A Course in Miracles talk number 24.
Healing the Cause or the Effect The A Course in Miracles text states,
When the ego tempts you to sickness,
Do not ask the Holy Spirit to heal the body,
For this would merely be to accept the ego's belief that the body is the proper aim of healing.
Ask rather that the Holy Spirit teach you the right perception of the body.
For perception alone can be distorted.
Only perception can be sick,
Because only perception can be wrong.
When our body is in pain,
Or is not functioning properly,
It is very tempting to focus our attention on the symptoms and seek a change at that level.
This is an example of what the Course calls magic.
Magic is an attempt to heal something at the wrong level.
You might try pills,
Rituals,
Charms,
Crystals,
Bark flowers,
Visualisation,
Surgery,
Etc.
The Course is not against us using magic to relieve our pain.
It tells us this is not healing.
We seek to fix up something out there,
Which appears to be the cause of the distress.
Out there includes our body,
Other bodies,
For example relationships,
And situations in the world.
Our magical belief is that something other than our thoughts is the cause of our pain,
And if we can change that sufficiently,
We will be at peace.
This is the root of all our anger.
We believe that attack will get us what we want.
For example,
You might have a difficult relationship with someone,
And find that you often develop a headache when you are with them.
You might even get into the habit of carrying a pill with you to relieve your headache.
Both the anger you use to try and change the person's behaviour,
By attempting to make them guilty,
And the pill you swallow,
Are magical attempts by your ego to change something outside of your mind.
Thus magic is an attempt to change on the level of effect as opposed to cause.
Lesson 140 states,
Cure,
In quotes,
Is a word that cannot be applied to any remedy the world accepts as beneficial.
What the world perceives as therapeutic is but will make the body,
Quotes,
Better.
He is not healed.
He merely had a dream that he was sick,
And in the dream he found a magic formula to make him well.
Yet he has not awoken.
Yet he has not awakened from the dream,
And so his mind remains exactly as it was before.
The quotation at the beginning of this article stresses that the cause of all our pain,
Physical or psychological,
Is due to the way we perceive the world.
What we see in the world is what we see in our mind,
What we see in the world is what we see in our mind,
Quote,
Projection makes perception,
Unquote,
As the course states it.
We first look within before we look without.
If we only perceive our fearful and attacking ego in our mind,
This is all we can see in the world.
Trapped within our ego thoughts,
We can only come up with ego solutions,
Which will treat the symptoms but not the cause.
Perhaps we will succeed for a while in changing our bodily condition or the way another relates to us.
However,
Our success in tinkering with effects will be short-lived,
And our problem will return in a similar or related form.
Our egos will then suggest another solution,
And we are forced to start all over again.
To see the world differently and be at peace,
We must heal our perception.
To do this,
We need help from outside the ego system.
It is a mistake to think we can heal ourselves without the help of Jesus or the Holy Spirit.
Lesson 140 states,
So do we lay aside our amulets,
Our charms and medicines,
Our chants and bits of magic in whatever form they take,
We will be still and listen for the voice of healing,
Which will cure all ills as one,
Restoring saneness to the Son of God.
No voice but this can cure.
As we begin to realise that our magical efforts cannot bring us lasting peace,
Our prayers turn away from effects.
Instead of,
Please heal my body Jesus,
We turn to the cause,
Please teach me how to forgive.
Realising that the cause of all our pain is in our mind and not the world,
We start the process of taking our projections back off the world and begin to look with the help of the Holy Spirit at all that we have denied in our mind.
We do not simply,
Quote,
Give everything to the Holy Spirit,
Unquote,
But first we must recognise and acknowledge the ego's thought system of attack hidden in our mind.
The course is not about affirming truth and love,
But discovering and,
As the text states,
Quote,
Removing the blocks to the awareness of love's presence,
Unquote.
As we begin to discover the extent of the anger and hate in our mind,
The ego will counsel us to feel guilty,
For in this way we will continue our allegiance to it.
We can only feel guilty if we still believe that what we discover in the darkness is really us.
At these times Jesus asks us to turn to him for help.
Only his light can dissolve our darkness.
He is ever waiting to stretch out his hand to us if we but call to him for help.
As we start to allow his light to fill our mind,
We too can help him heal others through us.
The presence of the Holy Spirit in our minds reminds us that we are still children of God.
In the same way,
Our example of peace will remind others,
Who we meet,
That they can choose to see differently.
The text states,
The only meaningful contribution the healer can make is to present an example of one whose directions have been changed for him,
And who no longer believes in nightmares of any kind.
The light in his mind will therefore answer the questioner,
Who must decide with God that there is light because he sees it.
This is not to say that we do not continue to use magic for ourselves and others,
For few have reached the stage where they can immediately change from wrong perception to right perception on every occasion.
It is not a sin to have a toothache,
And a visit to the dentist would be a wise decision.
However,
Our goal needs to be the healing of our mind,
And to do this we must acknowledge the darkness,
Albeit illusory,
Of our ego mind,
And sincerely ask for the light of the Holy Spirit to shine it away.
As we learn to hold the hand of Jesus more,
And the hand of the ego less,
We will be encouraged by the joyful results to trust him more and more.
