A PS Perspective on ACIM
NOTE. This is an excerpt from the course, the first page. Scroll down to the
index of contents to see what the course contains in total.
A Psychosynthesis Perspective on
A COURSE IN MIRACLES
Find your Self in God.
A Psychosynthesis Perspective on ACIM
___ is the name of three different things:
- Coaching groups for A Course in Miracles
arranged at PsykosyntesForum
in Linkoping, Sweden.
- Coaching groups for ACIM via
Skype Video Conference.
- A self-study e-course on the web.
(The title of the course is from now on often abbreviated A PS Persp on ACIM.)
The coaching groups are led by me, Lars Gimstedt.
For those choosing to buy the e-course only, it is of course possible to
purchase individual coaching over Skype or by visiting the clinic in Linkoping.
A PS Perspective on ACIM is meant to be a support tool for those that have decided to work with A Course in Miracles, which in itself is a complete and comprehensive self-study course.
A prerequisite for A PS Perspective on ACIM is that you already have purchased and started to read A Course in Miracles. (Find it in our Amazon affiliate store under the category Spiritual Development / Schucman.)
An online searchable version: https://www.miraclecenter.org/a-course-in-miracles.
Watch a short video where I describe the course and why I have developed it:
PS Therapist Lars Gimstedt, 7 min
(The video is on YouTube as well. Look at our other videos.)
This page starts with an Index of Contents.
The first time you read this, do not click on the links as yet - continue reading below the Index of Contents, in order to read the section Introduction.
You can return here from any page in the course, by
clicking on the Psychosynthesis Symbol or on the text Index of Contents up in the left upper corner and in the bottom left corner of each page.
0. Introduction This page. Index of Contents.
Why is this course offered? Course instructions.
Comment Index - "Psychological Perspective".
1. Self-actualization To outgrow one's personal ego in order to find one's Higher Self. The visualization The Guide.
2. The Fall How we thought we were thrown out of the Garden of Eden. The story about The Fall.
The visualization The Boat.
3. The Atonement The Inner Light that has always existed,
always radiating its light.
The visualization The Church.
4. The Awakening After having slept deeply for a very long time, waking comes slowly. The visualization Evolution.
5-54.The ACIM lessons
_________1-50
_____Comment IndexSections 5-80: Going through ACIM's Work Book.
About becoming aware of the ego's perception,
and about True Perception.
55. ACIM lessons
___Repetition I, 51-60
Lesson 1 and 51:
The meditation "Searching for the Bull."
Lessons 26 and 56:
The meditation "Finding the traces."56. The ACIM lessons
______61-80
I am the Light of the world. This is my only function.
That is why I am here.
57. ACIM lessons
___Repetition II, 81-90
Lesson 61 and 81:
The meditation "Finding the Bull."
58. The ACIM lessons
______91-110
About my Self, my True Identity, and about accepting the role we are offered, to help save the world.
59. ACIM lessons
___Repetition III, 111-120
Lesson 91 and 111:
The meditation "Catching the Bull."
60. The ACIM lessons
______121-140
About forgiveness, and how we though forgiving will be able to see heaven behind the illusions displayed by the world.
61. ACIM lessons
___Repetition IV, 141-150
Lesson 121 and 141:
The meditation "Gentling the Bull."
62. The ACIM lessons
______151-170
How we through understanding the true meaning of
"Thy will be done, not mine", can become free.
63. ACIM lessons
___Repetition V, 171-180
Lesson 151 and 171: The meditation
"Returning home on the back of the bull."
64. The ACIM lessons
______181-200
About finding the willingness and the commitment to perceive Truth, and to join fragmented personal goals to one single purpose.
65. ACIM lessons
___Repetition VI, 201-220
Comment Index
66. The ACIM lessons
______221-230
1. What is Forgiveness?
67. The ACIM lessons
______231-240
2. What is Salvation?
68. The ACIM lessons
______241-250
3. What is the World?
69. The ACIM lessons
______251-260
4. What is Sin?
70. The ACIM lessons
______261-270
5. What is the Body?
Lessons 221, 241, 261:
The meditation "Bull forgotten - man remains."
71. The ACIM lessons
______271-280
6. What is the Christ?
72. The ACIM lessons
______281-290
7. What is the Holy Spirit?
Lessons 271 and 281:
The meditation "Both bull and man forgotten."
73. The ACIM lessons
______291-300
8. What is the Real World?
74. The ACIM lessons
______301-310
9. What is the Second Coming?
75. The ACIM lessons
______311-320
10. What is the Last Judgement?
76. The ACIM lessons
______321-330
11. What is Creation?
77. The ACIM lessons
______331-340
12. What is the Ego?
Lessons 291, 311, 331: The meditation
"Return to the Origin, back to the Source."
78. The ACIM lessons
______341-350
13. What is a Miracle?
79. The ACIM lessons
______351-360
14: What am I?
Lessons 351, 353, 355, 360: The meditation
"Entering the market-place
_with bliss-bestowing hands."
80. The ACIM lessons
______361-365
The Epilogue of the Work Book.
Comment Index
81. The Miracle Worker Who can become a Miracle Worker? What is a Miracle?
The fifty Miracle Principles.
The visualization The Goal.
82. The Teacher and the Pupil You will be both, whether you wish or not.
What you can decide is what you teach
and what you learn.
83. ACIM and psychotherapy All therapy is really psychotherapy, but what is required from therapy to match the message of ACIM?
Psychosynthesis and ACIM.
The visualization The Guide.
84. A new beginning.
___ Four habits for peace.
___ More reading.Wrapping-up of the course A PS Perspective on ACIM.
The four habits for attaining inner peace.
Additional reading for the interested ACIM pupil.
"This course is a beginning, not an end."
The layout and text size has been designed for a small screen, as more and more people are using a surf pad instead of an ordinary computer. On a surf pad the screen resolution is smaller, and this page (the light brown part) will in this case cover most of the screen.
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If you find it hard to read,
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A Course in Miracles (ACIM) is one of the most renowned and influential books in the modern spiritual movement. It is about how we through training can learn to see through our ego-conditioned image of reality and become able to reach our natural state of love.
Since its publication in 1976, when this is written (2013), two million copies have been sold, and it has been translated into 19 languages. Another eight translations are in progress.
Hundreds of books, courses and web sites about ACIM have been published over the years (see the page Links, or Section 84). As ACIM is quite extensive (1188 pages in total), and by many can be experienced as difficult, theoretical and philosophical, many of these books and courses aim at helping ACIM "students" to understand and to practice the message of ACIM.
So why has this course, A PS Perspective on ACIM, been added to the long list of already existing ones?
A PS Perspective on ACIM has been developed for you who are "an ACIM student", and who also is interested in Psychosynthesis and other similar modern psychological methods for positive inner change, like affirmation, visualizations, and mental training.
On many of the 365 lessons of ACIM, A PS Perspective on ACIM has clarifying comments and after many of the lessons there are also different exercises from Cognitive Psychosynthesis. By doing these additional exercises, the inner change ACIM aims at can be further enhanced.
In my work as a Psychosynthesis Therapist I often refer to old spiritual traditions and sources, which also have been integral in the development history of Psychosynthesis.
I have therefore added material from this area in my comments and clarifications.
Due to copy-right of the publisher of ACIM, Foundation for Inner Peace, ACIM is cited only briefly in connection to the lessons. It is implied in A PS Perspective on ACIM that you have access to the book A Course in Miracles (else buy it through our local Amazon Store, under category Spiritual Development/Schucman).
I (Lars Gimstedt) have chosen to offer the course and the e-course
A Psychosynthesis Perspective on ACIM, as I feel that the thought models of Psychosynthesis and how it regards us as human beings, as basically spiritual beings, goes hand in hand with ACIM.
I studied ACIM intensely during a couple of years 1986-87, in a spiritual awakening after forty years of non-reflecting atheism. After this, I tried to find a life path in which I would be able to work in a concrete way with the basic principles of ACIM, and 1989 I found Psychosynthesis. I received my diploma as a Psychosynthesis Therapist 1992, and as a Psychosynthesis Supervisor 2004. A rather radical change of life direction from being a quantum physicist and aircraft development engineer...
Now it feels like "a circle is being closed" when I, almost 30 years after having read ACIM for the first time, and after more than 20 years of professional work as a Psychosynthesis Therapist, am studying and working with ACIM again, maybe in order to read it in a new way.
Psychosynthesis is primarily about learning to develop a strong sense of I (depicted as the point of light in the middle of the image to the left), by learning to know and learning to integrate one's subpersonalities.
Psychosynthesis has also a preferred final goal to make us aware of our Higher I, The Self (the star at the top of the image).
Via "Self Actualization" one can reach a synthesis of the subpersonalities, the I and the Self, in order to become a "whole human being", in contact with oneself, with others and with the "transpersonal", the spiritual realm of reality.
(Trans-personal = beyond / over the individual personality. Is illustrated in the image as the rays from the star going both into and outside the personality boundary.)
ACIM is about learning to see beyond both one's personal I, and one's personal Self, in order to become aware of being one with the Consciousness of God.
But, in order to do this, one needs to accept the fact that one's sense of personal identity will be dissolved, which in a "normal" I arouses death anxiety.
In order to dare to release one's sense of I, one first needs to develop a strong and stable sense of identity.
The way we have to take can thus be described only with a paradox: in order to let go of one's ego, one first has to develop a strong, conscious and stable ego...
A PS Perspective on ACIM sometimes contains short quotes from the ACIM Text Book, but in addition to this the Text Book is not presented more extensively, as it is assumed that you are reading the Text Book of ACIM in parallel with studying this course.
But, even if you do not read the Text Book part of ACIM, or decide to do this later, you will still be able to assimilate A PS Perspective on ACIM, as the basic ideas and thought models of ACIM will be presented before being used in the exercises.
The course has 85 different sections. Out of these, the sections 5 - 80 refer to the 365 ACIM lessons. The remaining sections contain informational texts and exercises, in form of reflections you will be asked to write down, of visualizations, meditations, etc.
The 365 lessons have been briefly cited from ACIM and have been commented by me, and a number of the lessons have additional psychological exercises from Cognitive Psychosynthesis, like affirmations and visualizations.
In order to let what you read / listen to / train to sink down and become properly integrated, do at the most one ACIM lesson during any one day. If you feel that you need to do so, you may spend several days on one lesson.
The visualizations and other exercises on audio recordings sometimes include relaxation scripts, and many of them also include a subliminal sound background for brain wave entrainment. In order to get the full benefit from the audio recorded exercises, sit in a comfortable chair or arm chair, and listen with earphones. If it is not possible to sit near your computer when doing this, you can download the audio recordings to a mp3 player, by clicking on the file name to the right of the audio controls with the right button on your mouse.
Prepare a binder, with at least ten divisors.
You will receive instructions now and then in the course, how to use the different sections of your course binder.
Lars Gimstedt, Psychosynthesis
therapist and life coach.
This is a course that very probably will activate deep thought and lead to many questions. The ones of you, that are signed-up to a coaching group in Linkoping, Sweden, will in this group be able to discuss and to get your questions answered.
If you have purchased this course as a support in studying A Course in Miracles by yourself, you can, if you feel that you need to, get individual coaching through parts of the course, or through the entire course.
Coaching can be in the form of e-mail correspondence, through personal visits here in Linkoping, Sweden, or through video-coaching through Tipmeet.
Contact me for costs and for booking sessions.
My ambition with this course is that it shall give rise to discussion fora, both when it is used as course material in the coaching groups in Linkoping, and when it is used as a self-study course.
Give feed-back, pose questions!
I will continually update / extend / add to the comments after many of the ACIM lessons, when I have answered central and/or recurring questions from you.
Go to our mail tool, or e-mail us at mail@psykosyntesforum.se.
Sign up for newsletters specifically about A PS Perspective on ACIM, and become continually informed about updates of the course, based on feed-back / recurring questions from those taking the course.
Immediately after sign-up, you will receive an e-mail with a link to a movie from 2010 about A Course in Miracles.
( Note: This sign-up form is not the same as the one on the page Newsletters, which has a similar form, for the general newsletters from PsykosyntesForum.
If you sign up there as well, you will get access to free bonus material worth $ 600+ ! )
In some sections there will be several
exercises following each other, and these images will be sometimes be presented.
They denote:"Now, take a break, walk around, stretch,
or take a brisk walk outdoors."
This course is the most important thing you have decided to do
in your entire life, so "hurry slowly" !
A Course in Miracles starts with this:
This is a course in miracles. It is a required course. Only the time you take it is voluntary. Free will does not mean that you can establish the curriculum. It means only that you can elect what you want to take at a given time.
The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence, which is your natural inheritance. The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite.
This course can therefore be summed up very simply in this way:Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.When ACIM claims that "It is a required course", this should be interpreted using another statement, in Manual for Teachers 1.4: "This is a manual for a special curriculum, intended for teachers of a special form of the universal course. There are many thousands of other forms, all with the same outcome."
Which clarifies: ACIM may be the course for you, but it may also be that ACIM is not ideal for your individual learning style. Then there are thousands of other courses, offering the same teaching.
It is to take one of these courses that is required.
ACIM describes how it has come into existence through psychic channeling via the psychology professor Helen Schucman, and it was published 1975 (acim.org). Helen got the text in the form "an inner voice", presenting itself as Jesus. ACIM gives an image of the person Jesus, that matches well how he comes forward in the gospels of the Bible, but that does not match at all the image that traditional Christianity conveys.
I had personally grave difficulties with the "new-agy" feel of the story about how ACIM came to be, but these sank into the background when I instead started to focus on the content of ACIM, on the message itself.
It may be helpful to read other descriptions of Jesus as a person. For example Deepak Chopras book "The Third Jesus" gives a balanced counter-weight to the traditional descriptions of Jesus. (Buy it in our local Amazon Store. Category Spiritual Development/Chopra.)
A movie that was produced quite recently, 2010.
Watch a presentation of the movie on YouTube.
The book is a fiction novel about the Jesus that comes forth in ACIM, the real person.
Read more ->
An adventure book around ACIM and spiritual awakening,
Read more ->
The book contains a number of short stories, contributed by "ACIM students", of every-day miracles they have experienced after having surrendered their decision-making to The Holy Spirit.
Read more, read a sample,contribute with more stories!
If you buy this course, you will get this book free as an extra bonus - at this location in the course you will be able to download the e-book !
A book that I personally believe originates from the same Source as ACIM.
The version shown here is a combined volume of the three books A Course of Love, The Treaties of A Course of Love and The Dialogues of A Course of Love.
Watch a YouTube video of and about Mari Perron, the scribe of ACOL.
As I believe that ACOL is in fact a sequel to ACIM,
I have quoted from it here and there in this course.
The button Next below will "flip the page", bringing you to the next section, which will describe the process of self-actualization.
