Review of Miracle Principles 42 to 50

February 10, 2021

Review of Miracle Principles 42 – 50 

These last three sections have major themes of level confusion, need-lack fallacy, and the notes on sex.  What follows then is a look at all three.  Mixed into this review, are Jesus’s first-person statements in the final nine principles of the chapter, which I have bulleted. 

Level confusion can be confusion of the physical level and spiritual level.  We try to meet needs at the wrong level.  We cannot enact Golden Rule behavior without seeing ourselves truly (42.3).  This needs the resolution of level confusion, where we no longer attempt the wrong need fulfillment. 

The mind can elect to serve the physical level or spiritual level (43.2:4).  Level confusion is more directly related to distorting miracle impulses into sexual impulses by “seek[ing] happiness with the instruments of the world” (43.12:1). 

A more specific example of level confusion applied to sex comes in Principle 48.  Miracle impulses that are distorted into sexual impulses reflect an attempt to have genuine release by relating through the body.  This is not true spiritual communication, though that is what is being attempted. 

Principle 50: “The miracle compares what you make with the higher level of creation, accepting what is in accord as true, and rejecting the discordant as false.”  This principle describes level correction in action. Our behavior becomes in accordance with truth as our level confusion is corrected. 

This statement to follow is one of importance regarding the resurrection.  The word resurrection is not on the page.  But in multiple places in the Course, he calls the resurrection a demonstration.  When we see this word, we should know that he may be speaking of this human event: 

• Death is a human affirmation of a belief in hate.  That is why the Bible says, ‘There is no death,’ and that is why I demonstrated death does not exist. Remember that I came to fulfill the law by reinterpreting it. 

The murder of millions of Jewish people in Nazi Germany was an example of the reversal of the Golden Rule.  Rather than loving your neighbor as yourself, you murder him: 

• One of the more horrible examples of inverted or upside-down thinking (and history is full of horrible examples of this) was the Nazis’ “Final Solution.” I shed many tears over this, but it is by no means the only time I said, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” 

In these next two quotes, Jesus offers us a relationship with him when we turn to him for guidance:  

• I assure you that I will witness for anyone who lets me, and to whatever extent he himself permits it. Those who witness for me are expressing, through their miracles, that they have abandoned deprivation in favor of the abundance they have learned belongs to them. 

• We have already told you to add the thought “and not to do those you would not have me do” in connection with [the action aspect of] miracles. 

These next longer quotes speak of the nature of that relationship, and his capacity as an elder brother:  

• Awe is not properly experienced even in relation to me. I kneel beside you facing the light. An elder brother is entitled to respect for his greater experience, and obedience for his greater wisdom. He is also entitled to love because he is a brother, and also to devotion if he is devoted. It is only my own devotion that entitles me to yours. I have knelt at your altar as readily as I would ever have you kneel at mine. There is nothing about me that you cannot attain. I have nothing that does not come from God. The main difference between us as yet is that I have nothing else. That leaves me in a state of true holiness, which is only a potential in you.  

“No man cometh unto the Father, but by me” is among the most misunderstood statements in the Bible. It does not mean that I am in any way separate or different from you, except in time. Now, we know that time does not exist. Actually, the statement is much more meaningful if it is considered on a vertical rather than a horizontal axis. Regarded along the vertical, humanity stands below me and I stand below God. 6In the process of “rising up,” I am higher. This is because without me the distance between God and humanity is too great for you to encompass. I bridge the distance as an elder brother on the one hand and a Son of God on the other. My devotion to my brothers has placed me in charge of the Sonship, which I can render complete only to the extent I can share it. 

• Revelations are indirectly inspired by me, because I am close to the Holy Spirit, and alert to revelation readiness in my brothers. I can thus bring down to them more than they can draw down to themselves. Jeane Dixon’s description is perhaps a better statement of my position: Because my feet are on the ground and my hands are in Heaven, I can bring down the glories of Heaven to my brothers on earth. 

• …Do not underestimate the power of special agents now, or the great need there is for them. I do not claim to be more than that myself. No one in his right mind (a term which should be specially noted) ever wants either more or less than that. Those who are called on to witness for me now are witnessing for all men, as I am. 

These final six quotes explain his posture on sex.  As you can see, there is no facet to the topic of sex and life partner decisions that need be kept from him:  

• Self-control [with sexual impulses] is not the whole answer to this problem [of body-image misperceptions], though I am by no means discouraging it’s [self-control’s] use. 

• I want to finish the instructions about sex, because this is an area which the miracle worker must understand. 

• Invite me to enter anywhere temptation arises. I will change the situation from one of inappropriate sexual attraction to one of impersonal miracle working. This is the real meaning of 
• changing the channel for libidinal expression. 

• One individual sees in another the right partner for propagating the species and also for their joint establishment of a creative home. This does not involve fantasy at all.  If I am asked to participate in the decision, the decision will be a right one, too. 

• [When you or your partner, or both, experience inappropriate sexual impulses] …Turn immediately to me by denying the power of the fear, and ask me to help you replace it with love. This shifts the sexual impulse immediately to the miracle impulse and places it at my disposal. 

He also provides one other example of the reversal of the Golden Rule in 43.7.  There it says we must uproot all physical and sexual impulses eventually.  We delude ourselves into thinking those impulses can be deepened (that is the reversal).  By ‘deepened’ Jesus means made spiritual.  We attempt to convince ourselves like this:  I can take from this other one’s body because sex for me has a spiritual dimension. My sexual impulses have deeper roots than the physical level.   

This, of course, is not possible.  That is why it is an illusion. 

When we adopt the correct Golden Rule (not the reversal), this stance will help us “establish equilibrium” (43.7:3). This uprooting of shallow roots does not happen overnight.  We should view this as a “fairly slow process” (M-9.2:3), meaning it could not be resolved in this lifetime.  This does not matter to Jesus.  He wants to be brought in right now into our decision-making about life partners and acting on impulses.  I recommend seeing this on a vertical spectrum where your move forward along the line.   

If you see the final uprooting of physical impulses as happening at the end of the journey, when God takes the final step and we walk into Heaven, it can give us perspective. The uprooting is not necessarily related to our stage in this lifetime.  This uprooting is aimed at a longer-range goal of total elimination of physical impulse.  

So, if you hear someone offer the personal reflection: “I lost interest in sex after I turned 30,” then they are likely not talking about the same thing. This uprooting is measured differently than being in a certain stage in life. Although this position could affirm self-control, which Jesus encourages.   

Practice Suggestion 

               Separation from God is the only lack I really need to correct.