1. You will attack what does not satisfy, and thus you will not see you made it up. 2You always fight illusions. 3For the truth behind them is so lovely and so still in loving gentleness, were you aware of it you would forget defensiveness entirely, and rush to its embrace. 4The truth could never be attacked. 5And this you knew when you made idols. 6They were made that this might be forgotten. 7You attack but false ideas, and never truthful ones. 8All idols are the false ideas you made to fill the gap you think arose between yourself and what is true. 9And you attack them for the things you think they represent. 10What lies beyond them cannot be attacked.
2. The wearying, dissatisfying gods you made are blown-up children’s toys. 2A child is frightened when a wooden head springs up as a closed box is opened suddenly, or when a soft and silent woolly bear begins to squeak as he takes hold of it. 3The rules he made for boxes and for bears have failed him, and have broken his “control” of what surrounds him. 4And he is afraid, because he thought the rules protected him. 5Now must he learn the boxes and the bears did not deceive him, broke no rules, nor mean his world is made chaotic and unsafe. 6He was mistaken. 7He misunderstood what made him safe, and thought that it had left.
3. The gap that is not there is filled with toys in countless forms. 2And each one seems to break the rules you set for it. 3It never was the thing you thought. 4It must appear to break your rules for safety, since the rules were wrong. 5But you are not endangered. 6You can laugh at popping heads and squeaking toys, as does the child who learns they are no threat to him. 7Yet while he likes to play with them, he still perceives them as obeying rules he made for his enjoyment. 8So there still are rules that they can seem to break and frighten him. 9Yet is he at the mercy of his toys? 10And can they represent a threat to him?
4. Reality observes the laws of God, and not the rules you set. 2It is His laws that guarantee your safety. 3All illusions that you believe about yourself obey no laws. 4They seem to dance a little while, according to the rules you set for them. 5But then they fall and cannot rise again. 6They are but toys, my child, so do not grieve for them. 7Their dancing never brought you joy. 8But neither were they things to frighten you, nor make you safe if they obeyed your rules. 9They must be neither cherished nor attacked, but merely looked upon as children’s toys without a single meaning of their own. 10See one in them and you will see them all. 11See none in them and they will touch you not.
5. Appearances deceive because they are appearances and not reality. 2Dwell not on them in any form. 3They but obscure reality, and they bring fear because they hide the truth. 4Do not attack what you have made to let you be deceived, for thus you prove that you have been deceived. 5Attack has power to make illusions real. 6Yet what it makes is nothing. 7Who could be made fearful by a power that can have no real effects at all? 8What could it be but an illusion, making things appear like to itself? 9Look calmly at its toys, and understand that they are idols which but dance to vain desires. 10Give them not your worship, for they are not there. 11Yet this is equally forgotten in attack. 12God’s Son needs no defense against his dreams. 13His idols do not threaten him at all. 14His one mistake is that he thinks them real. 15What can the power of illusions do?
6. Appearances can but deceive the mind that wants to be deceived. 2And you can make a simple choice that will forever place you far beyond deception. 3You need not concern yourself with how this will be done, for this you cannot understand. 4But you will understand that mighty changes have been quickly brought about, when you decide one very simple thing; you do not want whatever you believe an idol gives. 5For thus the Son of God declares that he is free of idols. 6And thus is he free.
7. Salvation is a paradox indeed! 2What could it be except a happy dream? 3It asks you but that you forgive all things that no one ever did; to overlook what is not there, and not to look upon the unreal as reality. 4You are but asked to let your will be done, and seek no longer for the things you do not want. 5And you are asked to let yourself be free of all the dreams of what you never were, and seek no more to substitute the strength of idle wishes for the Will of God.
8. Here does the dream of separation start to fade and disappear. 2For here the gap that is not there begins to be perceived without the toys of terror that you made. 3No more than this is asked. 4Be glad indeed salvation asks so little, not so much. 5It asks for nothing in reality. 6And even in illusions it but asks forgiveness be the substitute for fear. 7Such is the only rule for happy dreams. 8The gap is emptied of the toys of fear, and then its unreality is plain. 9Dreams are for nothing. 10And the Son of God can have no need of them. 11They offer him no single thing that he could ever want. 12He is delivered from illusions by his will, and but restored to what he is. 13What could God’s plan for his salvation be, except a means to give him to Himself?