While remaining staunchly fundamentalist at the core, he opened himself to a wide variety of influences that included New Thought Christianity authors such as Thomas Troward (widely read in Religious Science) and even Sufi mystics. I attribute to him most of the open-mindedness in myself that led to my eventual acceptance of A Course in Miracles.
May 27, 1996 · Kenneth Wapnick, a Jewish agnostic who later became a Catholic monk, founded the Foundation for A Course in Miracles. Wapnick states that The Course and biblical Christianity are not compatible. He gives three reasons why he holds such a view. First, The Course teaches that God did not create the world.
Apr 13, 2009 · In the past century a glut of spiritistic “Bibles” have been published to help usher in the anticipated “New Age” of occult enlightenment, but none have rivaled the popularity and influence achieved by A Course in Miracles. It has sold 1.25 million sets and has been translated into French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Hebrew, and many ...
Aug 14, 2020 · Christian Living and A Course in Miracles. I am reading Louis Dupré’s “Reflections on Roberto Mangabeira Unger’s The Religion of the Future ” published in The Journal of Religion. I could care less about Unger’s book; Dupré is my bread and water these days. Specifically, Dupré helps me contextualize the challenge of living Christianly, especially when “Christianly” is so …
Helen Cohn Schucman | |
---|---|
Died | February 9, 1981 (aged 71) New York City |
Nationality | American |
Occupation | Professor of medical psychology, Columbia University |
Known for | A Course In Miracles (ACIM) |
The above differences clearly show why a Christian cannot in good faith consider The Course as a source for his or her spiritual understanding. It is unequivocally anti-biblical and is without doubt promoted by Satanic deception (2 Corinthians 11:14: 1 Timothy 4:1).
Warren and Joy Smith are examples of how The Course is totally inadequate when it comes to defending one’s spirit from the evil one and his dominion. The Smiths were deeply involved in the study of The Course. Warren relates Joy’s story in his book, The Light That Was Dark.
Joy explained that they “had repeatedly applied their Course in Miracles lessons, such as: ‘There is nothing to fear,’ ‘In my defenselessness my safety lies,’ and, ‘I could see peace instead of this.'” After explaining that nothing had worked, Frank, their study leader, “made it clear that he agreed with the Course’s metaphysical teaching that evil was only an illusion and that the experience was probably something that Joy was working out within herself.”
The Course identifies with much of New Age thought in that it teaches false Christology. New Age proponents teach that The Christ is the one who is the most highly evolved being during a given age. This Christ, whether it be Buddha, Krishna, or Jesus, is the messiah for a given age. They believe, for example, that Jesus was The Christ for the Church or Piscean Age. According to their philosophy, Jesus achieved Christhood and by right-thinking we too can achieve Christhood.
In his influential book, Good-Bye to Guilt, Jampolsky describes his conversion to The Course.
Joy was being spiritually harassed by a man who was highly proficient in astral projection (projecting his spirit for great distances). Warren relates how they faced the attacks. “We tried every metaphysical and spiritual technique we had ever learned—we repeated our Course in Miracles lessons, did visualizations, prayed as best we knew how, sent the spiritual intruder blessings, and kept the whole situation surrounded in white light—but none of it had any effect. We had to wait it out. The spiritual presence was calling the shots.”
Warren later remarked, “We were amazed that the presence left every time we called on his [Jesus Christ’s] name. Nothing in A Course in Miracles or any other metaphysical teachings had ever talked about this aspect of Jesus.”
So back to our opening question, What is it that makes A Course in Miracles so successful? All in all, the Course is a masterpiece of spiritual strategy. It claims to be a revelation from Jesus Christ Himself, and it is intelligently organized and simply written. It appeals to personal pride and can become almost addicting emotionally. It is carefully designed for radically restructuring a person’s perception against Christian faith and toward New Age occultism.
A Course in Miracles was channeled (spiritistically delivered) through an atheistic psychologist named Helen Schucman. Dr. Schucman, who had an early background in New Thought metaphysics and the occult, 7 would not permit public knowledge of her role as the medium and eight-year channel for the Course until after her death. She died in 1981.
Likewise, “sinners” do not exist, because sin is an illusion. As a result of this distorted theology, the Course’s approach to “salvation” lies in understanding that no one requires salvation in the biblical sense because all men and women are already divine.
His Center for Attitudinal Healing was founded in 1975 under the direction of an “inner voice,” which instructed him to establish a center where the principles of the Course could be taught and demonstrated. A Course in Miracles has influenced the Christian church as well.
1 This article is derived from John Ankerberg and John Weld on’s Encyclopedia of New Age Beliefs (Eugene, OR: Harvest House Publishers, 1996). Used by permission.
4 Martin Gardner, “Marianne Williamson and ‘A Course in Miracles,’” The Skeptical Inquirer, Fall 1992, 21.
That the eventual production of the Course was supernaturally arranged behind the scenes by demonic initiative should be obvious to those familiar with the methods of spiritual warfare revealed in Scripture, and in the history of occult revelations. The extent of this occult collaboration, and the power it represents on the part of the spirit world to influence human affairs, is not small. In light of biblical revelation, neither is it unexpected (2 Cor. 4:4; 1 John 5:19). Similar manipulation of events and people are found in the lives of innumerable psychics, occultists, and mediums. 21
The Holy Spirit teaches that you cannot lose your soul and there is no gain in the world. . . ACIM, volume 1, page 212
ACIM teaches that Jesus is but a man who found Christ in other people and is no more the Christ than anyone else: ACIM volume 3, page 83.
The body cannot heal, because it cannot make itself sick. It needs no healing. Its health or sickness depends entirely on how the mind perceives it, and the purpose the mind would use it for. ACIM, volume 1, page 371
To begin with the author of ACIM never identifies himself as Jesus. Nowhere, in any of the text of ACIM, is there a clear identification of Jesus as the author. Since the “Christ” of ACIM never identifies himself as Jesus, all assumptions of authorship of ACIM are to this “Christ” and not to Jesus.
The appeal of ACIM, as with all other channelled (spiritually delivered) materials, is on emotions and feelings, not on rigor of thought or righteousness.
In all cases in which Jesus serves in a functional role in ACIM, and not merely as an object of reference, he is made subservient to another being, or a state of being. The vast body of text of ACIM uses inference and deduction, not explicit identification, to lead the student into a swamp of conceptual confusion.
This article is intended as a Biblical overview, from my standpoint as an evangelical Christian, of the 3-volumed set of books, known as “A Course in Miracles” (A Course in Miracles® was originally a registered trademark of the Foundation for A Course in Miracles, Inc. ® but we were informed in February 2007 that these are now part of the public domain). These had been previously published separately: as the “Text” (Volume 1), “Workbook for Students” and “Manual for Teachers” (Volume 3).
A Course In Miracles A Biblical Evaluation
Warren and Joy Smith are examples of how The Courseis totally inadequate when it comes to defending one's spirit from the evil one and his dominion. The Smith's were deeply involved in the study of The Course. Warren relates Joy's story in his book, The Light That Was Dark.
Joy explained that they "had repeatedly applied their Course in Miracleslessons, such as: 'There is nothing to fear,' 'In my defenselessness my safety lies,' and, 'I could see peace instead of this.'" After explaining that nothing had worked, Frank, their study leader, "made it clear that he agreed with the Course's metaphysical teaching that evil was only an illusion and that the experience was probably something that Joy was working out within herself."
Joy was being spiritually harassed by a man who was highly proficient in astral projection (projecting his spirit for great distances). Warren relates how they faced the attacks. "We tried every metaphysical and spiritual technique we had ever learned--we repeated our Course in Miracleslessons, did visualizations, prayed as best we knew how, sent the spiritual intruder blessings, and kept the whole situation surrounded in white light--but none of it had any effect. We had to wait it out. The spiritual presence was calling the shots."
According to the dictated material, the voice of The Coursewas Jesus. As a result of the influence Christianity has had on humanity, The Coursechose Christian terminology to convey its message. A 1977 pamphlet published by the Foundation For Inner Peacestates "its only purpose is to provide a way in which some people will be able to find their own Internal Teacher"- -in other words, their personal "Spirit Guide."
In 1965 a Jewish atheistic psychologist from Columbia University began to channel messages from a spirit she believed to be Jesus. She ultimately produced, or she says Jesus revealed to her, well over a thousand pages of revelation during the next seven years.
According to Williamson, Jesus is one of many enlightened beings. In her text she makes this statement, "Jesus and other enlightened masters are our evolutionary elder brothers." She continues by saying that "the mutation, the enlightened ones, (including Jesus) show the rest of us our evolutionary potential. They point the way." So in reality Jesus is a way-shower.