just my two cents:

I worked intensively with ACIM in 1997, read about two thirds of the textbook, took the first 50 lessons of the workbook, read the manual for teachers and the later addendum on psychotherapy.
Had aura photos taken before, during, and after this period of time. Before and after my aura on thephotos was multi-coloured, and in the middle of the period of time when I worked so intensively with ACIM, it was completely green.

My impression of the ACIM material was that the whole message is totally included in the opening sentences:
Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.
(if I remember it correctly)

Then the first chapter is about miracles, very beautiful.

The following material of the textbook seems to detail the message to who has not understood it yet, the later chapters I found too dark, too much dealing with dark things.
Perhaps it is the didactic tactics of the book. Tell the short form of the message first, then expand more and more for whoever needs it more detailed.

The exercises are for reprogramming our mental paradigms, I found the exercises interesting and effective and very positive and lightful.

  Hi Oliver,

  I've had a (very) long time interest in auras and color meaning, which is why i'm a bit confused by what you mentioned about auras in relation to ACIM.  What do you think the after, the green aura, signifies? 

  From my experience and research, green in and of itself is not a particularly spirituallized color vibration by any means, even in the nicer, brighter, more clear mid emeralds etc (though a nice vibration/emanation overall and shows the beginnings of real morals, integrity and some Love awareness).   Green is one of the most "varied" colors there are as far as meaning.   Some green shades in the aura, like the darker and/or more muddy greens, like the drab olives, dark forest greens, etc. when found in prominence can often indicate a definite lack of spiritual attunement.

   When green shows up strongly in an aura, often times it indicates a lot of change and testing going on in a person's life.  It's very much related to the Planet Saturn in astrology and it's cycles, especially when deeper in color and tone.   The more bright, clear, and mid tones are more related to Venus, and like Venus a little "softer" in meaning. 

  If ACIM "caused" or facilitated great spiritual attunement in a person, then i would expect at the very least, the nice, bright, clear but deeper blues to show up, but if we're talking real transformation, then i would expect the violets, certain purple shades, and especially the Golden or even more pure White Light. 

The latter two especially indicate quite an attunement to PUL, and a lot of consciousness maturity and growth when found in prominence in an aura.  These are rare even in smaller quantities and blends.  From my experience with ACIM, i really doubt it would facilitate such changes within self that would be reflected in these kinds of emanations.   One thing about auras is that they "do not lie".  They always reflect what a person is on different levels.

  As different sources have stated as regards auras, the more expanded the consciousness, the more clearly and purely attuned to PUL, the more the color vibration frequency increases.  Hence, blue is more spiritualized (expanded in consciousness) than green, and indigo, violet, and purple more than blue, and gold more than purple etc., and White Light is kind of the alpha and omega, it's the ultimate--represents Source Consciousness.  (It's extremely rare for a human to have only a pure, radiant, White Light aura--The Teacher had/has one, though sometimes switches to the more golden white).

  Personally, i found that ACIM slowed down my vibratory emanations.  Funny and coincidentally enough, i was going through a very strong Saturn cycle when i came up and got involved with ACIM.   It was when transiting Saturn was going through my 1st House (the MOST amplifying area of a chart).   Or in other words, green was also showing up strongly in my aura around that time.  It was one of the most testing and change filled periods of my life, and my shadow side got stirred up quite strongly.  In a sense it was positive because eventually i realized what i needed to work on more, because i was getting my stuck aspects so strongly reflected back to me in various ways. 

  In astrology, Saturn is akin to the concept of "Satan", it is the spiritual tester par excellence, it symbolizes the more conscious aspect of the shadow (Pluto symbolizes the more unconscious aspect of same), and in a character sense is often associated with more selfish and materialistic tendencies which relate to concentrated fear and worry.   But it plays a necessary role of strengthening the Soul through hard to accept change, testing, and temptation and bringing those more shadow and stuck aspects of self to the conscious to be better worked on. 

  For me, ACIM was a very Saturnian experience, and ultimately i gained spiritually from the experience though not in a direct sense of ACIM facilitated growth, awareness, etc.

From ancient times people have described this world as an illusion, as being unreal and now even scientists are saying this could be true in saying that this world is a virtual reality, where the only fundamental thing that really exists is consciousness.  The way various groups describe this is a matter of semantics and metaphors.  Metaphors are not so much right or wrong, but how they are more or less useful to someone.

According to this theory, the only reason this world appears to be fundamentally real and separate from everything else is because of the rules/laws that govern it.  The only reason we appear to be sentient physical beings is because of the sensory qualities that are a part of the rule set. The purpose in this is for the evolution of consciousness, consciousness being fundamental.

The white room metaphor is one that I think describes this well.  Consciousness, (God if you want to call it that) is all ONE thing and NEVER a separate being, nor are we separate from it.  However, consciousness having free will creates virtual realities by defining rules/laws for it and us to learn and grow and evolve in.  The Bible espouses this idea as well in Acts 17: 24-28 - "... in him we live and move and have our being..." 

Even the non-physical realms are virtual realities that only appear real because of the laws/rules defined by consciousness.  However, it does seem there is good reason for realities to appear very real, otherwise the purpose for their creation would not be as effective.

Recoverer-

maybe its all about the process of reconnection/rediscovery to source that is the big payoff. I suppose the important point is that we can never actually be separate but only think ourselves so. To use an analogy from the morality thread my son could never 'un-son' himself from me whatever his actions. I have never understood it when people say 'you are no son of mine if you do x,y or z'. To this I always thought you may not approve of his actions but you cannot undo the connection.Maybe we (humanity) are like the sons who mistakenly think we can.

Quote:


So when you combine that thought with the Big Bang concept, how do you think that work?

Interesting how much traffic here about ACIM
Seems to be a very controversial subject and getting lots of emotional reactions.
Why is that?
It is a tool you can use, it does not make sense to "over-use" it or apply it to what it is not meant for. Like with all tools, you can hurt yourself with it, too.

@recoverer: I think that "real" / "unreal" is subjective to the experiencer. A dream is experienced as reality and is real then in the experience within the dream. If everything is real, then what does the word "unreal" mean? I can't answer this question, but want to give an example:
Our daily mental thoughts that run through our conscious day-awake minds, they are extremely redundant and superfluous and deal mostly with fantasies instead of immediate reality that has to be dealt with.

@Justin: I think "green" is the color of "healing power", but I'm not expert in aura interpretation. I felt mainly pure unconditional love at that time. It was also a time of life changes, and it was the time when a comet (Hale-Bopp?) was visible in the sky for six weeks.
before ACIM (1996):
www.okx.de/images/aura01-1.jpg
during ACIM (1997):
www.okx.de/images/aura02-1.jpg
after ACIM (2000):
www.okx.de/images/aura03-1.jpg
last (2010):
www.okx.de/images/aura10-1.jpg

recoverer:

Totally agree to your definition/description of what is real - I also regard as real what is experienced as real, be it on whatever illusionary plane of existence whatsoever, it is all relative.
real / unreal is a dualistic concept, it has no meaning when you see without preconceptions. The ACIM exercises are designed to facilitate seeing without preconceptions. If you have read the instructions, then you know what I mean. First comes the un-learning of the old conditioning, and then you can see. As in the example of the cup that is full and can't have new tea poured into, so it first must be emptied.

Regarding potential harmfulness of books, I tend a very liberal position towards it and am surprised that a discussion thread about ACIM explodes so emotionally.
There is so much that can be harmful, probably almost everything in this world can be, probably all books can be mis-used for fantasizing onself into unhealthy beliefs and states of mind.
ACIM is a book that can be used for re-conditioning one's own mind, it is something like NLP (neuro-linguistic programming).
Not every book is good for everyone, but that does not say much about the book.