How do God's Teachers Deal with<br/> their Pupils' Thoughts of Magic?
17\. How do God's Teachers Deal with their Pupils’ Thoughts of Magic?
This is a crucial question both for teacher and pupil. If this issue is
mishandled, the teacher has hurt himself and has also attacked his
pupil. This strengthens fear and makes the magic seem quite real to both
of them. How to deal with magic thus becomes a major lesson for the
teacher of God to master. His first responsibility in this is not to
attack it. If a magic thought arouses anger in any form, God's teacher
can be sure that he is strengthening his own belief in sin and has
condemned himself. He can be sure as well that he has asked for
depression, pain, fear, and disaster to come to him. Let him remember,
then, it is not this that he would teach, because it is not this that he
would learn.
There is, however, a temptation to respond to magic in a
way that reinforces it. Nor is this always obvious. It can, in fact, be
easily concealed beneath a wish to help. It is this double wish that
makes the help of little value and must lead to undesired outcomes. Nor
should it be forgotten that the outcome that results will always come to
teacher and to pupil. How many times has it been emphasized that you
give but to yourself? And where could this be better shown than in the
kinds of help the teacher gives to those who need his aid? Here is his
gift most clearly given him. For he will give only what he has chosen
for himself. And in this gift is his judgment upon the holy Son of God.
It is easiest to let error be corrected where it is most
apparent, and errors can be recognized by their results. A lesson truly
taught can lead to nothing but release for teacher and pupil who have
shared in one intent. Attack can enter only if perception of separate
goals has entered. And this must indeed have been the case if the result
is anything but joy. The single aim of the teacher turns the divided
goal of the pupil into one direction, with the call for help becoming
his one appeal. This then is easily responded to with just one answer,
and this answer will enter the teacher's mind unfailingly. From there it
shines into his pupil's mind, making it one with his.
Perhaps it will be helpful to remember that no one can be
angry at a fact. It is always an interpretation that gives rise to
negative emotions, regardless of their seeming justification by what
appears as facts. Regardless, too, of the intensity of the anger that is
aroused. It may be merely slight irritation, perhaps too mild to be even
clearly recognized. Or it may also take the form of intense rage
accompanied by thoughts of violence, fantasized or apparently acted out.
It does not matter. All of these reactions are the same. They obscure
the truth, and this can never be a matter of degree. Either truth is
apparent or it is not. It cannot be partially recognized. Who is unaware
of truth must look upon illusions.
Anger in response to perceived magic thoughts is the basic
cause of fear. Consider what this reaction means, and its centrality in
the world's thought system becomes apparent. A magic thought, by its
mere presence, acknowledges a separation from God. It states in the
clearest form possible that the mind which thinks it believes it has a
separate will that can oppose the Will of God and succeed. That this can
hardly be a fact is obvious. Yet that it can be believed as fact is
surely so. And herein lies the birthplace of guilt. Who usurps the place
of God and takes it for himself now has a deadly “enemy.” And he must
stand alone in his protection and make himself a shield to keep him safe
from fury that can never be abated and vengeance that can never be
satisfied.
How can this unfair battle be resolved? Its ending is
inevitable, for its outcome must be death. How then can one believe in
one's defenses? Magic again must help. Forget the battle. Accept it as a
fact, and then forget it. Do not remember the impossible odds against
you. Do not remember the immensity of the “enemy,” and do not think
about your frailty in comparison. Accept your separation, but do not
remember how it came about. Believe that you have won it, but do not
retain the slightest memory of Who your great “opponent” really is.
Projecting your “forgetting” onto Him, it seems to you He has forgotten
too.
But what will now be your reaction to all magic thoughts?
They can but reawaken sleeping guilt, which you have hidden but have not
let go. Each one says clearly to your frightened mind, “You have usurped
the place of God. Think not He has forgotten.” Here we have the fear of
God most starkly represented. For in that thought has guilt already
raised madness to the throne of God Himself. And now there is no hope.
Except to kill. Here is salvation now. An angry Father pursues His
guilty Son. Kill or be killed, for here alone is choice. Beyond this
there is none, for what was done cannot be done without. The stain of
blood can never be removed, and anyone who bears this stain on him must
meet with death.
Into this hopeless situation God sends His teachers. They
bring the light of hope from God Himself. There is a way in which escape
is possible. It can be learned and taught, but it requires patience and
abundant willingness. Given that, the lesson's manifest simplicity
stands out like an intense white light against a black horizon, for such
it is. If anger comes from an interpretation and not a fact, it is never
justified. Once this is even dimly grasped, the way is open. Now it is
possible to take the next step. The interpretation can be changed at
last. Magic thoughts need not lead to condemnation, for they do not
really have the power to give rise to guilt. And so they can be
overlooked and thus forgotten in the truest sense.
Madness but seems terrible. In truth it has no power to
make anything. Like the magic which becomes its servant, it neither
attacks nor protects. To see it and to recognize its thought system is
to look on nothing. Can nothing give rise to anger? Hardly so. Remember
then, teacher of God, that anger recognizes a reality that is not there,
yet is the anger certain witness that you do believe in it as fact. Now
is escape impossible until you see you have responded to your own
interpretation which you have projected on an outside world. Let this
grim sword be taken from you now. There is no death. This sword does not
exist. The fear of God is causeless. But His love is Cause of everything
beyond all fear and thus forever real and always true.