Treasure Trove chart of ACIM’s metaphysics by Mike Mattheiss

I recently got a request via email for the metaphysical chart made by Mike Mattheiss. When I found the laminated copy Mike gave to a handful of us in-person study group attendees in Colorado a better part of a decade ago, I realized (again, after studying it anew) that this loaded chart (heavily inspired by Ken Wapnick’s original wonderful graphic and so many of his related ideas) is a treasure trove of useful, clarifying information that can benefit both new and seasoned Course students alike.

Mike was kind enough to send this digital copy in pdf form, which you can view and/or download below. For optimum viewing, print on an 11″ x 17″ sheet of paper. Right-click (windows) or control-click (Macintosh) on the image to download it for printing.

In addition to Ken’s chart in a slightly different format, Mike’s adds details on the Four Splits, projection, cause and effect (and ego’s persistent attempt to reverse them), the Ladder of Prayer, and much more.

When I saw this packed graphic, it reminded me of the “cheat sheets” that a few of our college professors allowed us to use – decades ago – during midterm and final exams in what would otherwise be “closed book” tests. We were allowed a specific size sheet of paper (e.g. 8.5 x 11″) onto which we could cram as many formulas, equations, constants, laws, facts, and whatnot as we could muster, but we couldn’t use any tools for magnification. Talk about tiny fonts! I think the idea was that if we thought enough about the content of the class to jot down the salient ideas, we at least gave the subject some thought, even if our memorization skills weren’t optimal. ACIM is profoundly simple, yet there are a plethora of ways we can apply it – each moment! – in our unique “classrooms” and by making our own charts and/or notes, we often anchor the ideas more fully in mind and make Holy Spirit’s Real Alternative an easier “go-to” choice when confronted with the countless opportunities every day to choose against insanity … and for the peace that true forgiveness brings.

Update 27Jan2024: Here are the (3 pages of) text from the “flip side” of the laminated sheet that Mike just emailed me; I added links to the corresponding locations in the Web Edition of ACIM. Mike has some superbly helpful Course quotes here!

The Laws of Chaos (T-23.II)

1. … truth is different for everyone (T-23.II.2:1)
2. … each one must sin, and therefore deserves attack and death (T-23.II.4:1)
3. God … must accept His Son’s belief in what he is, and hate him for it. (T-23.II.6:6)
4. … the belief you have what you have taken. (T-23.II.9:3)
5. … there is a substitute for love. (T-23.II.12:4)

The Obstacles to Peace (T-19.IV)

The First Obstacle: The Desire to Get Rid of It (T-19.IV-A)
The Attraction of Guilt (T-19.IV-A.i)

The Second Obstacle: The Belief the Body is Valuable for What It Offers (T-19.IV-B)
The Attraction of Pain (T-19.IV-B.i)

The Third Obstacle: The Attraction of Death (T-19.IV-C)
The Incorruptible Body (T-19.IV-C.i)

The Fourth Obstacle: The Fear of God (T-19.IV-D)
The Lifting of the Veil (T-19.IV-D.1)

In any situation in which you are uncertain, the first thing to consider, very simply, is “What do I want to come of this? ²What is it for?” ³The clarification of the goal belongs at the beginning, for it is this which will determine the outcome. (T-17.VI.2:1-3)

The secret of salvation is but this: that you are doing this unto yourself. (T-27.VIII.10:1) … For you would not react at all to figures in a dream you knew that you were dreaming. ⁶Let them be as hateful and as vicious as they may, they could have no effect on you unless you failed to recognize it is your dream. (T-27.VIII.10:5-6)

Temptation has one lesson it would teach, in all its forms, wherever it occurs. ²It would persuade the holy Son of God he is a body, born in what must die, unable to escape its frailty, and bound by what it orders him to feel. (T-31.VIII.1:1-2)

Into eternity, where all is one, there crept a tiny, mad idea, at which the Son of God remembered not to laugh. ³In his forgetting did the thought become a serious idea, and possible of both accomplishment and real effects. ⁴Together, we can laugh them both away, and understand that time cannot intrude upon eternity. ⁵It is a joke to think that time can come to circumvent eternity, which means there is no time. (T-27.VIII.6:2-5)

The tiny tick of time in which the first mistake was made, and all of them within that one mistake, held also the Correction for that one, and all of them that came within the first. ⁶And in that tiny instant time was gone, for that was all it ever was. ⁷What God gave answer to is answered and is gone. (T-26.V.3:5-7)

Time seems to go in one direction, but when you reach its end it will roll up like a long carpet spread along the past behind you, and will disappear. (T-13.I.3:5)

The revelation that the Father and the Son are one will come in time to every mind. ⁹Yet is that time determined by the mind itself, not taught. (W-158.2:8-9)

The time is set already. ²It appears to be quite arbitrary. ³Yet there is no step along the road that anyone takes but by chance. ⁴It has already been taken by him, although he has not yet embarked on it. ⁵For time but seems to go in one direction. ⁶We but undertake a journey that is over. ⁷Yet it seems to have a future still unknown to us. (W-158.3:1-7)

Time is a trick, a sleight of hand, a vast illusion in which figures come and go as if by magic. ²Yet there is a plan behind appearances that does not change. ³The script is written. ⁴When experience will come to end your doubting has been set. ⁵For we but see the journey from the point at which it ended, looking back on it, imagining we make it once again; reviewing mentally what has gone by. (W-158.4:1-5)

If this were the real world, God would be cruel. ²For no Father could subject His children to this as the price of salvation and be loving. (T-13.in.3:1-2)

If God is real, there is no pain. ⁴If pain is real, there is no God. (W-190.3:3-4)

Resign now as your own teacher. (T-12.V.8:3) … for you were badly taught (T-28.I.7:1)

To learn this course requires willingness to question every value that you hold. (T-24.in.2:1)

This course requires almost nothing of you. ⁸It is impossible to imagine one that asks so little, or could offer more. (T-20.VII.1:7-8)

Beware of the temptation to perceive yourself unfairly treated. (T-26.X.4:1) …a slight twinge of annoyance is nothing but a veil drawn over intense fury. (W-21.2:5)

Anger is never justified. (T-30.VI.1:1) All anger is nothing more than an attempt to make someone feel guilty (T-15.VII.10:3)

Deny me not the little gift I ask, when in exchange I lay before your feet the peace of God, and power to bring this peace to everyone who wanders in the world uncertain, lonely, and in constant fear. (T-31.VIII.7:1)

Miracles fall like drops of healing rain from Heaven on a dry and dusty world, where starved and thirsty creatures come to die. (W-pII.13.5:1)

The world you see is the delusional system of those made mad by guilt. (T-13.in.2:2)

And who could weep but for his innocence? (P-2.IV.1:7)

I am innocent, and nothing has happened. The Holy Spirit knows What I am. I am awakening in God. (Love Has Forgotten No One: The Answer to Life p.138)

The Three Steps of Forgiveness

• I recognize that the darkness is not in another but in myself. This does not deny the darkened spots of sin in someone, but only that they are irrelevant to my perception. I understand that the darkness I made real in you by my reaction, originated in me, and thus I recall the projection and remove the wall I had placed between us. This is a painful step, for in the instant of recognition the pain of my guilt returns to awareness. I realize (from Lesson 190) that the gun pointed at me is not held by your hand, but my own. In other words, the guilt is not in you. I am the secret murderer.
• I now understand, with Jesus’ love beside me, that not only is it an illusion that you were the killer, but the fact that I am a killer is an illusion, too. I made up the guilt in you because I made it up in me. Heaven’s Love was only believed to be destroyed. In truth, not one note in its joyous song of oneness was lost – “not one note in Heaven’s song was missed” (T-26.V.5:4). Recognizing this happy fact completes my part in the Atonement, and the wall between my self and Self dissolves into nothingness.
• We are taught this step is not our responsibility. Once I look at the guilt I put in you and recall it, realizing it was only my dark fantasy, I have fulfilled my part. I looked at guilt without judgment and remembered to laugh at the tiny, mad idea (T-27.VIII.6:2) of separation, which allowed it to dissolve into the Holy Spirit’s gentle laughter (T-27.VIII.9:1). If I become afraid of love again, I need but let the tender hand of Jesus touch another’s pain, and immediately his light of truth abolishes the darkness of illusion, as we together return to the place of truth we believed we had abandoned for the ego’s home of separation and guilt. The secret walls of defense are no longer needed, and so have In their place is the light of forgiveness, which shines the way to the home we never left. And thus it is no secret (T-27.VIII.13:9) that we are healed.

– Ken Wapnick, Ending Our Resistance to Love: From Dissociation to Acceptance of A Course in Miracles, p 137-138

Therefore, the first step in the undoing is to recognize that you actively decided wrongly, but can as actively decide otherwise. ⁴Be very firm with yourself in this, and keep yourself fully aware that the undoing process, which does not come from you, is nevertheless within you because God placed it there. ⁵Your part is merely to return your thinking to the point at which the error was made, and give it over to the Atonement in peace. ⁶Say this to yourself as sincerely as you can, remembering that the Holy Spirit will respond fully to your slightest invitation: (T-5.VII.6:3-6)

⁷I must have decided wrongly, because I am not at peace.
⁸I made the decision myself, but I can also decide otherwise.
⁹I want to decide otherwise, because I want to be at peace.
¹⁰I do not feel guilty, because the Holy Spirit will undo all the consequences of my wrong decision if I will let Him.
¹¹I choose to let Him, by allowing Him to decide for God for me. (T-5.VII.6:7-11)

forgiveness: looking at our specialness with the Holy Spirit or Jesus, without guilt or judgment: our special function that shifts perception of another as “enemy” (special hate) or “savior-idol” (special love) to brother or friend, removing all projections of guilt from him; the expression of the miracle or vision of Christ, that sees all people united in the Sonship of God, looking beyond the seeming differences that reflect separation: thus, perceiving sin as real makes true forgiveness impossible; the recognition that what we thought was done to us we did to ourselves, since we are responsible for our scripts, and therefore only we can deprive ourselves of the peace of God: thus, we forgive others for what they have not done to us, not for what they have done.

looking at our ego: the essence of forgiveness: looking with the Holy Spirit’s or Jesus’ nonjudgmental gentleness and patience at our ego thought system; since it is guilt that prevents us from looking at our specialness, thus sustaining the ego and keeping its true nature hidden, it is looking without judgment at our attack thoughts that undoes the ego: thus, looking at the ego without guilt and fear is the essence of the Atonement.

bringing darkness (illusions) to the light (truth) the process of undoing denial and dissociation, expressing the decision to bring our guilt to the light of the Holy Spirit to be looked at and forgiven, rather than fearfully keeping it in the darkness of our unconscious minds where it could never be seen and undone; living in illusions brings sickness and pain, bringing them to truth is healing and salvation.

– Ken Wapnick, Glossary-Index for a Course in Miracles, copyright FACIM

There is no statement that the world is more afraid to hear than this:

⁷I do not know the thing I am, and therefore do not know what I am doing, where I am, or how to look upon the world or on myself.

⁸Yet in this learning is salvation born. ⁹And What you are will tell you of Itself. (T-31.V.17:6-9)

Sickness is a decision. ²It is not a thing that happens to you, quite unsought, which makes you weak and brings you suffering. ³It is a choice you make, a plan you lay, when for an instant truth arises in your own deluded mind, and all your world appears to totter and prepare to fall. ⁴Now are you sick, that truth may go away and threaten your establishments no more. (W-136.7:1-4)

It is essential to realize that all defenses do what they would defend. ²The underlying basis for their effectiveness is that they offer what they defend. (T-17.IV.7:1-2)

You who believe that God is fear made but one substitution. ²It has taken many forms, because it was the substitution of illusion for truth; of fragmentation for wholeness. ³It has become so splintered and subdivided and divided again, over and over, that it is now almost impossible to perceive it once was one, and still is what it was. ⁴That one error, which brought truth to illusion, infinity to time, and life to death, was all you ever made. ⁵Your whole world rests upon it. ⁶Everything you see reflects it, and every special relationship that you have ever made is part of it. (T-18.I.4:1-6) … You do not realize the magnitude of that one error. (T-18.I.5:2)

Trials are but lessons that you failed to learn presented once again, so where you made a faulty choice before you now can make a better one, and thus escape all pain that what you chose before has brought to you. (T-31.VIII.3:1)

Who with the Love of God upholding him could find the choice of miracles or murder hard to make? (T-23.IV.9:8) What is not love is murder. (T-23.IV.1:10)

The ego believes that by punishing itself it will mitigate the punishment of God. (T-5.V.5:6)

You hold a picture of your crucifixion before his [your brother’s] eyes, that he may see his sins are writ in Heaven in your blood and death, and go before him, closing off the gate and damning him to hell. (T-27.I.3:2)

Death seems an easy price, if they can say, “Behold me, brother, at your hand I die.” (T-27.I.4:6)

All that is needed is you look upon the problem as it is, and not the way that you have set it up. (T-27.VII.2:2)

If you perceived the special relationship as a triumph over God, would you want it? (T-16.V.10:1)

Whenever any form of special relationship tempts you to seek for love in ritual, remember love is content, and not form of any kind. ²The special relationship is a ritual of form, aimed at raising the form to take the place of God at the expense of content. ³There is no meaning in the form, and there will never be. ⁴The special relationship must be recognized for what it is; a senseless ritual in which strength is extracted from the death of God, and invested in His killer as the sign that form has triumphed over content, and love has lost its meaning. (T-16.V.12:1-4)

Yet it [perception] but witnesses to what you taught. ¹⁰It is the outward picture of a wish; an image that you wanted to be true. (T-24.VII.8:9-10)

Since you believe that you are separate, Heaven presents itself to you as separate, too. ²Not that it is in truth, but that the link that has been given you to join the truth may reach to you through what you understand. (T-25.I.5:1-2)

A miracle is a correction. … ³It merely looks on devastation, and reminds the mind that what it sees is false. (W-pII.13.1:1-3)

Teach not that I died in vain. Teach rather that I did not die by demonstrating that I live in you. (T-11.VI.7:3-4)

You were at peace until you asked for special favor. ³And God did not give it for the request was alien to Him, … ⁴Therefore you made of Him an unloving father (T-13.III.10:2-4)

But the only meaningful prayer is for forgiveness, because those who have been forgiven have everything. (T-3.V.6:3)

Forgive your Father it was not His Will that you be crucified. (T-24.III.8:13)

I do not call for martyrs but for teachers. (T-6.I.16:3)

To teach is to demonstrate (M-in.2:1)

Son of God, you have not sinned, but you have been much mistaken. (T-10.V.6:1)

Call it not sin but madness, for such it was and so it still remains. ⁸Invest it not with guilt, for guilt implies it was accomplished in reality. ⁹And above all, be not afraid of it. (T-18.I.6:7-9)