Chapter 2.VIII – The Sole Responsibility of the Miracle Worker

February 25, 2021

Before the separation there was no need for healing. Healing is needed now because the separation seemed to cause the defilement of God’s creation. What looked like the devastation of perfection caused us great fear and we developed physical sight to obscure real vision; “because you cannot endure to see your own defiled altar.” (9:3)

This necessitated the introduction of the Atonement Principle as a corrective defense to heal our misperception. It corrects our level confusion and reinstates our right-mindedness. The state of right-mindedness is also known as the state of miracle-mindedness, which miracle workers must maintain in order to give miracles.

When we are in the state of right-mindedness, we have no confusion about the attributes of the mind and body, or spiritual and physical. “Right-mindedness neither exalts nor depreciates the mind of the miracle worker or of the miracle receiver.” (1:3)

“The soul responsibility of the miracle worker is to accept Atonement himself.” (5:1) “It is essential that the miracle worker be in his right mind, or he will be unable to reestablish right-mindedness in someone else.” (1:6) When we accept Atonement the correction of our misperception begins with opening “the spiritual eye, and turning away from belief in physical sight.” (8:1) This means that as healers or miracle workers we use the defense of the Atonement in the process of denying what our physical eyes see in our brothers and accepting what our spiritual sight sees instead. The spiritual eye looks beyond error “to the defense of Atonement.” (8:3)

The acceptance of this vision is a problem for us because it causes fear. We fear spiritual vision because with it we have no choice but to see and acknowledge our error—the defilement of our altar. There will be discomfort because this is true but as soon as we allow our spiritual eye to look on the error “it also looks immediately toward Atonement.” (8:6)

Jesus says we need to remember first that this is fear and know that the corrective procedure would not have been necessary except for fear. We can assume correctly that our fear is a sign of our “not-right-mindedness (which is) the result of refusal to accept the Atonement for yourself.” (4:1)

When we become aware of fear in the situation calling for healing, we need to become clear about the fact that “discomfort is aroused only to bring the need to correct forcibly into awareness.” (8:9) This means we need to use our discomfort as a strong sign that we need correction. When we are aware that we need correction we are also aware that we cannot trust our readiness to perform miracles because of our own pseudo-corrections or inefficiencies. We can, however, trust in Jesus’ readiness. His consistent readiness means he is ready to help us in this process of accepting Atonement.

He is always in his right mind and his right-mindedness enables him to use spiritual vision to look beyond our defiled altar to the Atonement. He undoes our level confusion because he perceives our true perfection. Because of his vision we can accept Atonement for ourselves and therefore we also become miracle-minded or right-minded.

Accepting the Atonement we deny our “mind (has) any destructive potential and reinstating its purely constructive powers, (we) have placed (ourselves) in a position where (we) can undo the level confusion of others.” (5:4)

When we are miracle-minded we can look on our brother with charity “a way of perceiving the true perfection of another, even if he cannot perceive it himself…as if he had already gone far beyond his actual accomplishment in time.” (10:4,11:1) This way of looking on another with charity “is both an acknowledgment that he is weak and a recognition that he could be stronger.” (11:3)

Suggested Practice:

My fear alerts me to the need for correction. Jesus, I ask you to help me undo my level confusion and accept the Atonement for myself.