In this “Death Café” School For A Course In Miracles (SFACIM curriculum hosted by Lyn Corona and Tim Wise) class video, we read and discussed how we all long for a mind that is free from fear, and yet we’ve forgotten that we’re merely scaring ourselves by living in a metaphoric haunted house of cards – a voluntary prison we deny locking ourselves up in, after wrongly convicting ourselves for the impossible – and forgivable! – crime of separation.
“You need not fear the Higher Court will condemn you. ²It will merely dismiss the case against you. ³There can be no case against a child of God, and every witness to guilt in God’s creations is bearing false witness to God Himself. ⁴Appeal everything you believe gladly to God’s Own Higher Court, because it speaks for Him and therefore speaks truly. ⁵It will dismiss the case against you, however carefully you have built it up. ⁶The case may be fool-proof, but it is not God-proof. ⁷The Holy Spirit will not hear it, because He can only witness truly.” (ACIM, T-5.VI.10:1-7)
(Note that in these classes – unlike probably most other death cafés – we are talking about the mind and not the body; the death that ACIM discusses is the oblivion of the mind which buys into the insane dualistic propaganda of the ego, it has nothing to do with the death of our ephemeral physical forms.)
Like horror flick addicts, we keep scaring ourselves voluntarily until we stop “buying season tickets” for ego dramas (spooky misinterpretations) that aren’t in our best interest.
This conversation was facilitated by Bruce Rawles, among those learning by sharing in the almost daily helpful online SFACIM classes. In this conversation about A Course In Miracles, we began with a workbook lesson that concludes (in paragraph 2) with the reminder that “what we’re searching for is what we’re searching with” (boldface added by the author):
Where darkness was I look upon the light. (ACIM, W-302)
1. Father, our eyes are opening at last.²Your holy world awaits us, as our sight is finally restored and we can see.³We thought we suffered.⁴But we had forgot the Son whom You created.⁵Now we see that darkness is our own imagining, and light is there for us to look upon.⁶Christ’s vision changes darkness into light, for fear must disappear when love has come.⁷Let me forgive Your holy world today, that I may look upon its holiness and understand it but reflects my own.
2. Our Love awaits us as we go to Him, and walks beside us showing us the way.²He fails in nothing.³He the End we seek, and He the Means by which we go to Him.“
There are 11 instances of the word “haunt” (or variations of that worl) in ACIM; here’s the first of these:
“Accept with gladness what you do not understand, and let it be explained to you as you perceive its purpose work in it to make it holy. ²You will find many opportunities to blame your brother for the “failure” of your relationship, for it will seem at times to have no purpose. ³A sense of aimlessness will come to haunt you, and to remind you of all the ways you once sought for satisfaction and thought you found it. ⁴Forget not now the misery you really found, and do not breathe life into your failing ego. ⁵For your relationship has not been disrupted. ⁶It has been saved.” (ACIM, T-17.V.8:1-6)
We’re all “in costume” all year long, pretending to be specific persons, disguised as a silly seemingly separate self, haunting a scary thought system that seems to obliviate awareness of our real shared (eternally innocent, infinitely inclusive) identity. When we look at ego with our Inner Kindness Teacher as our guide (without blame or condemnation) we’re able to look at our obliviating, fearful, addictive practice of scaring ourselves with unconscious, unfounded guilt.
“The dreams you think you like would hold you back as much as those in which the fear is seen. ²For every dream is but a dream of fear, no matter what the form it seems to take. ³The fear is seen within, without, or both. ⁴Or it can be disguised in pleasant form. ⁵But never is it absent from the dream, for fear is the material of dreams, from which they all are made. ⁶Their form can change, but they cannot be made of something else. ⁷The miracle were treacherous indeed if it allowed you still to be afraid because you did not recognize the fear. ⁸You would not then be willing to awake, for which the miracle prepares the way.” (ACIM, T-29.IV.2:1-8)
Here’s are a few more examples of how our minds are self-haunted and we all need help from outside our self-inflicted dreams of fear to restore our natural consistent peace:
“Accept with gladness what you do not understand, and let it be explained to you as you perceive its purpose work in it to make it holy.²You will find many opportunities to blame your brother for the “failure” of your relationship, for it will seem at times to have no purpose.³A sense of aimlessness will come to haunt you, and to remind you of all the ways you once sought for satisfaction and thought you found it.⁴Forget not now the misery you really found, and do not breathe life into your failing ego.⁵For your relationship has not been disrupted.⁶It has been saved.” (ACIM, T-17.V.8:1-6)“Before your brother’s holiness the world is still, and peace descends on it in gentleness and blessing so complete that not one trace of conflict still remains to haunt you in the darkness of the night.²He is your savior from the dreams of fear.³He is the healing of your sense of sacrifice and fear that what you have will scatter with the wind and turn to dust.⁴In him is your assurance God is here, and with you now.⁵While he is what he is, you can be sure that God is knowable and will be known to you.⁶For He could never leave His Own creation.⁷And the sign that this is so lies in your brother, offered you that all your doubts about yourself may disappear before his holiness.⁸See in him God’s creation.⁹For in him his Father waits for your acknowledgment that He created you as part of Him.” (ACIM, T-24.VI.1:1-9)
“If we feel sorry for someone, we take away their power to choose.” – Ken Wapnick.“There is no death, but there is a belief in death.” (ACIM, T-3.VII.5:11)
(This conversation was facilitated by Bruce Rawles as part of the School For A Course In Miracles (SFACIM) curriculum hosted by Lyn Corona and Tim Wise. This YouTube video recording was made on October 29, 2024.)
Here’s the classic scene where Toto pulls back the curtain revealing the deception of the Wizard of Oz; dispelling the fear”