Week 21, Lessons 138-144, Academy of the Workbook of A Course in Miracles, 5/24/25

What does self deception mean ?

3 Let us begin our preparation with some understanding of the many forms in which the lack of true forgiveness may be carefully concealed. ²Because they are illusions, they are not perceived to be but what they are: defenses which protect your unforgiving thoughts from being seen and recognized. ³Their purpose is to show you something else, and hold correction off through self-deception made to take its place.
☀️[CE W-Re.4.In.3]

1 What keeps the world in chains but your beliefs? ²And what can save the world except your Self? ³Belief is powerful indeed. ⁴The thoughts you hold are mighty, and illusions are as strong in their effects as is the truth.
☀️[CE W-132.1:1-4]

⁴You have enslaved the world with all your fears… and keep it a prisoner to your beliefs. ⁵Death strikes it everywhere because you hold the bitter thought of death within your mind.
☀️[CE W-132.3:4-5]

²For it is impossible to think of sin as true and not believe forgiveness is a lie.
☀️[CE W-134.4:2]

13 A healed mind is relieved from the belief that it must plan, although it cannot know the outcome that is best, the means by which it is achieved, or how to recognize the problem that the plan is made to solve.
☀️[CE W-135.13]

10 So do we lay aside our amulets, our charms and medicines, our chants and bits of magic in whatever form they take. ²We will be still and listen for the Voice of healing, Which will cure all ills as one, restoring saneness to the Son of God. ³No voice but this can cure. ⁴Today we hear a single Voice Which speaks to us of truth where all illusions end and peace returns to the eternal, quiet home of God.
☀️[CE W-140.10]

1 In this world Heaven is a choice, because here we believe there are alternatives to choose between. ²We think that all things have an opposite, and what we want we choose. ³If Heaven exists there must be hell as well, for contradiction is the way we make what we perceive and what we think is real. ⁴Creation knows no opposite, but here is opposition part of being “real.”
☀️[CE W-138.1]

10 The conscious choice of Heaven is as sure as is the ending of the fear of hell, when it is raised from its protecting shroud of unawareness and is brought to light. ²Who can decide between the clearly seen and the unrecognized?
☀️[CE W-138.10:1-2]

This is the ego’s thought system, which consists of the double shield of oblivion: The world is the external shield “protecting” us from the mind’s guilt; and the guilt is the internal shield “protecting” us from the mind’s love, which undoes our individuality and specialness. The point is to recognize the error, which is not in bodies, but in our minds, where truth resides as well.
☀️Ken Wapnick

3 To be alive and not to know yourself is to believe that you are really dead. ²For what is life except to be yourself, and what but you can be alive instead? [CE W-139.3:1-2]

⁶Nothing the world believes is true.
☀️[CE W-139.6:1-6]

5 It is for this denial that you need Atonement. ²Your denial made no change in what you are. ³But you have split your mind into what knows and does not know the truth. ⁴You are yourself. ⁵There is no doubt of this, and yet you doubt it. ⁶But you do not ask what part of you can really doubt yourself. ⁷It cannot really be a part of you that asks this question, for it asks of one who knows the answer. ⁸Were it part of you, uncertainty would be impossible.
☀️[CE W-139.5]

8 Today we seek to change our minds about the source of sickness, for we seek a cure for all illusions, not another shift among them. ²We will try today to find the source of healing, which is in our minds because our Father placed it there for us. ³It is no farther from us than ourselves. ⁴It is as near to us as our own thoughts, so close it is impossible to lose. ⁵We need but seek it, and it must be found.

9 We will not be misled today by what appears to us as sick. ²We go beyond appearances today and reach the source of healing, from which nothing is exempt.
☀️[CE W-140.8-9]

²Our only preparation is to let our interfering thoughts be laid aside, not separately, but all of them as one. ³They are the same. ⁴We have no need to make them different, and thus delay the time when we can hear our Father speak to us. ⁵We hear Him now. ⁶We come to Him today.
☀️[CE W-140.11:2-6]

=========================
How to donate:
The classes are freely given and payment is not required to attend.
Your donations are appreciated and helpful. Suggested donation $10-20 or more per class.

Donation methods:
Venmo: Brian Theard @teachonlylove
PayPal: [email protected], This is Brian Theard’s personal paypal account.

To avoid fees, when asked…
What’s it for? Enter something like - donation, gift, thank you, friendship or love!

Choose payment type, select “For friends and family”.
To send without a fee requires using a checking account, not credit card.
✨🤲✨