Corresponding Text Section
Chapter 2: The Psychological Foundation of Miracles 2
3. Identifying the Dynamics of Defense Mechanisms
When you are afraid of anything, you are acknowledging its power to hurt you. Remember that where your heart is, there is your treasure also. This means that you believe in what you value. If you are afraid, you are valuing wrongly, meaning that you are misusing your ability to value, and as a result you are valuing what is not valuable. Human understanding separate from Spirit will inevitably value wrongly, and by endowing all human thoughts, true and false, with equal power, will inevitably render Peace inaccessible. However, the Peace that is beyond human understanding is totally incapable of being shaken by human errors of any kind. It denies the ability of anything that is not of the Divine to affect you in any way. This is the proper use of denial. It is not used to attempt to hide anything, but it is used to correct error. It brings all error into the Light, and since error and darkness are the same, it abolishes error automatically.
True denial is a very powerful protective device. You can and should deny any belief that error can hurt who you truly are. This kind of denial is not a concealment device, but a correction device—correcting who you think you truly are. The “right mind” of the mentally healthy depends on it.
You can do anything I ask in the process of awakening and Atonement. I have asked you to perform miracles, and have made it very clear that these are natural, corrective, healing, and universal. The good they do is immeasurable. But they cannot be performed in a mood of doubt, because doubt is a result of wrong-mindedness (judgment and fear), and miracles are a result of right-mindedness that has at least temporarily allowed itself to become miracle-mindedness. Therefore doubt and miracles are of two different dimensions or worlds, the world of illusions and the Real World. Thus before you ask your own question based on doubt, remember my own question long ago: “Oh you of little faith, why do you doubt?,” meaning, “Why choose illusion when you can choose Truth?”
You may have already asked yourself how you could possibly align your life with the values, principles, and direction of this Course, or vice versa. This Course stated previously that you must recognize your total dependence on Spirit. In fact, the Divine and Its Children are symbiotically related. They are completely dependent on each other. The creation of the Mind by the Divine has already been perfectly accomplished, but the creations of individual minds have not. The Divine created minds so It could rely on them because It created them perfectly. It gave them Its Peace so they would not be shaken, and would be unable to be deceived. Whenever you are afraid, you are deceived. At such times your mind is not serving Spirit. This literally starves the mind by denying itself its true Source of Nourishment, the Love of the Divine.
The Divine offers only Mercy. Your own words should always reflect only Mercy, because that is what you have received, and that is what you should give. The human idea of justice is a temporary expedient, or an attempt to teach human beings the meaning of mercy. Any judgmental aspect of justice arises only because human beings are capable of injustice if that is what their minds miscreate. You are afraid of Divine Will because you have used your own will, which the Divine created in the Likeness of Its Own, to miscreate. What you haven’t yet realized is that the mind can miscreate only when it is not free, and only in a dream can it seem to be unfree. An imprisoned mind is not free by definition. It is possessed, or held back, by itself. In this dream state its will is therefore limited, and not free to assert itself.
To remember the past without distortion you must also remember that anything you suffered then was because of your own error of not being present in the now that was present then, as it is now. You can seem to suffer in the present only for the same reason you seemed to suffer in the past—because you were or are not really present, and therefore you are removing yourself from the Safety of Reality. Understanding that in the protective moment of now – the holy instant – you are completely safe and free from any possibility of suffering is a very powerful defense for staying connected with Truth. This is a shifting of emphasis from the negative to the positive use of denial. Wrong denial – denying when something has gone wrong and needs correction – is not a purely negating device; it results in active miscreation. Remember the thought: “Never underestimate the power of denial.” In the service of the right mind, the denial of error to affect Reality frees the mind and reestablishes the Freedom of the will. When the will is really free, it cannot miscreate, because it recognizes only Truth.
False projection, or the mis-projection of illusions rather than the Extension of Truth, arises out of the wrong use of denial, not out of its proper use—the acknowledgment of the truth that error can’t hurt you. My own role in the Atonement is one of true Projection, i.e., the Extension of Truth forever. I can project to you the affirmation of Truth. If you mis-project error to me or to yourself, you are interfering with the process but not defeating it. My use of projection, which can also be yours, is not based on faulty denial. But it does involve the very powerful use of the denial of error to hurt you in any way, including to cause you to suffer.
Miracle workers are those who accept my use of appropriate projection and denial, unite their own inherent abilities to appropriately project and deny with mine, and use them to bless themselves and others. This establishes the total lack of threat anywhere. Together we can then work for the true Time of Peace, which is eternal.
Freud’s identification of faulty mental and emotional defense mechanisms was quite correct, as was his recognition of their power to influence. They can indeed influence your perceptions both of yourself and your surroundings, as well as influencing the perceptions of others in the same regard. But Freud’s self-chosen personal limitations of understanding induced inevitable limits on his own perception. He made two kinds of errors in this regard. The first was that he understood only how defense mechanisms worked negatively in the mentally ill and not also positively in the mentally healthy. The second was his own denial of the rightful defense mechanism of the Atonement. A clear understanding of the second error depends on understanding the first.
Identifying the dynamics of various defense mechanisms may help in understanding how the proper use of these is for the protection of mental health rather than as descriptors of mental illness. True denial is directed only to the effects of error, and true Projection is directed only to extending Truth. You should truly give as you have truly received. The Golden Rule can work effectively only on this basis. With these guidelines in place, various defense mechanism terms can be properly understood.
“Intellectualization” is an inadequate defense mechanism term, though it does indicate the mind-brain confusion, having stemmed from this. “Right-mindedness” is a much better term and a true defense mechanism, indicating understanding of the right relationship between the mind and its temporary receiving and sending device, the brain. Correct use of denial protects the right mind, and gives it control over the body. Intellectualization implies a split in the mind, whereas right-mindedness involves a healing of the mind. There is only one Mind in Reality, and when the mind is experienced in an individual as being split, it is experienced as being sick.
“Withdrawal” is properly employed when the mind forgets its Oneness and becomes entangled in body identification, similar to withdrawing from an environment if the elements in the environment begin to overwhelm one. Used properly, it is not a device for escape, but one used temporarily for consolidation.
“Dissociation,” or disconnecting, is quite similar. You should split yourself off from error, but only in defense of integration. Dissociation from the world or from certain aspects of your awareness because you feel inadequate in engaging in the world or in full awareness is obviously a misuse of this mechanism. Whenever you feel inadequate, you can be sure that you are in your wrong mind, and need simply ask for help to be again in your right mind, where Spirit will always replace your sense of personal inadequacy with the Strength of Divine Essence in you.
“Detachment” is essentially a weaker form of dissociation, implying a lack of attachment but not yet a splitting away from. Flight can be undertaken in whatever direction you choose, but note that the concept itself implies flight from something. Flight from error is perfectly appropriate when it is used to correct error by giving it to Atonement instead of to hide from it.
Appropriate “distantiation” is a way of putting distance between yourself and what you should turn away and depart from.
Appropriate “regression” is a real effort to return to your own original State of Innocence. In this sense, it is utilized to restore, not to go back to the less mature.
“Sublimation” as a proper defense mechanism – diverting energy from a less desirable to a more desirable goal – should be associated only with the Sublime.
There are many other so-called “dynamic” concepts that are significant defense errors due essentially to the misuse of defenses to escape rather than to integrate. Among them is the concept of different levels of “aspiration,” or striving toward something, which results from simple level confusion. Aspiring or striving toward Wholeness is radically different than striving toward things that can only distract and entangle.
The main point to be understood from these considerations is that you can “defend,” or stay connected with, Truth as well as error, and in fact much better because only Truth is real. This use turns all defense mechanisms that indicate mental illness or lack of right-mindedness into rightful defense mechanisms of the Atonement.
So far these considerations have concentrated on ends rather than means because unless you regard an end as worth achieving, you will not devote yourself to the means by which it can be achieved. The question you may have asked: “How can I incorporate this Course into my life?,” enables the emphasis to shift from ends to means. You have now accepted the end or goal of Wholeness as valuable, thus signifying your willingness to use proper defenses, or means, to sort out the false from the True, in order to unequivocally choose the True. The means are easier to clarify after the true worth of the goal itself is firmly established.
Everyone defends their own treasure. They do not have to be told to do this because they will do so automatically. The real questions remain: What do you treasure? And how much do you treasure it? Once you learn to consider these two questions, and to bring them into all your actions as the true criteria for behavior, it will be simple to clarify the means to the goal of Wholeness. You have not yet learned to be consistent about keeping the end in mind. I have therefore concentrated on showing you that the means are available whenever you do ask. You can save a lot of time, however, if you do not need to unduly prolong this step of asking. The correct focus on the end will shorten immeasurably the process of receiving and being able to utilize the means of awakening.
