Atonement is mental healing

Miracles are not contingent on belief and work despite belief and despite beliefs heavily supported by investment and faith. Miracles work by changing fear thoughts to love thoughts, at the causal level, from the bottom up, not the top down. They work despite belief and are in no way contingent on actively, by one's own efforts, changing beliefs. That change in belief is the shift in perception and the consequence of a miracle.
This change or transformation from fear to love works by the law of cause and effect.

In short, if the cause doesn't change then the effect will never change. That is why in Chapter 3, Jesus says he can't correct the fear that we have miscreated, because if messed with the level of effect he'd be violating the most basic and fundamental law of the universe.

In other words, can't do it. No matter how much someone pleas and prays, and demands the effect be changed in "His Name," etc. As long as the person continues to think fear at the causal level the effect has to be FEAR.

However, what can be done consistently and in harmony with the Law of Cause and Effect, is the cause of fear can be changed. In other words, fear is lack of love and the Holy Spirit can supply the love the fear thought lacks thus changing the fear thought to a love thought.

Thus the cause changes and the effect MUST change. The causal level is prior to "belief." Jesus is clear that at this causal level we cannot possible know what fear thoughts need to be changed or how to change them. To think we do from a postion of wrong mindedness is self healing by one's own effort, which is NOT our job, nor within our ability, and is nothing more than interference with the Holy Spirit's job of healing, which could lead to a negation of the miracle. In other words, its the Holy Spirit's job to heal through miracles. Our job is to bring what needs healing to the Holy Spirit and with this little willingness allow healing to occur. Let's take an example of someone with cancer.

 

The presumption is that its God's will this person be whole and healthy. Jesus shares that presumption, but says even he cannot change the effect level of thinking. The person must be willing to allow the Holy Spirit to change his fear thoughts at the causal level. On the other hand, as healer, what the Holy Spirit heals may have little to do with cancer and maybe not manifest as the cancer cured. The Holy Spirit might decided to heal a fear of death, or the fear of loving, knowing in the grand scheme of things, the person has decided to die and healing the cancer is not important. As such its superficial to analyze illness in terms of belief, where the belief in illness is changed to a belief in health.

 

Changing beliefs at the level of cause to another belief of one's own choosing is not healing at the causal level and thus not a miracle. In other words there is much more than belief involved and much more than cancer. By the laws of mind one might indeed "heal the cancer," by faith and belief, but by the same laws of mind, if the underlying fear thoughts are not changed at a causal level, then the cancer will return or another illness will manifest, or perhaps a fatal car wreck could end earthly life. The cancer would in this case be healed, a "miracle" claimed, but no miracle occurred. All one did was shift from one belief to another at the level of effect and not deal at all at the causal level.

The idea here is the Holy Spirit is in actual control of the miracle, and what thoughts it corrects and when in time these thoughts are corrected, but certainly one can be an agent of the Holy Spirit and miracles and thus learn to heal as a miracle worker. The second notion from Chapter 4 and 5 is to ask or request healing/correction in the fairly precise and limited parameters described, and then allow the miracle to happen without insisting your further efforts are somehow needed or important for the miracle to work. In this sense the constant request for healing and correction of a problem, or with more precision, how one feels about a problem, violates this principle to allow the allow the miracle to happen and trust the miracle will occur.

The second error or mistake is the defining beforehand what must result from a miracle In other words, defining the cancer as "the problem," rather than the result or the consequence or the manifestation of "the problem," or "a problem," which is always and must be fear thoughts and fear thoughts often not at the conscious level of awareness. By defining cancer as the problem, this clearly interferes with both the miracles ability to heal and correct thought, and in addition, places one in a position not to recognize a "shift in perception," when one is looking for immediate dramatic results of healing.

The third error is equating belief with thinking, instead of belief as a property of, or consequence or condition of thinking. This in turn can lead one to understand a condition of illness, say cancer, is simply a matter of belief that the body can be ill instead of the belief the body can only be healthy, and thus the remedy or miracle is based on changing a negative belief to an alleged positive belief and largely by one's own effort.

This is a highly confusing framework for mental healing. After all, people who believe that they can get ill or could suffer from cancer are nevertheless well and healthy despite that belief, while people who profess to belive that they are not a body and illness is "just a belief," nevertheless can have cancer. In addition, in course metaphysics one cannot change a belief unless the fundamental causal thoughts attendant with that belief are not only "changed," but specifically changed from fear thoughts to love thoughts. Otherwise only the form of the belief changes, and not the result or effect.

 

Another error here in belief based miracles is it a type of white voodoo, or magical thinking. In other words, in voodoo, if someone filled with superstition and fear actually believes that a Witch doctor can cast an evil spell on him, by the power of the mind and belief, that person could actually begin to waste away and then die. This is similar to investing pills and medicine with the properties to heal. Similarly the person might soon get well once he believes the spell is lifted. So one has to ask how voodoo is any different from belief based healing in certain Christian Churches?

The point here is Course based miraculous healing is not defined by a remission of symptoms, but rather the mind's release from fear. Symptoms can clearly be "healed," while the mind itself is still very much filled with fear. As such, the type of miracles and methodology and belief/faith theory described and used by charismatic Churches seems very much a hit and miss deal, in the sense sometime what they do seem to work and other times not. And that is because much of this is magic and voodoo, because symptoms are often healed but the mind is still uncorrected and filled with fear.This is not to say the Holy Spirit and Jesus are superstitions and prayer and requests have no effect, rather that the Course teaches a much more precise and accurate and fool-proof method for miracles and mental healing. Indeed, the whole notion of the Atonement is mental healing, not physical healing. When the mind is healed then health as an expression of peace, follows naturally.

Why the Course was written to be read literally

"As far as I'm aware, every claim that the Course somehow cannot be understood largely literally within the accepted limitations of language, can be dismissed as agenda-driven religiosity, where the main complaint is a literal reading doesn't produce the pre-determined agenda, results and conclusions of the critic.

To be sure, in an academic sense, unclouded by religious passions and beliefs, a work written philosophically in a philosophical manner, concerned with philosophical issues is read literally, "as written" and stands on its on.

Why? Because the assumption is a writer who presumes to write in an exact, precise, philosophical manner assumes the burden of clarity within the accepted limits of language, and has no agenda or reason to be less than clear by the introduction of figurative or metaphorical language when unambiguous, clear language can convey the thought. In other words the purpose of philosophy and philosophical methods and methodology is extreme clarity of thought and not hiding, obscuring, or muddling thought to the extent a claim can be made that "as written," the philosophic thought or thought system offered is largely nonsense, or figurative/metaphor, or in short, simply does not and cannot mean what it says."

In the case of ACIM, the above notion is demonstrated by the author writing and presenting his work as a formal thought system.

What does this mean? It means the author writes in terms of given, but unproven axiomatic thoughts, introduces premises logically derived by logical rules of inference, then reaches clearly logically VALID conclusions based on the truth of his axiomatic thought. An example of unproven, axiomatic thought would be "God exists," and the attendant axiom, "that God created you and you did not create God."

An example of a valid conclusion reached would be that the Atonement works and can only work because God created you and you cannot create yourself.

The demonstration of a formal thought system in ACIM could be accomplished by placing key Course ideas in the form of either syllogistic or predicate logic, following accepted rules of inference. Which is the end would be unnecessary and trite, because its generally recognized and conceded that the author writes logically, in a logical manner, and is concerned with both his logic and fallacious logic.

As such and clearly, writers writing philosophically concerned with logic and reason, are NOT writing figuratively, poetically or metaphorically. Such methods and presentation of material are mutually exclusive, and I would challenge anyone of "ACIM as metaphor, school of thought," to give any example, anywhere of a poetic, figurative, metaphorical work presented as a formal thought system and concerned with formal logic. Such works don't exist and could never happened.

As such the counter claim that a formal thought system and rationality are the metaphor and thus demonstrate the allegedly figurative nature of ACIM, is non academic and contentious of the author presenting his thoughts in his own way and own manner, and clearly limits such a critic to non rational "proofs" that his meta-commenting is correct. In other words, by definition cannot be rationally proven, and thus self-refuting.

In short then, that for the above and other reasons, ACIM was written to be understood literally within the accepted limitations of language. This argument does make sense, and is pretty much irrefutable. I doubt anyone with any academic credentials or scholarly pretensions would attempt to demonstrate ACIM is not written and presented as formal thought system.

To be sure, a formal thought system as described is the gold standard for "making sense," and being intelligible. In other words, a formal thought system cannot NOT make sense or be "wrong," unless axioms and premises are first proven false, or that deductive rules of inference are violated or faulty. "When we talk about "making sense," in a formal way, making sense means valid logical inferences from premises.

This of course, challenges the "writing in language we understand," claim.

The author is clearly writing in language and logical structure we understand and largely cannot be critiqued or challenged without demonstrating that his axiomatic foundational statement are false.

That CANNOT be done because these axiomatic statements such as "God created you, and you did not create yourself," reflect God established Laws stated by a direct knower (Jesus) of these laws, not an interpretor of these laws. This is the author's claim. Furthermore his axioms cannot be in principle be proven or demonstrated false from the view point or context of an different, perception-based thought

As such a ACIM critic can reject the author's axioms but cannot demonstrate or prove them false. So in this sense, ACIM as written is all true or all false.

In short then, ACIM is a heavenly based, formal thought system reflecting heaven, while alternative interpretations such a Wapnick's  or Renard don't pretend to be a complete thought system, rather these interpretations are presented as a collection of beliefs, and pre-ordained, agenda driven conclusions, with no formal logical structure which could take scrutiny.

Moreover, Wapnick's assertion of non duality is irrational, and is for all purposes a categorical denial of rationally and formal thought systems as "duality," which leads him to the strange and highly peculiar position of refuting rationality by allegedly rational means. Wapnick assumed non duality and his definition of non duality, then made the non duality the first principle of course interpretation, so its hardly suprising that he concludes ACIM teaches non duality.

In Wapnick's critique and re-interpretation, "non duality," substitutes as first principle and axiomatic statement. Which by the law of allegiance to premises, must read and interpret all passages in ACIM as consistent with this first, inviolate principle. As such his conclusion of non duality is certain  and ordained, though clearly because he changed axioms of the Course thought system and not because he had allegiance to the author's pure, holy, absolutely true, God-established axioms.

Let's say some dislike "stop think" commands like "duality," especially in a religious context, and especially when uttered [by sloppy thinkers]. In a course context "duality," is misused by people who either can't understand perception involves interpretation unlike the natural condition of knowledge, or can't explain a simple comparison and contrast, even though many claim to be teachers."