1. This is a course in miracles. 2As such, the laws of healing must be understood before the purpose of the course can be accomplished. 3Let us review the principles that we have covered, and arrange them in a way that summarizes all that must occur for healing to be possible. 4For when it once is possible it must occur.
2. All sickness comes from separation. 2When the separation is denied, it goes. 3For it is gone as soon as the idea that brought it has been healed, and been replaced by sanity. 4Sickness and sin are seen as consequence and cause, in a relationship kept hidden from awareness that it may be carefully preserved from reason’s light.
3. Guilt asks for punishment, and its request is granted. 2Not in truth, but in the world of shadows and illusions built on sin. 3The Son of God perceived what he would see because perception is a wish fulfilled. 4Perception changes, made to take the place of changeless knowledge. 5Yet is truth unchanged. 6It cannot be perceived, but only known. 7What is perceived takes many forms, but none has meaning. 8Brought to truth, its senselessness is quite apparent. 9Kept apart from truth, it seems to have a meaning and be real.
4. Perception’s laws are opposite to truth, and what is true of knowledge is not true of anything that is apart from it. 2Yet has God given answer to the world of sickness, which applies to all its forms. 3God’s answer is eternal, though it works in time, where it is needed. 4Yet because it is of God, the laws of time do not affect its workings. 5It is in this world, but not a part of it. 6For it is real, and dwells where all reality must be. 7Ideas leave not their source, and their effects but seem to be apart from them. 8Ideas are of the mind. 9What is projected out, and seems to be external to the mind, is not outside at all, but an effect of what is in, and has not left its source.
5. God’s answer lies where the belief in sin must be, for only there can its effects be utterly undone and without cause. 2Perception’s laws must be reversed, because they are reversals of the laws of truth. 3The laws of truth forever will be true, and cannot be reversed; yet can be seen as upside down. 4And this must be corrected where the illusion of reversal lies.
6. It is impossible that one illusion be less amenable to truth than are the rest. 2But it is possible that some are given greater value, and less willingly offered to truth for healing and for help. 3No illusion has any truth in it. 4Yet it appears some are more true than others, although this clearly makes no sense at all. 5All that a hierarchy of illusions can show is preference, not reality. 6What relevance has preference to the truth? 7Illusions are illusions and are false. 8Your preference gives them no reality. 9Not one is true in any way, and all must yield with equal ease to what God gave as answer to them all. 10God’s Will is One. 11And any wish that seems to go against His Will has no foundation in the truth.
7. Sin is not error, for it goes beyond correction to impossibility. 2Yet the belief that it is real has made some errors seem forever past the hope of healing, and the lasting grounds for hell. 3If this were so, would Heaven be opposed by its own opposite, as real as it. 4Then would God’s Will be split in two, and all creation be subjected to the laws of two opposing powers, until God becomes impatient, splits the world apart, and relegates attack unto Himself. 5Thus has He lost His Mind, proclaiming sin has taken His reality from Him and brought His Love at last to vengeance’s heels. 6For such an insane picture an insane defense can be expected, but can not establish that the picture must be true.
8. Nothing gives meaning where no meaning is. 2And truth needs no defense to make it true. 3Illusions have no witnesses and no effects. 4Who looks on them is but deceived. 5Forgiveness is the only function here, and serves to bring the joy this world denies to every aspect of God’s Son where sin was thought to rule. 6Perhaps you do not see the role forgiveness plays in ending death and all beliefs that rise from mists of guilt. 7Sins are beliefs that you impose between your brother and yourself. 8They limit you to time and place, and give a little space to you, another little space to him. 9This separating off is symbolized, in your perception, by a body which is clearly separate and a thing apart. 10Yet what this symbol represents is but your wish to be apart and separate.
9. Forgiveness takes away what stands between your brother and yourself. 2It is the wish that you be joined with him, and not apart. 3We call it “wish” because it still conceives of other choices, and has not yet reached beyond the world of choice entirely. 4Yet is this wish in line with Heaven’s state, and not in opposition to God’s Will. 5Although it falls far short of giving you your full inheritance, it does remove the obstacles that you have placed between the Heaven where you are, and recognition of where and what you are. 6Facts are unchanged. 7Yet facts can be denied and thus unknown, though they were known before they were denied.
10. Salvation, perfect and complete, asks but a little wish that what is true be true; a little willingness to overlook what is not there; a little sigh that speaks for Heaven as a preference to this world that death and desolation seem to rule. 2In joyous answer will creation rise within you, to replace the world you see with Heaven, wholly perfect and complete. 3What is forgiveness but a willingness that truth be true? 4What can remain unhealed and broken from a unity which holds all things within itself? 5There is no sin. 6And every miracle is possible the instant that the Son of God perceives his wishes and the Will of God are one.
11. What is the Will of God? 2He wills His Son have everything. 3And this He guaranteed when He created him as everything. 4It is impossible that anything be lost, if what you have is what you are. 5This is the miracle by which creation became your function, sharing it with God. 6It is not understood apart from Him, and therefore has no meaning in this world. 7Here does the Son of God ask not too much, but far too little. 8He would sacrifice his own identity with everything, to find a little treasure of his own. 9And this he cannot do without a sense of isolation, loss and loneliness. 10This is the treasure he has sought to find. 11And he could only be afraid of it. 12Is fear a treasure? 13Can uncertainty be what you want? 14Or is it a mistake about your will, and what you really are?
12. Let us consider what the error is, so it can be corrected, not protected. 2Sin is belief attack can be projected outside the mind where the belief arose. 3Here is the firm conviction that ideas can leave their source made real and meaningful. 4And from this error does the world of sin and sacrifice arise. 5This world is an attempt to prove your innocence, while cherishing attack. 6Its failure lies in that you still feel guilty, though without understanding why. 7Effects are seen as separate from their source, and seem to be beyond you to control or to prevent. 8What is thus kept apart can never join.
13. Cause and effect are one, not separate. 2God wills you learn what always has been true: that He created you as part of Him, and this must still be true because ideas leave not their source. 3Such is creation’s law; that each idea the mind conceives but adds to its abundance, never takes away. 4This is as true of what is idly wished as what is truly willed, because the mind can wish to be deceived, but cannot make it be what it is not. 5And to believe ideas can leave their source is to invite illusions to be true, without success. 6For never will success be possible in trying to deceive the Son of God.
14. The miracle is possible when cause and consequence are brought together, not kept separate. 2The healing of effect without the cause can merely shift effects to other forms. 3And this is not release. 4God’s Son could never be content with less than full salvation and escape from guilt. 5For otherwise he still demands that he must make some sacrifice, and thus denies that everything is his, unlimited by loss of any kind. 6A tiny sacrifice is just the same in its effects as is the whole idea of sacrifice. 7If loss in any form is possible, then is God’s Son made incomplete and not himself. 8Nor will he know himself, nor recognize his will. 9He has forsworn his Father and himself, and made Them both his enemies in hate.
15. Illusions serve the purpose they were made to serve. 2And from their purpose they derive whatever meaning that they seem to have. 3God gave to all illusions that were made another purpose that would justify a miracle whatever form they took. 4In every miracle all healing lies, for God gave answer to them all as one. 5And what is one to Him must be the same. 6If you believe what is the same is different you but deceive yourself. 7What God calls one will be forever one, not separate. 8His Kingdom is united; thus it was created, and thus will it ever be.
16. The miracle but calls your ancient Name, which you will recognize because the truth is in your memory. 2And to this Name your brother calls for his release and yours. 3Heaven is shining on the Son of God. 4Deny him not, that you may be released. 5Each instant is the Son of God reborn until he chooses not to die again. 6In every wish to hurt he chooses death instead of what his Father wills for him. 7Yet every instant offers life to him because his Father wills that he should live.
17. In crucifixion is redemption laid, for healing is not needed where there is no pain or suffering. 2Forgiveness is the answer to attack of any kind. 3So is attack deprived of its effects, and hate is answered in the name of love. 4To you to whom it has been given to save the Son of God from crucifixion and from hell and death, all glory be forever. 5For you have power to save the Son of God because his Father willed that it be so. 6And in your hands does all salvation lie, to be both offered and received as one.
18. To use the power God has given you as He would have it used is natural. 2It is not arrogant to be as He created you, nor to make use of what He gave to answer all His Son’s mistakes and set him free. 3But it is arrogant to lay aside the power that He gave, and choose a little senseless wish instead of what He wills. 4The gift of God to you is limitless. 5There is no circumstance it cannot answer, and no problem which is not resolved within its gracious light.
19. Abide in peace, where God would have you be. 2And be the means whereby your brother finds the peace in which your wishes are fulfilled. 3Let us unite in bringing blessing to the world of sin and death. 4For what can save each one of us can save us all. 5There is no difference among the Sons of God. 6The unity that specialness denies will save them all, for what is one can have no specialness. 7And everything belongs to each of them. 8No wishes lie between a brother and his own. 9To get from one is to deprive them all. 10And yet to bless but one gives blessing to them all as one.
20. Your ancient Name belongs to everyone, as theirs to you. 2Call on your brother’s name and God will answer, for on Him you call. 3Could He refuse to answer when He has already answered all who call on Him? 4A miracle can make no change at all. 5But it can make what always has been true be recognized by those who know it not; and by this little gift of truth but let to be itself, the Son of God allowed to be himself, and all creation freed to call upon the Name of God as one.