What the heck is "A Course in Miracles" & have you done it?

It sounds suspicious to me. It mentions God, and uses some Christian terms, and it’s pretty New Agey. I’d find something else to throw my money at.

I have no personal experience of it, but I know that some people who were seeking a sobriety program have been more comfortable in that environment than they were in AA. It really doesn’t matter which program you choose as long as it works for you (meaning as long as you can work it effectively in your own life).

I’ve read it… It is a book about inner peace… saving that things are not you fault and that it is impossible to attack someone.

ACIM is one of many methods a person may select to “awaken” or shift one’s perspective away from hate and fear toward a perspective of love and acceptance. It is Christian based in it’s use of terminology and references, but the Course redefines those references in such a way that it defies man’s habitual tendency to pigeonhole, stereotype or define what it explains in terms that it is not. Needless to say, my description does not give it justice. I’ve owned several copies of ACIM over the past 20 years and I have yet to master the concepts or complete the course.

It’s a book written by Mary Anne Williamson. She’s been on Oprah a few times.

It’s not too dissimilar to The Secret (also a book and a cd). It focuses on positive thinking and the basic principles expressed by Karma and found in many religious traditions-best summed up in phrases like “What you sow, you will also reap”. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”. “What goes around comes around.”

From time to time (depending upon where you live) various spiritually inclined groups will choose to work through the book a week at a time with regular meetings for discussion and personal reading in the interim.

They’ll generally post ads for it in local papers hoping to attract some newcomers. But there’s nothing preventing one from reading through it on their own.

It’s a book written by Mary Anne Williamson. She’s been on Oprah a few times.

It’s not too dissimilar to The Secret (also a book and a cd). It focuses on positive thinking and the basic principles expressed by Karma and found in many religious traditions-best summed up in phrases like “What you sow, you will also reap”. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”. “What goes around comes around.”

From time to time (depending upon where you live) various spiritually inclined groups will choose to work through the book a week at a time with regular meetings for discussion and personal reading in the interim.

They’ll generally post ads for it in local papers hoping to attract some newcomers. But there’s nothing preventing one from reading through it on their own.

It’s not associated with any cult afaik since so many different groups have utilized it. It’s not brainwashing as each person is free to take from it what they will. Cults certainly aren’t that open minded about things. It’s their way or the highway.

In some ways, some of what it advocates is similar to another author from the 50s or 60s, Norman Vincent Peale. It basically just outlines ways to put a positive spin on your life for yourself and your interactions with others and your connection to a spiritual way of looking at life.

Many people have spoken of it having a good effect upon their lives. That might be the case (or not) for any individual person. And, if not, it’s just a book, after all. There’s nothing tremendously “new” about the ideas it expresses. It just happens to be popular (along with The Secret) at this point in time in much the same way as Peale’s writings were back then.

As it says in Ecclesiastes:

There is nothing new under the sun.

Personally, I don’t view it as anything to be especially pumped about nor to be feared. It’s a book.

Marianne Williamson did not write “A Course in Miracles”. She writes books based on the concepts that comprise “A Course in Miracles”.

Anyone who seriously wants to know what ACIM is (as opposed to reading someone’s opinion about it) should examine the text itself. A good place to start would be the website:

http://acim.org/index.html

@SABOTEUR

You are correct. I mispoke about Williamson being the author. She is however very closely identified with it.

I also agree with you about each person checking it out for themselves. Many have found it useful and inspiring, others not so much.

It really depends upon what someone is searching for. But in spite of some vocal critics of it, I really don’t see any potential for harm.

What is A Course in Miracles and what does it teach?
A Course in Miracles is allegedly “new revelation” from “Jesus” to help humanity work through these troubled times. This “Jesus”—who bears no doctrinal resemblance to the Bible’s Jesus Christ—began delivering his channeled teachings in 1965 to a Columbia University Professor of Medical Psychology by the name of Helen Schucman.

One day Schucman heard an “inner voice” stating, “This is a course in miracles. Please take notes.”8 For seven years she diligently took spiritual dictation from this inner voice that described himself as “Jesus.” A Course in Miracles was quietly published in 1975 by the Foundation for Inner Peace. For many years “the Course” was an underground cult classic for New Age seekers who studied “the Course” individually, with friends, or in small study groups.

As a former New Age follower and devoted student of A Course in Miracles, I eventually discovered that the Course in Miracles was—in reality—the truth of the Bible turned upside down. Not having a true understanding of the Bible at the time of my involvement, I was led to believe that A Course in Miracles was “a gift from God” to help everyone understand the “real” meaning of the Bible and to help bring peace to the world. Little did I know that the New Age “Christ” and the New Age teachings of A Course in Miracles were everything the real Jesus Christ warned us to watch out for. In Matthew 24 Jesus warned about false teachers, false teachings and the false “Christs” who would pretend to be He.

When I left the New Age “Christ” to follow the Bible’s Jesus Christ, I had come to understand that the “Jesus” of A Course in Miracles was a false “Christ,” and that his Course in Miracles was dangerously deceptive. Here are some quotes from the “Jesus” of A Course in Miracles:

“There is no sin. . . ” 9 [See note]
A “slain Christ has no meaning.”10
“The journey to the cross should be the last ‘useless journey.”11
“Do not make the pathetic error of ‘clinging to the old rugged cross.’”12
“The Name of Jesus Christ as such is but a symbol… It is a symbol that is safely used as a replacement for the many names of all the gods to which you pray.”13
“God is in everything I see.”14
“The recognition of God is the recognition of yourself.”15
“The oneness of the Creator and the creation is your wholeness, your sanity and your limitless power.”16
“The Atonement is the final lesson he [man] need learn, for it teaches him that, never having sinned, he has no need of salvation.”17
Most Christians recognize that these teachings are the opposite of what the Bible teaches.
I hope this helps answer the q; What is A Course in Miracles?

There are lots of good works out there, take what resonates for you and discard the rest.
I did not get all the way through ACIM some years ago, but, it has it’s place in every seekers library.

I am no longer on a seekers path, I am. ;-)