+JMJ+ Welcome to part 8 of the continuing series, Re-Reading the New Age. We’re currently beginning to explore A Course In Miracles (ACIM) from a Catholic perspective. I found some really good articles about the Course from a Catholic perspective. I linked to them in part 7, but I had only read a little of them then. I spent yesterday and today reading and thinking, getting ready to go directly to the text. But I’ll need to pray a few rosaries first. For now I’ll share some quotes from them. It’s important to get this information out there to help as many people as we can to stay away from (or get out of) the ACIM and its false Christ trap, and away from or out of the New Age movement altogether. I was in that trap for years, I know how it is, how easy it is to fall into it, how difficult to get out.

Sharon Lee Giganti is a former New Ager and ACIM teacher who is now a Catholic apologist who is dedicated to exposing the falsehoods, deceptions and delusions of the New Age movement in general and of ACIM in particular. The following is from her article, Does A Course in Miracles Really Mean What it Says?

“Many times, fans of A Course in Miracles, when hearing criticism of the Course’s bizarre claims, often say of former students of the Course, like myself, who are now denouncing it, that we’ve ‘misinterpreted’ the ideas, or taken them too literally, or that the Course, ‘when properly understood’, would have the student use common sense when applying the ideas and perhaps make appropriate exceptions when the ‘situations’ involve something like cancer or a heroin addiction, or something equally potentially hazardous.”

Video, Sharon Lee Giganti on Catholic Answers Live, answering a question about A Course In Miracles and opening doors to the demonic.

And to prove it, Giganti gives several quotes from the ACIM books. 

“Page 2 of A Course in Miracle’s Workbook, for example, instructs the student to: ‘be sure that you do not decide for yourself that there are some people, situations or things to which the ideas are in-applicable.” [Emphasis in the original.]

“You have surely begun to realize that this is a very practical course, and one that means exactly what it says…”

—Text pg. 159

“There must be no exceptions. Your consistency is called on despite chaos. As long as you’re assailed by any doubt, His accomplishment is not apparent in you.”

—Text pg.110

“If true perception has been achieved in connection with any person, situation, or event, total transfer to everyone and everything is certain. On the other hand, one exception held apart from true perception makes its accomplishments anywhere impossible.”

— Workbook Intro to Lessons, pg. 1

“Second, be sure that you do not decide for yourself that there are some people, situations or things to which the ideas are in-applicable. This will interfere with the transfer of training. The very nature of true perception is that it has no limits. It is the opposite of the way you see now.”

—Workbook pg. 2

“For the body is a limit on love. The belief in limited love was its origin, and it was made to limit the unlimited. Think not that this is merely allegorical, for it was made to limit you.”

—Text pg. 364 (vol. 1) (Note: so, ‘you’ are unlimited?? Really??)

Yep, the Course itself expects to be taken seriously and literally. So much for the charge that critics have misunderstood that.

Now let’s look at some quotes from an article by Tracy Moran, A Course in Brainwashing.

“Jesuit Father Mitch Pacwa [my favorite Jesuit!], who has written on New Age religions, sees how such language can resonate with Catholics, luring them to study the course. ‘The key problem is the [course’s] pseudo – Christian vocabulary and ideas,’ said Father Pacwa. ‘People don’t know the Catechism; they don’t know their faith … The course strongly rejects the use of reason and thinking … This is precisely what makes the course feasible. Once you get rid of reason, you get rid of discussion.’”

Tracy Moran, A Course in Brainwashing

“Father Pacwa said the course repeatedly misquotes the Bible and ‘presents a false Jesus.’ Even though Jesus supposedly dictated the course to Schucman, the course’s Jesus ‘does not like the Crucifixion,’ Father Pacwa said. ‘One of the things said repeatedly and forcefully in the course is that sacrifice has nothing to do with love-they are incompatible.’”

Ibid.

Anyone who believes that sacrifice has nothing to do with love either never had children or never loved their children. Or a dawg.

“Or even a cat!”

Oh, it’s you, Miss Lucy Dawg. You’re right. Or even a cat. (She’s begun to take a shine to Major Tom Cat and she still can’t believe it.)

“Well, I never! I merely tolerate him.”

Ahem, back to what I was saying—What was I saying? Oh! 

“The ‘Jesus’ of ‘A Course in Miracles’ is not really the Son of God, never really had a physical body, and hence never really suffered on the cross. He even rephrases the Lord’s Prayer, replacing ‘hallowed be thy name’ with ‘Our holiness is Yours,’ Father Pacwa pointed out.”

Ibid.

Egad. I don’t remember reading that before. I’m sure that, even as a Buddhist (which I think I still was at that time), I would have not been able to keep my eyes from rolling out of their sockets during the few sessions that I sat in on all those years ago. (I can’t remember if I had bought a used copy or a new one, but I had to throw it away a few years later when I came back to the Church after a brief period of idiocy when I left the Church over nothing about the Church but something imagined about me. Anyway, you can read more about that in my conversion story. There’s so much to tell, I’ll probably have to write a book about it at some point.)

“Whatever the course’s true intention, however, Father Pacwa warns that the course ‘presents a false Jesus, false Spirit and false Gospel, and therefore it deserves simple rejection.’”

Ibid.

Moran goes on to give a brief account of what Fr. Benedict Groeschel, CFR, thought of ACIM. He knew Helen Schucman for many years, he studied under her and they were also friends. He watched her change over the years and said that she suffered from a severe psychotic depression the last two years of her life. And died a painful death from pancreatic cancer and complications. Wait, I thought the Course said that cancer doesn’t exist. Huh. (I don’t remember which article that was in. When I find it, I’ll link to it in this post.)

For a longer account but one that I might need permission to quote, see this article at belief.net. I don’t usually use that site as a source but that’s where this article, by journalist Randall Sullivan, is: “The Making of ‘A Course in Miracles’: A Catholic priest recounts the mysterious spiritual journey of ‘A Course in Miracles’ scribe Helen Schucman.” I think this article, of all the ones I’ve read so far, was the most revealing about not only their friendship, but what Fr. Groeschel knew and thought about the Course. 

And I know I’ve linked this before but it’s important and maybe not everyone has seen it yet, so I’m linking it again: Fr. Mitch Pacwa’s talk in the Catholics and the New Age set of videos, False Ideas about Christ. I think he talks about ACIM in that one. (Here’s a link to a playlist of all six videos. False Ideas About Christ is the sixth of six.)

Thank you for visiting and reading. I hope you’ll join me again. Until next time, whoever and wherever you are, please stay safe and well, virtuous and holy. May the Lord bless and keep you and yours, and may His peace be always with you. And may He keep you far away from any of the many false “Christs” out there, seeking to prey upon unsuspecting souls. St. Michael, defend us! +JMJ+

Jesus, Mary and Joseph, we love you, save souls!

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Notes and Links

• Does A Course in Miracles Really Mean What it Says? by Sharon Lee Giganti.
• A Course in Brainwashing, by Tracy Moran.
• “The Making of ‘A Course in Miracles’: A Catholic priest recounts the mysterious spiritual journey of ‘A Course in Miracles’ scribe Helen Schucman,” by Randall Sullivan.
• A Still Small Voice: Practical Guide on Reported Revelations, by Fr. Benedict Groeschel, CFR: Paperback, Kindle (Amazon affiliate links. See full disclosure for more.)
• Catholics and the New Age, by Fr. Mitch Pacwa, SJ: Paperback. (Amazon affiliate links. See full disclosure for more.)
• Deliverance Prayers For Use by the Laity, by Fr. Chad Ripperger: Paperback, Kindle. (Amazon affiliate links. See full disclosure for more.)

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