1. Anything in this world that you believe is good and valuable and worth striving for can hurt you, and will do so. 2Not because it has the power to hurt, but just because you have denied it is but an illusion, and made it real. 3And it is real to you. 4It is not nothing. 5And through its perceived reality has entered all the world of sick illusions. 6All belief in sin, in power of attack, in hurt and harm, in sacrifice and death, has come to you. 7For no one can make one illusion real, and still escape the rest. 8For who can choose to keep the ones that he prefers, and find the safety that the truth alone can give? 9Who can believe illusions are the same, and still maintain that even one is best?
2. Lead not your little life in solitude, with one illusion as your only friend. 2This is no friendship worthy of God’s Son, nor one with which he could remain content. 3Yet God has given him a better Friend, in Whom all power in earth and Heaven rests. 4The one illusion that you think is friend obscures His grace and majesty from you, and keeps His friendship and forgiveness from your welcoming embrace. 5Without Him you are friendless. 6Seek not another friend to take His place. 7There is no other friend. 8What God appointed has no substitute, for what illusion can replace the truth?
3. Who dwells with shadows is alone indeed, and loneliness is not the Will of God. 2Would you allow one shadow to usurp the throne that God appointed for your Friend, if you but realized its emptiness has left yours empty and unoccupied? 3Make no illusion friend, for if you do, it can but take the place of Him Whom God has called your Friend. 4And it is He Who is your only Friend in truth. 5He brings you gifts that are not of this world, and only He to Whom they have been given can make sure that you receive them. 6He will place them on your throne, when you make room for Him on His.