Corresponding Manual for Teachers Section

Chapter 4: Teacher / Individual Questions

5. How Do the Divine’s Teachers Deal With Beliefs in Enchantment Magic?

This is a crucial question both for Teachers of the Divine and their students. If this issue is mishandled, the Teacher of the Divine will have opposed their students and also hurt themself. This strengthens fear and makes illusions and enchantment magic seem quite real to both of them. How to deal with beliefs in enchantment magic – the belief in a power other than the Divine’s – as well as magical thinking – the confusing of fantasy with reality – thus become major lessons for the Teachers of the Divine to make their own.

Their first responsibility in this is not to attempt to oppose enchantment beliefs or magical thinking, because opposition is a form of attack. If an enchantment belief or magic thought experienced in anyone arouses fear in the Teacher of the Divine in any form, including anger, they can be sure that they are strengthening their own belief in enchantment and in separation, and have condemned themself for it. They can be sure as well that they have asked for sadness and depression to come to them. Let them remember, then, that it is not this that they would teach because it is not this that they would learn.

Note that not to oppose does not mean to condone. The world thinks always in terms of opposites, but you must learn to think in terms of Oneness. To oppose or to condone the components of a dream is equally meaningless. The only sensible thing to do in a dream is to ask the Undoer of dreams – Who is with you in the dream for the sole Purpose of helping you to awaken from it – for Its Interpretation of what is happening, and what, if anything, It would like you to do with regard to this. Divine Essence’s Vision that Spirit leads you to is One, and will allow you to see beyond the opposites the world presents you to the Oneness that is beyond. When you see that Oneness you will know that you are in the Real World.

There may, however, be a temptation to respond to enchantment beliefs or magical thinking in a way that appears outwardly composed and accepting – that appears to be seeing beyond opposites – yet that is inwardly agitated and opposed. This response still reinforces the beliefs through responding inwardly to them as if what underlies them is real. Nor is this internal conflict obvious even to the one experiencing it. It can, in fact, be easily concealed beneath a wish to help. It is this double wish – the wish to help and the wish to oppose – that makes the help of little value, and must lead to undesired outcomes. And it should be remembered that the outcome that results will always come to both teacher and student.

This Course has repeatedly emphasized that you give only to yourself. And where could this be better shown than in the kinds of help the Teachers of the Divine give to those who need their aid? Here are their gifts most clearly given back to them. For they will give only what they have first chosen for themselves. And in this gift is their judgment upon the holy Children of the Divine, or the letting go of judgment in exchange for the Interpretation they have allowed to be made for them by their Teacher.

It is easiest to let error be corrected where it is most apparent, and errors can be recognized by their results. An awakening lesson truly taught and learned can only lead to the release experienced in the Presence of Love for both teacher and student, who have shared in one intent. Agitation and opposition can enter only if perception of separate goals has entered. And this must indeed have been the case if the result of a lesson is anything but Joy. The single aim of the teacher turns a divided goal (desiring both truth and illusions) of their student into one direction, with the call for help becoming the student’s one appeal. This then is easily responded to with just one Answer, and this Answer will enter the teacher’s mind unfailingly. From there It shines into their student’s mind, uniting the minds of teacher and student.

Perhaps it will be helpful to remember that things in themselves do not stimulate agitation, opposition or anger. It is only an interpretation of a thing that gives rise to negating emotions, regardless of the seeming justification of such emotions by what appear as facts, and also regardless of the spectrum of intensity of the negating emotion that is stimulated. This may be merely slight irritation, perhaps too mild even to be clearly recognized. Or it may also take the form of intense rage, accompanied by thoughts of violence fantasized or acted out. It does not matter. All of these reactions are the same. They obscure the Truth, and this can never be a matter of degree. Either Truth is clear or not. It cannot be partially recognized. And who is unaware of Truth must look upon illusions.

Opposition in reaction to a perceived belief in a power other than the Divine’s or to a confusion of fantasy and reality is a basic cause of fear. Consider what this reaction means, and its centrality in the world’s thought system becomes apparent. The presence of enchantment beliefs or magical thinking indicates a separation from the Divine and Its Reality. It states, in the clearest form possible, that the mind is convinced that fantasy is real and that a separate will exists that can oppose the Will of the Divine, and succeed. That these convictions are delusions is obvious. Yet that they can be believed as facts is also obvious. They who believe that fantasy is real or that an opposing will has usurped the Place of the Divine and taken It for itself also must believe that Reality is frightening and that the Divine has become an enemy. So must they stand apart from Reality and from the Divine in protecting themselves from these imagined threats, and make themselves a pretend shield to keep themselves safe. What a hopeless predicament indeed! And herein lies the birthplace of guilt and shame for those whose minds have conjured such nightmares, but also of the possibility of compassion from those who have seen beyond these.

Into this hopeless situation the Divine sends Its Teachers. They bring the Light of Hope from the Divine Itself. There is a Way in which release from the nightmare is possible. This Way can be learned and taught, but it requires patience and abundant willingness and the forgiveness and release of all enchantment beliefs and magical thinking that still exist in the mind of the Teacher of the Divine. Given that, the lesson’s manifest simplicity stands out like an intense clear Light against a dark horizon, for such it is: If agitation, opposition and anger come from interpretations and not facts, then these reactions are never justified in response to enchantment beliefs or magical thinking in oneself or perceived in others. Once this lesson is even dimly grasped, the Way is open. Now it is possible to take the next step. The interpretation causing fear can be changed to one of compassion at last.

Enchantment beliefs and magical thinking perceived in the teacher or student when met with compassion will not lead to reactions of opposition against what is clearly not true, because the cause of the guilt or shame they elicit will have been removed. And so they can be seen beyond, and thus forgiven, and forgotten in the truest sense. Madness only seems terrible. In truth it has no power to make or do anything. Like the enchantment beliefs that become its servant, and the magical thoughts that serve its companion, fantasy, madness neither attacks nor protects. In reality it has no effects. To perceive it and to recognize its thought system is to perceive nothing. Can nothingness give rise to agitation, opposition and anger? Only within madness itself.

Remember, then, Teacher of the Divine, that opposition in yourself to the perception of enchantment beliefs and magical thinking – rather than a response of true compassion and from this feeling a desire to help – perceives a “reality” that is not there. Yet is the opposition that comes up in you, when it does, certain witness that you do believe in it as fact until you change your mind. Now is release of your sisters and brothers impossible until you understand that you have merely responded in anger to your own interpretation, which you have projected onto a world perceived outside yourself.

Let this grim sword be taken from you now. There is no Cause for agitation, opposition, anger, or any negating emotion of the ego, itself merely a faulty perspective of the split mind. This sword does not exist. The fear of the Divine and of Reality – as of opposition to a perceived belief in a power or will other than the Divine’s or to the confusion of fantasy and reality – is causeless. But the Divine’s Love is Cause of Everything, beyond all fear, and thus forever real and always present for the Children of the Divine to call on.