I mean all forms: lovers, parent and child, therapist and client, employer and employee, friends, etc. A relationship is an extremely powerful way of bringing into our awareness what needs to be healed within our mind. The Course teaches that through forgiveness and turning within for help, we can undo all the guilt we carry. This guilt originates from the false belief in our unconscious mind that we have willed to separate ourself from God, and have succeeded in this attempt. Chapter 2 will explore this theme more fully. Guilt is the term the Course uses to describe our self-hate, feelings of inferiority, lack of self-worth and all the negative beliefs we have about ourself. As we learn to undo our guilt,