Five years of studying A Course in Miracles, commonly referred to as ACIM or The Course in Course circles. One of the main reasons for setting up this website and writing was to share my experiences with the Course, which has changed my life in so many ways, all for the better.
This is how my Course journey began:
I am not sure of exact timelines, but the first stage for me must have been about three years after I finally severed my connection to formal religion. By this I mean I stopped attending church and participating in the various rituals associated with churchgoing. To say I threw the baby out with the bathwater wouldn’t be too far from the truth. Even though I no longer thought of myself as a Christian, I was in no way an atheist. I knew there was something, a higher power, God, spirit or whatever other name it could be called. At times for want of a better way of looking at it, I thought of it as pure energy. I didn’t think death was final because if we are energy then energy doesn’t die, therefore I couldn’t accept that we could die and ‘be no more’.
But I digress. About three years after I gave up formal religion, I started to feel the presence of Jesus. I tried to brush it aside as a rather fanciful notion on my part, but the feeling persisted and instinctively I ‘knew’ I wasn’t imagining this. It’s as simple as that; I cannot put it any other way. I did my best to ignore it though, because why would Jesus be trying to connect with little ole’ me?
I spent much of my thirties and forties reading and studying self-help books in an effort to better myself and also become financially successful (the buzz word in the 80s and 90s was ‘financial independence’ and there were so many gurus in this field and so many books).
I tend to take people and things at face value and it later occurred to me that self-help books were written by people who were intent on making a lot of money, and that maybe their lives were not proceeding as swimmingly as they tried to make out. And maybe some of their stories were true and maybe some weren’t. No matter. I became involved in a multi-level marketing business, drawn to it as much by the positive energy I experienced around the people involved, as by any trappings of success that it promised. After several years trying to build the business, following leaders I believed in, getting nowhere and spending more money than I ever earned from the business, this is where I found myself, somewhat disillusioned and dispirited. I used EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique, otherwise known as ‘tapping’) with some success, then spent many years with The Sedona Method, which I found exceedingly helpful in letting go of tension and stress, emotional baggage from the past, beliefs that no longer served me etc. Then I studied healing for a couple of years.
Several years ago while browsing in the spiritual/self-help/New Age shelves in bookshops I came across a book called A Course in Miracles. On more than one occasion in subsequent visits to bookstores I picked it up and glanced through it, but went no further. I came across mention of the Course from time to time, in my self-help and spiritual seeking phase. When I finally decided, very tentatively, to start studying the Course, I knew very little about it; in fact I did not know that the author was purported to be Jesus.
In early April 2017, my friend in Florida, who I met online while doing the healing course, mentioned to me that Emily Bennington was starting up a Facebook group to study A Course in Miracles. So as was my wont, I plunged into this new venture with little knowledge about it. But I prefer to think, looking back, that Jesus had tried other ways and now via Theresa he finally got my attention. I read about Emily’s group and saw that the focus was on a new version of the Course, the Complete and Annotated Edition. Robert Perry and Greg Mackie had worked on and edited this publication over a decade, using Helen Schucman’s original notes and adding huge chunks of material that had been left out in the various editing processes leading up to the Course being originally published. Emily’s group would be studying this version. I like clear-cut, so was happy to join and start studying the CE edition, eventually glad that I had no baggage from previous versions, which many people carry. I ordered the book straightaway.
Coincidentally, my first week of studying the book which was the Easter week, I happened to be home all week nursing a broken toe. So, I was literally with my feet up and able to start off with some serious study for one week. Obviously I knew by now that it was accepted in Course circles that Jesus is the author of the Course and that Helen Schucman channelled it. I was already aware of channelling, having been a follower of Abrham-Hicks some years previously, so this particular method of reaching people didn’t bother me or bring up any serious issues for me. I approached my study with gusto, and subsequently joined Course Companions at its inception and eventually became the pupil of a wonderful teacher, with whom I have an hour long conversation every week, and who has lovingly guided me and enabled me to expand my approcah to life through Course study. Five years on I have learned so much and used the Course to enable who I really am to come to the fore often, although the ego jumps right in whenever things are going well. As a dedicated Course student who studies and practices daily, I am still surprised by how strong and turbulent my responses still are to particular circumstances where the ego’s defences come to the fore. I will write more about this in other posts.
Sometimes when I mention to someone that I am studying the Course, their response is something along the lines of “Oh yes, I read that book once”. If the Course is your chosen path, it is definitely not a book you read once and put aside. It becomes a lifelong commitment of learning and growing and accepting your function and purpose for being in this world. The word journey is very apt, in this context. So I will journey on.