Seraphis1 wrote on Apr 13th, 2011 at 3:45pm:recoverer wrote on Apr 13th, 2011 at 2:26pm:Regarding ACIM, I gave the course a good try for a while, despite some hints from my spirit guidance to be careful with it. Then I realized it was having a brainwashing effect on me. So I decided to be humble about the matter and realized that I wasn't able to discriminate it with certainty. So I prayed to God and Christ and asked them if the course comes from Christ. On every occasion I asked I was in some way told "no." Because I felt love, peace, expansiveness and divinity each time I asked this question, it seems reasonable to believe that a being who represents the light responded. This is especially so since my guidance has proven to be trustworthy.
Eventually I reached the point where I allowed myself to read ACIM with discernment, and despite some of the nicey things it says, it does have errors and is misleading.
What are those errors?
S.
I know you were addressing this to Albert, but since my experience was very similar to Albert's in the general, i will take it on.
I was initially very excited and enthusiastic about ACIM. It was highly recommended to me by someone who at the time i thought was a closer friend to me. I did not hesitate to spend the 20 or so dollars i spent on it years ago to buy it brand new.
I spent a lot of time reading it. One odd thing that i noticed is that invariably i would become very sleepy reading it and so would have to put it down not long after.
While i thought this odd, i persisted. In hindsight, i started noticing myself talking a lot about the big EGO word and concept. I started to focus a lot more on ego in myself and others. "Yup, that's ego talking" or "ego this, ego that". Ego became number one enemy.
Then i had a vivid dream wherein i was climbing a tall strong, straight tree. I came to a point on the tree where there was a large branch branching off. This branch looked strong and sturdy to me, so i started to walk out onto the branch thinking that it would more than hold my weight.
Well i was mislead by how the branch looked, the branch snapped and i started to fall. As soon as i awoke, i intuitively knew that this dream was symbolizing my involvement with ACIM. Like Albert noticed and was told by his guidance, it actually makes ones "ego" bigger rather than reducing it.
Here is how it works to do this. You have to understand princples of the subconscious mind, hypnotic suggestion, and other related phenomena.
A good hypnotherapist knows that to change a person's habits, you often have to reach deeper into their subconscious mind to make such changes. The subconscious mind is receptive to any positive suggestion whether it be helpful/constructive or non constructive.
What you need to do is simply to relax or bore the person's conscious mind enough so that some of that "chatter" subsides, and the receptive/passive subconscious mind comes to the fore.
Then you have to make a positive suggestion in terms of the present. For example, if one is afraid of water, you don't give a suggestion like "you won't be afraid of water anymore." That won't work effectively. What would work is saying something like, "Every-time you enter water, you feel completely comfortable, relaxed, at peace, and in control."
In other words, you don't tell the subconscious what you don't want
ONLY what you do want. If you give a positive suggestion of what you don't want, THAT is what will get programmed. A suggestion has to be completely positively/ONE WAY directed.
Ok, how does this related to ACIM. ACIM is written in a somewhat unique way in that it's extremely repetitive. It says the same things over and over in slightly different ways.
In other words, it's specifically designed to lead one into a hypnotic/subconsciously receptive state by boring the conscious mind through constant repetition. But that's not the problem in and of itself with ACIM.
It's the suggestions contained there within, which is the problem. Go back to the above hypnosis examples i give of how to make constructive change to the subconscious.
ACIM speaks a lot about ego throughout the whole of the regular part of the course (not as much during the exercises). Not only does it constantly mention ego, but it does so in a polarized-fighting-is an enemy of Love/Spirit/Oneness manner.
See the words it speaks on Love/Spirit/Oneness are all very true. This part resonates with the deeper "Soul" aspects of a person as truth. But half truths are worse than whole lies, for unlike whole lies, half truths can deceive even the Soul.
But what does it actually program? It programs polarization. Polarization leads to imbalance and leads to more ego expression.
To really change or transform "ego" in self, you don't focus on that (especially not during a hypnotic state), but you focus on what will transform that within you. That is attunement to Love, Oneness, givingness, patience, tolerance, etc.
If ACIM in it's hypnotic/suggestive ways spoke solely about the benefits and necessity of attuning to Love/Oneness/Spirit, it would be a great course, but it programs polarization instead. Hence why Albert's guidance specifically told him one time, "drop it, it makes the ego bigger". It just focuses too much on capital EGO.
I believe this was all done on purpose, either as a public mind experiment of which the U.S. gov. (particularly the CIA) is known to have done a number of these via clandestine operations, or as the product of an ill intentioned nonphysical Consciousness trying to work through Helen.
Those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, will understand what i'm saying.
And sorry to say, i may sound like i'm arrogant when saying this, but there are those who do have more discernment about these things than others, and such people have a responsibility to state their experiences and perceptions when it comes to such potentially misleading/brainwashing type sources.