"Ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake"
Totally transformed lives more numerous than can be counted show that the complete undiluted teaching of Jesus Christ revealed in A Course in Miracles works much deeper and much faster than the doctrines taught in churches which offer up a mixture of true understandings of Jesus stirred in with historical human misunderstandings. And of course nothing is more attractive than thoroughly transformed lives exuding the powerful visible testimony of habitual joy, love, and inner peace.
Because of such clear evidence, A Course in Miracles will someday be taught in all of its aspects in Catholic churches, Protestant churches, Mormon churches, and indeed Christian churches of all varieties. It only takes a little time for the true and full teaching of Jesus Christ to break through the ego-vested interests of leaders in various churches.
In the meantime, while church leaders are still governed by the ego's preconceived ideas, be prepared to be judged negatively as a heretical "New Age groupie," in the same way that many authentic early Christians were labelled "heretics." Be prepared to watch the slander of the scribe Jesus chose ... Helen Schucman. Be prepared for the human ego to fight against A Course in Miracles, sometimes punching below the belt.
Paragraphs in bold below which refer to the Catholic priest, Father Groeschel, are from Randall Sullivan's The Miracle Detective: An Investigation of Holy Visions.
Father Groeschel was certainly no less perplexed by what he had witnessed more than 30 years earlier, when he had been present at the inception of a book now considered to be the "New Age Bible."
Red flag alert! Actually, A Course in Miracles is to New Age as the angels of God who visited Lot and his family are to Sodom and Gomorrah. Only someone like Sullivan who has preconceived ideas to protect would twist perceptions around and imply the angels were the "Bible of Sodom and Gomorrah." No one who has read A Course in Miracles with an open mind would ever call it "New Age." "New Age" is defined as a broad range of philosophies and practices traditionally viewed as occult, metaphysical, or paranormal. Nothing in A Course in Miracles is remotely occult, paranormal, or metaphysical. It is the teaching of Jesus Christ, pure and simple.
But that's the problem. It's too pure and too simple for those who want to make Jesus a "mystery."
Inconvenient fact: Father Groeschel was not "present at the inception" of A Course in Miracles as misleadingly stated in Sullivan's words. Although indeed the good Father was acquainted with Helen Schucman and here is how Sullivan describes the Father's impressions:
"Helen was a very scientific lady," Groeschel recalled, "a Jewish intellectual who considered herself to be an extreme agnostic, though not quite an atheist, and very skeptical about everything having to do with religion or spirituality."
Quadruple red flag alert! Can anything good come from Nazareth! In other words, can anything good come from a scientific-minded intellectual? A Jew? An extreme agnostic, almost atheist? A skeptic regarding religion and spirituality? You can just hear the high priests of the Temple condemning Helen and warning people: "If she says she heard Jesus ... that simply cannot be. Look at where she comes from."
A more open-minded unbiased person might say, "Wow! If the Course was heard by a scientific-minded intellectual agnostic skeptic Jew, yet it claimed to be Jesus speaking ... this is worth looking into." But Father Groeschel believed he understood the seeming contradiction. He believed it was Helen simply going through a Jesus-fascination stage during the very period of time her inner spiritual hearing was occurring:
What Groeschel found to be at once most thrilling and confusing about Helen Schucman's process was that, during the time she wrote A Course in Miracles (a book that any number of fundamentalist Christian ministers have called the most dangerous ever published), she became intensely attracted to the Catholic Church, attended Mass regularly, and was devoted to the Virgin Mary.
Flaming red flag alert! Authority figures have labeled A Course in Miracles "the most dangerous book ever published." This implies that not only must you refrain from reading A Course in Miracles, but if authority figures could have their way, if only it were still the days of the Inquisition, all copies deserve to be confiscated and burned.
No less fascinating to the priest was the sharp distinction between Schucman's own stated convictions and the content of A Course in Miracles. "I hate that damn book," she often told him, and regularly disavowed its teachings.
Red flag! Helen, who heard the words of Jesus, who spent years writing the revelations down, who labored several more years editing ... nonetheless hated the book. That could only mean the book is "hate-worthy," wouldn't you say?
A rational person would answer that Helen might well have been hating the unwanted notoriety the book was bringing, or hating her own conflicts with the teachings of Jesus. If in fact she hated what she was hearing inside, that would be solid evidence that she wasn't hearing her own personal ego agenda. And the fact that her ego hated it (only ego hates) could possibly be seen as evidence that the Course contains something very good.
Groeschel continued to try to "open the doors of the Church" to Schucman, but his influence was subverted by her husband. William Thetford, also a Columbia professor, was a mysterious character, and "probably the most sinister person I ever met," the priest recalled.
Blood-red flag alert! Better to protect against the Course's sinister evil presence with the sign of the cross!
Inconvenient fact: William Thetford was not Helen's husband, although they were associates working together at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital. Helen Dora Cohn was married to Louis Schucman. Never mind facts. All is fair in love and religious doctrine protection, wouldn't you say?
Schucman was embarrassed, Groeschel remembered, and confided to the priest her fear that the book would create a cult, which of course it did.
Cult flag alert! Cult! Cult! Jim Jones! David Koresh! Charles Manson! Call Homeland Security!
Groeschel initially read the Course as "religious poetry," but grew steadily more negative in his assessment of it as the years passed and sales of the three volumes passed into the millions of copies. From his point of view, A Course in Miracles served to undermine authentic Christianity more effectively than just about any other work he could recall.
Hmmm! Is Father Groeschel's ego-vested interest in protecting previously held beliefs perhaps showing? Egos do not want to see any of their belief systems undermined. On the other hand, the idea of Jesus Christ giving new revelation which undermines so-called "authentic" Christianity might invite more reasonable people to rejoice.
Most troubling to him [Father Groeschel] by far was the "black hole of rage and depression that Schucman fell into during the last two years of her life," the priest explained. She had become frightening to be with, Groeschel recalled, spewing psychotic hatred not only for A Course in Miracles but "for all things spiritual." When he sat at Schucman's bedside as she lay dying, "she cursed, in the coarsest barroom language you could imagine, 'that book, that goddamn book'."
"Black hole of rage and depression," "spewing psychotic hatred," and "coarsest barroom language" certainly sound more like red-flag ego condemnations than objectivity. But "that goddamn book" is a sentiment students of A Course in Miracles might laugh at with recognition. Jesus uses A Course in Miracles as an ego-busting device. And egos don't like to be busted, right? How many times have we heard Miracles students saying, "I became so utterly frustrated with that book ...aargh!.. I flung the book across the room and knocked over my statuette of the Virgin Mary!"
Yet exasperated students always find themselves returning to the Course ... as if Mother Mary picks up the book, holds it to her heart in the folds of her garment, then gently hands it back to each of them, speaking words of wisdom: "Let it be."
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"...nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the kingdom of God is within you. (Luke 17:21)
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