Exploring A Course in Miracles

Why do we get sick? How can we help others who are ill? What does the Course say about extending healing and how can we become healers ourselves? Join Circle of Atonement founder Robert Perry and executive director Emily Bennington to explore the very important topic of healing in the Course. Regardless of where you are in your Course journey, we know you will benefit from the Course's teaching on...

The life of Jesus has moved people the world over like no other. But we have often put Jesus' life in a frame where the main purpose was to demonstrate his divinity. What if we put it in a different frame? What if we see Jesus' life as a concrete demonstration of the principles of A Course in Miracles? Seen that way, what would his life—with all its drama, its miraculous events, and its revolution...

A Course in Miracles calls us to go places we seemingly can't go. How, then, do we get there? One answer is that we lean on Jesus' help. The Course teaches that Jesus is genuinely present, and that we can lean on his strength, his guidance, his healing, and his companionship. This naturally brings up many questions: Does he really exist? Is he available to us personally? How do we call upon his he...

A mature holy relationship is a wondrous experience. It contains the highest happiness that is possible in this world. That said, it takes an unusual ability to get outside our egos in order to truly join. On Sunday, February 28, 2021, Circle founder Robert Perry and executive director Emily Bennington will be hosting a workshop based on the Course's extensive discussions of holy relationships. Ro...

In the Complete and Annotated Edition of A Course in Miracles , there are some challenging teachings on sexuality. Students have been grappling with these teachings ever since they first came to light approximately twenty years ago. It's easy to see these teachings as merely negative (Don't have sex unless….) when, in fact, they are actually pointing us to another way of being in the world, one wh...

The idea of projection is familiar to us all: You see in others that which you  don't  want to see in yourself. But is it possible that projection is responsible for our whole perception of the world? This is the startling prospect that  A Course in Miracles lays before us - but this is also good news, because understanding projection gives us the power to undo its distortions and thus liberate ou...

We can all relate to feeling unfairly treated. And when we're hurt, we naturally want to let other people know - especially those who we feel are responsible. A Course in Miracles offers a unique understanding of the unconscious psychology behind feeling unfairly treated. It promises that if we can understand what's really going on inside of us, we can be free of hurt itself. In this episode, Robe...

Times like these call us to be better people. They call us to be anchored within so that we can respond with love and helpfulness to the world outside. This may seem like a distant goal, but this is precisely where A Course in Miracles can help. The Course is known for its unique wisdom and its practical exercises, all of which are aimed at helping us meet a stormy world in a new and different way...

It's clear that, all around the globe, we have a hate problem. As spiritual seekers, we tend to shy away from using the word hate, but that's what it is. And until we face our hate directly, it will remain a destructive force in us and in the world. A Course in Miracles doesn't shy away from the word "hate" and its cognates, which appear over 200 times in the book. Accordingly, the Course is well...

As we look around at the world today, insanity appears to be everywhere. In such a place as this, how can we choose love? According to A Course in Miracles , we face this choice between insanity and love at all times. The question is only which direction we will go. Will we decide that the world is sane or that love is sane? Will we adjust to a world that makes no sense, feeling that we must fit i...

How should we see other people? Perhaps the Course's main answer to this question is that we should see them as holy . Holiness is a hugely important concept in A Course in Miracles , which contains over a thousand references to "holy" and "holiness." Yet we don't talk much about holiness, do we? Perhaps we find it slightly threatening, because of its religious connotations. But the fact that we f...

When it comes to the topic of specialness, the Course is challenging something in us that we have hoped to keep forever hidden and safely undisturbed. The goal to achieve "special favor", the Course says, is what originally drove the separation and it's what drives us now – to disastrous effect. Accordingly, the reason we all hide our quest for specialness, even from ourselves, is the very reason...

Contemporary spirituality constantly tells us that we have to get out of our mind and into our heart. We hear again and again that in order to spiritually awaken we need to "turn off our thinking" and enter into being. A Course in Miracles , however, teaches that sound reasoning is not the enemy of spiritual development, but rather a central tool in the process. In this episode, Robert and Emily d...

Monastics are defined in part by their withdrawal from ordinary society as well as by such outer things as distinctive clothing, specific daily schedules, special diet, and other symbolic accoutrements. Yet if we set aside these forms of difference, monasticism has more in common with the Course than you might suspect. The driving force behind monasticism is that it shoots for the highest spiritua...

If the title of this article strikes you as odd, you are not alone. People familiar with  A Course in Miracles  don't usually think in terms of its social vision. Doesn't the Course urge us to "seek not to change the world"? Isn't our sole responsibility to accept the Atonement for ourselves? Isn't the Course strictly about how we perceive the world in our own minds? We at the Circle have been arg...

We are living through an unprecedented moment in history. It's a moment where pockets of the world have been willing to finally look at the gaping wound of racism and what it's doing to us. As Americans, we know this wound is a central part our origin story but what feels different about this time is the degree to which those who are outside the black the community are willing to not only examine...

Given how persistent and formative childhood wounds can be, unearthing them can seem to be the way to explain who we are now. The early dictation of the Course addressed this issue at some length, as it turns outs, and the perspective that emerges is one that you might find surprising. Join Robert and Emily for a lively discussion of how the Course would have us approach the healing of childhood w...

To a significant degree, the Course is resting the achievement of its goals on our repeating of its words. The Workbook, for example, opens by saying that "it is doing the exercises that will make the goal of the course possible" (W-pI.In.1:2) and each exercise includes some form of word repetition. In this episode of Exploring A Course in Miracles , Robert Perry and Emily Bennington discuss why t...

As spiritual seekers, we tend to see our job as getting out of the way so that divine light can flood in and fill our awareness. Accordingly, we typically see the spiritual life as the process of becoming ever more receptive and surrendered. Yet there is also another side to our nature that is actively expressive and creative. In this episode of Exploring A Course in Miracles, Robert Perry and Emi...

Given that protection is on everyone's minds these days, it makes sense to look into what  A Course in Miracles has to say on the topic. How, according to the Course, can we find protection? It turns out that the Course mentions protection 237 times and that these references add up to a fascinating picture, one that turns our normal ideas of protection upside down. Join Circle of Atonement Founder...

What is the relationship between the victim and the victimizer in you? If you're like most people, you may feel you only become defensive when you feel like a victim yourself. We, in other words, never attack first. In this episode of Exploring A Course in Miracles , Robert Perry and Emily Bennington discuss the Course's (very different) approach to this topic, which many students find challenging...

In the early part of the Course's story, there are at least three instances where its scribe, Helen Schucman, prays for others in an unusual way. On these occasions, she is joining with Jesus and speaking directly to someone in her mind. In this episode of Exploring A Course in Miracles, Robert Perry and Emily Bennington discuss Helen's unique style of prayer and how we can all use it to help ours...

In the previous episode, Robert and Emily talked about the Course's radical view of war—that, rather than being good or evil, war is simply senseless. But knowing this is merely a starting point. What we really need to know is how we ourselves should respond to war. That is the subject of this second episode: What is our role in relation to war? To answer that question, Robert will share six point...

What does A Course in Miracles have to say about war? Does it even address the subject? In fact, the Course contains over a hundred references to war and battle, along with many depictions of warfare and weaponry. In addition, there are hidden references to two wars in particular: World War II and the Vietnam War. Through it all, a consistent view of war emerges, which is radical and challenging,...

Forming new habits sounds like a very mundane issue, hardly one we expect to see in the pages of A Course in Miracles , yet the Course mentions "habit" or "habits" seventeen times. Out of these references, a fascinating pattern emerges of why we need new habits, what new habits we should form, and how we form them. One of the most striking things is that three habits in particular are mentioned ag...