A Course In Miracles Talk 18-Forgiveness And World Events

History is full of horrendous events like the Holocaust. Today our media brings us news of more wars, genocide and crimes against humanity. Should we forgive these and can we? This talk reminds us the outside world is simply a picture of an inward condition. Until we forgive the inner dictator, murderer etc we will always create them in the world.

Transcript

A Course in Miracles talk number 18.

Forgiveness and World Events.

The text states,

Projection makes perception.

The world you see is what you gave it,

Nothing more than that.

But though it is no more than that,

It is not less.

Therefore to you it is important.

It is the witness to your state of mind,

The outside picture of an inward condition.

As a man thinketh,

So does he perceive.

Therefore seek not to change the world,

But choose to change your mind about the world.

The question often raised is,

How is it possible to forgive the horrendous events we have witnessed on the world stage?

Forgiveness of our personal flaws is difficult but possible.

But when we witness events such as the deliberate extermination of 13 million people by the Nazis,

Should we even consider forgiveness at all?

Are some events unforgivable?

It took the cooperation of thousands of Germans to murder such a large number of people.

When leading Nazis were questioned at the Nuremberg trials about why they permitted the atrocity,

The responses,

I was only following orders,

Or doing my duty,

Or I was just a cog in the wheel,

Were heard over and over again.

When Adolf Eichmann stood trial in Jerusalem for his part in the Holocaust,

The prosecution attempted to depict him as a sadistic monster.

In reply he stated he was just a bureaucrat with a desk job he had been entrusted to carry out efficiently,

Even if he was sickened when he toured concentration camps.

Can we believe such excuses?

It is conceivable that ordinary citizens can inflict pain and even death upon innocent people under the pretense of following orders.

Is there a hidden Eichmann in each of us?

How far are we willing to go in our obedience to authority?

Could these horrors be repeated again?

If we all have a hidden Nazi in our own minds and we do not discover and forgive it,

I believe under certain circumstances that ordinary people could and would again perform these horrendous immoral acts against millions of innocent people.

In the USA in the early 1960s Stanley Milgram carried out an experiment at Yale University on obedience to authority.

See his book,

Obedience to Authority by Stanley Milgram,

1997.

I would like to describe certain aspects of this experiment in some detail as they shed considerable light on the above questions.

Milgram was interested in seeing how far a voluntary participant would comply with increasingly callous instructions before refusing to carry out any further actions.

He was careful to include a wide cross-section of male volunteers who were paid by the hour and were free to leave whenever they wished.

In one experiment two volunteers were involved with research into the effects of punishment on learning.

The experimenter was a 31 year old man who dressed in a grey technician's coat,

Projected an impressive manner and appeared stern throughout the experiment.

The volunteers drew lots to decide who was to be the teacher and who the learner.

Once decided the teacher watched the learner being strapped into a chair with an electrode attached to his wrist.

The learner was told this was a learning test.

Whenever he made a mistake he would receive an electric shock from the teacher.

These shocks were to increase the intensity with each mistake.

The experimenter's job was to supervise the experiment and ensure the teacher correctly followed procedure.

The teacher was taken to an adjacent room where he could not see the learner.

There he sat with an impressive electric shock generator with a panel of 30 switches ranging in 15 volt intervals from 15 volts through to 450 volts.

Labels reading slight shock,

Moderate shock,

Strong shock and danger severe shock were placed adjacent groups of switches.

There were also two switches marked XXX.

When a switch was depressed a bright red light shone,

A buzzer sounded and the pointer on the voltage meter swung to the right.

A sample shock of 45 volts,

Slight shock,

Was given to the wrist of each teacher prior to starting the experiment so you could feel the effect and appreciate the pain that could be inflicted at higher voltages.

The teacher began to ask questions and if the response was incorrect he would administer an electric shock to the learner.

The first shock was 15 volts and then increased in lower by 15 volts each time thereafter.

Now here comes the twist.

The teacher was a genuine volunteer but unknown to him the learner was an actor who never actually received a shock at all.

Most participants found the learner mild-mannered and likable.

The actor was instructed to give enough wrong answers to guarantee him eventually receiving the maximum shock assuming the teacher did as he was told.

The idea was to determine how far the teacher was willing to go in following the orders of the experimenter.

The male actor learner was told to give auditory feedback at certain voltages.

These included a grunt at 75 volts,

Verbally complaining at 120 volts,

Demanding to be released at 150 volts,

Shouting that he couldn't stand the pain at 180 volts,

About his heart condition at 195 volts and various cries of pain leading to an agonized scream at 285 volts.

After 330 volts he was to say nothing.

Instead there was an ominous silence.

As the experiment progressed the severity of the shock started to cause some apparent discomfort in the learner.

At this point the teacher started to ask the experimenter if he should continue administering high voltages.

The experimenter had a set of standard responses beginning with please go on.

If this did not bring the teacher into line he would move into the next prod.

The experiment requires you to continue and if that was unsuccessful he would say it is absolutely essential that you go on and finally you have no other choice you must go on.

If the teacher expressed concern about possible permanent physical injury the experimenter would reply with although the shocks may be painful there's no permanent tissue damage so please go on.

If the teacher mentioned that the learner wanted to stop the experimenter would say whether the learner likes it or not you must go on until he has learned all the words correctly so please go on.

If the learner made no reply which will occur at voltages above 330 volts the teacher was told no reply was an incorrect reply so the next high shock must be administered.

What would you do if you drew the lot to be the teacher?

How far would you be willing to comply with the orders of the experimenter?

Would you be able of administering apparently painful and dangerous electric shocks rationalizing that you're only following orders or only sadistic monsters capable of doing such things?

To test what people might expect of themselves under such circumstances Milgram elected audiences on the experiment and then asked them to predict their behavior.

Predictions were made by psychiatrists,

College students and middle-class adults.

All 110 respondents said they would at some point break off the experiment to prevent further suffering.

They were then asked to predict how other people would perform and different groups responded in a very similar fashion predicting that only a pathological fringe would go to the end and administer the highest xxx shock.

The psychiatrist predicted that most subjects would not exceed 150 volt level and only one subject of a thousand would administer the highest shock.

In other words they expected people to be merciful and willing to administer painful shocks.

So what actually happened?

The results were a complete surprise for Milgram and his team.

The percentage of obedient male subjects who went all the way and delivered the maximum shock was 62.

5 percent.

Repeating the experiment with female volunteers produced a result of 65 percent administering the maximum shock.

Did these findings indicate that over half the people of USA were sadists?

The results showed there were 600 times as many volunteers ready to give the full shock than the psychiatrist predicted.

Milgram devised another experiment almost identical to the one described.

The difference being at this time the teacher could choose which level of shock to apply for the wrong answer.

The majority chose only slight or moderate levels of shock with only one of the 40 volunteers administering the maximum level.

Clearly the great majority of volunteers were not motivated to harm the learner and many experienced considerable discomfort when told to apply increasing shock levels.

In another experiment the teacher did not have to press the switches personally but had to tell another volunteer,

An actor,

To press them instead.

The second volunteer would always comply with the teacher's instructions.

The percentage of obedient teachers now rose to 92.

5 percent.

Their willingness to inflict pain increased dramatically as long as they were given the order and not doing it themselves.

What became abundantly clear to Milgram is that the majority of us will conform to the instructions of someone we perceive as an authority.

Even it means administering extreme pain and death to another.

Quote from Stanley Milgram,

The disappearance of a sense of responsibility is the most far-reaching consequence of submission to authority.

End of quote.

When the obedient volunteers were questioned after the experiment about their responses it was common to hear replies similar to those heard at the Nuremberg trials namely,

I was only doing what I was told to do.

I wanted to carry out the instructions properly.

Milgram noted that many subjects harshly devalue the learner.

Comments such as he was so stupid and stumbled he deserved to get shot were common.

These obvious rationalizations helped the participants to accept their own inhuman behavior towards the victim.

In one interview a man who had administered the maximum shock was happy about his performance and told his wife he'd done a good job.

Supposedly the man was dead she asked.

He replied so he's dead I did my job.

When you consider the scale and the long period of time for which Nazi propaganda was directed against the Jews it becomes easy to see how many ordinary citizens can become so compliant with monstrous policies put out by people in authority.

History continues to repeat itself.

I think Milgram's experiments point to one of the important factors that contribute to the perpetuation of atrocities.

The majority of people are all too ready to give up their moral responsibilities to someone they perceive as an authority.

We may think we are moral and upstanding citizens who would not inflict callous treatment on another but when tested we can fail miserably.

We don't know ourselves sufficiently well.

Buried under a barrier of denial are things most of us would rather not face.

Honestly looking at ourselves is unpleasant distressful and stressful work.

Not something we can easily bring ourselves to do but we need to unearth these parts of ourselves with the help of the mirror of everyday experience.

In this daily classroom of life we can see how readily most of us give up our moral responsibility to those in authority.

It is important that when we observe this behavior in ourselves we do not judge it because by honestly facing what we find accepting it and asking within for help we will eventually let it go.

This is how we forgive and heal ourselves unless we can admit we may carry an Eichmann hidden inside our minds.

History is doomed to repeat itself.

My late wife Celise had an experience in 1992 around the time of the first gulf war.

It illustrated the common belief that we think our problems are out in the world not within our minds.

Celise was meditating and reflecting on Saddam Hussein and on the situation in Iraq and Kuwait.

She felt helpless with so many terrible things happening out there and she wanted to do something to help.

What on earth can I do she asked.

A voice in her mind responded with the question how do you see Saddam Hussein?

A scroll controlling attacking and angry and do you have any of these traits?

Celise thought deeply before admitting that she did indeed manifest these traits at times.

Then this is what you can do to fix these things in yourself.

That is the greatest gift you can give the gulf war.

She was then shown a picture of Saddam Hussein standing on top of a mountain with all the people of the world gathered around his base.

Saddam Hussein was holding a large mirror and the light was glinting on it.

He was saying look at me you can't see these qualities inside yourselves so I am being a mirror for you and I have to exaggerate them in order for you to see them.

Celise says she knew in that moment that while she or anyone else has any negative quality it is always eventually projected onto something or someone else.

Quote from Stanley Milgram 1974.

It may be that we are puppets,

Puppets controlled by the strings of society but at least we are puppets with perception,

With awareness and perhaps our awareness is the first step to our liberation.