More On GIVING UP ILLNESS AND NOT RECOGNIZING DEATH THRU ACIM

That last transcript was so profound I'm eternally grateful to whoever took the time to produce it. Spirit seems intent of spreading this information further so I'm happy to post more in the series. I truly hope it affects you as profoundly as I.

Love and blessings,

Dean

GIVING UP ILLNESS AND NOT RECOGNIZING DEATH THRU ACIM.
David R. Hawkins, M.D., Dan McGrew, and Saul Steinberg
June 11, 1983
presented by "The Bridgebuilders"
Coleman Graphics, 99 Milburn Blvd, Farmingdale, N.Y.

Tape 1, Side A
Dr. David Hawkins Speaking

Good Morning.

It's a delightful day in a delightful city. .with a delightful audience. .a delightful subject and delightful host. [laughter] We don't have much to complain about. We even have plenty of "Sweet n Lows" for our coffee. So you can see . . I'm a health freak. [more laughter] . . Well, I gave up all my bad addictions and I just keep the good ones . .

We want to talk today about the aspects of self-healing. Of course we belong to several organizations here. How many friends of "Bill Wilson" do we have here? Oh wow. That's wonderful. So we have several organizations here all at the same time. And that makes a wonderful opportunity to speak from any different direction simultaneously. How many here have seen kinesiology demonstrated? (show of hands) I see most of you are not familiar with it.

So today we're going to demonstrate the effectiveness of A Course In Miracles which can be demonstrated scientifically as well as experientially and by observation of the effects of the Course on other people. And one scientific method I studied was Kinesiology.

Kinesiology is very neat because you can test the affect of things instantly right on the spot and tell what the effect of it is on yourself and your level of consciousness. And there was an experiment we did in Sedona. We started A Course In Miracles there in about 1979-80 somewhere round that time, I believe it was 1980. And what we did was, we had 125 people in the classes and what we did is we tested everyone in the class before they started the Course In Miracles and then we re-tested them again when they got to about Lesson 90.

And we were able to demonstrate a very powerful effect using a scientific method that there was indeed a profound change in the level of consciousness. A change in one's susceptibility to supposedly negative things in your environment. These are all supposedly negative things in your environment [points to items displayed on a table near the podium]. And to the average person who hasn't taken A Course In Miracles, frankly I would advise against all of them. [laughter] However, after you've taken A Course In Miracles, all these things will now have a totally different affect, in that they will have no affect.

To the average person, these have an affect because there are heavily associated belief systems that go with them. All these things are heavily advertised. And the "health people" make numerous proclamations about the effect of all these things on our health.

So, today we're going to demonstrate that that is not so. That what has affect on your health is what you are holding in mind. And you'll remember the Lesson in the Course which says that we're subject only what we hold in mind and to nothing else. So, the effect of these things on the podium then depends on what we're holding in mind about them, and not on the things themselves.

These things in and of themselves are innert. They're nothing. They're nothing at all. But what I think about them will have a profound affect on what their effect will be on my body.

So today we're going to demonstrate that. And we'll demonstrate it in a way I think you'll find interesting and sorta fun. And that's why I brought all these "Sweet n Lows" which we'll pass around now so we'll have them when we need them when we get to that point in the lecture. Let's pass one to every other person.

I first discovered this phenomena on Long Island with a friend of mine, I was to give a lecture to a Miracles class that night on Kinesiology and we needed a subject. So I was in the Miracles' Office--we have an Attitudinal Healing Center at the clinic in Long Island. It was started by the Long Island Miracles group and I needed a subject--a naïve subject to demonstrate the supposed negative effect of these items and there were a bunch of "Miracles people" hanging out in the office. So I grabbed one of them and I said, "Come on over here for a second, I want to test you with kinesiology--maybe I can use you tonight."

When I tested the person, he didn't go weak. So I grabbed the next person in the office, and said, "Here, let me try you" so I tried the next person and again, that person did not go weak under the influence of the supposed negative substance. I then ran thru everybody in the office and nobody went weak under these substances. Then a friend of mine, who had just started the Course In Miracles; was up to about Lesson 69, or 70, he wandered in, (a good friend of mine who was with me from Sedona: Randy). So I said, "Randy, come over here a second, so I tested him with kinesiology and using something like "Sweet n Low", he instantly went weak.

Ahh. . now at least I had a subject for the night of the lecture. But by the time the lecture came around (it was about ten days later), he was now up to about Lesson 85 or 90, I guess it was. So I grabbed Randy to use him as the demonstration subject but now he was powerfully strong. Couldn't use him as a subject either. So something had happened due to taking the Course In Miracles somewhere between Lesson 70, 75-80, around in there. I've never wanted to just specify the exact lesson. But somewhere in that general range, something happens to our level of consciousness that makes us immune to the things that affect ordinary people.

Somewhere around Lesson 75-80, around in there is the Lesson, that you are only subject to what you hold in mind. It would seem after all the years on the planet, when you believed the opposite, to spend one day on that lesson should have such a profound effect. Seems almost unreasonable.

So I've always assumed its due to the progression. Starting from Lesson 1 and going all the way to Lesson 85 or so, has a profound effect. In other words, I doubt just picking out the one critical lesson and working on that would have the same effect. There's something about the fact that we chose this Course. That we were led to this Course. There must be a certain readiness that saw to it that this Course came into our life. So that would be the first thing. And then we went thru Lesson 1 up to whatever Lesson it is where that critical change takes place.

So today I want to demonstrate just plain ordinary Kinesiology to familiarize you with the technique itself. (prints word on chalk board)

Now Kinesiology is testing for muscle strength. What we usually use is the deltoid muscle by having the person hold their arm out to the side. However, the effect that you see is also affecting all the muscles in the body. The entire body is going to be affected the way the deltoid muscle is--we can't test all the muscles at one time so we'll just use the deltoid muscle to demonstrate.

[example is given with a volunteer, holds arm out and resists having arm pushed down and remains strong. Then, subject holds "Sweet n low" substance in one hand while using opposite arm holding it straight out to side and when pushed with two fingers, it goes weak. After demonstration, everyone practices with a partner. He emphasizes just two fingers is a normal pressure to apply].

The main thing I want to demonstrate with Kinesiology is not so much the effect of physical things in our environment, but the effect of thoughts we may have.

[And so he repeats demonstration first with having subject think positive thoughts and then negative thoughts and then has everyone in the group do the same with much surprise and awe articulated at the accuracy of the test]

OKay. So we have two different belief systems. The mind is so powerful, it will overpower everything you see. The belief that "this" (holds up Sweet n Low) will make you weak, will make you weak. The belief you are immune to anything except what you hold in mind will make this ineffectual. It has no affect on somebody who has transcended that thought.

Using Kinesiology then, you can demonstrate the truth of that Lesson that says we're subject only to what we hold in mind. This means that we are in danger nowhere in the universe except everwhere (laughs) unless we've taken A Course In Miracles.

So if you haven't taken the Course, you're in danger everywhere. . right? (more laughter)
Once you've taken the Course, this great profound lesson--its one of the major lessons to me, in the Course--is that your subject only to what you hold in consciousness. Therefore, by looking at your life, you can tell what you're holding in consciousness.

You look at your life, it's quite obvious what you're holding in consciousness. Because what's manifesting in your life is what you've been believing. If you want something different to manifest in your life, all we have to do is change our belief system. And of course, the Course is a magnificent Course in doing just that--in changing our thought systems.

As we were saying this morning at breakfast, until you get rid of your mind, the best thing you can do is correct it. (laughter) Eventually you see the mind is also a belief system and you let it go. But, until you do . . I love this book: You're Mind can Drive you Crazy. (more laughter) So literally that's what it is then, its our mind that drives us crazy. It's not anything in our environment, its not what anybody else does or thinks or says. Its what we, ourselves, are holding in mind. That means that we can correct it. That means that we can heal any condition of the human body.

It's my belief, and my clinical experience that you can heal anything, any illness; any problem of the human body by strictly following the Course's principles and applying them in a consistent manner.

Some things alleviate instantly and other things take a little time I suppose, depending upon so many different factors. I myself had just about every ailment in the textbook. When I went thru medical school, I imagined I had all these ailments (laughter) that we studied, I imagined I had it. I had medical studentitis. (more laughter) We got everything we were holding in mind.

But then, after coming into the Course In Miracles, all the ailments that I had, by that I mean, in medical school I imagined I had'em, by the time I was fifty, I actually had them. That’s the only difference. By fifty all the things that I thought I had in medical school, I actually had.

I had so many ailments by the time I got to A Course In Miracles that I can't remember them all. And I used to carry a 3 x 5 card covered on both sides with all the ailments I had at the same time. Now what I can remember of all them, starting from top to bottom: from dandruff to athelete's feet, hitting everything in between: I had an active duadenal ulcer, I had soffagitis and bronchitus. I had diverticulitus. I had gout, elevated cholesteral and I had severe hypoglycemia. I had migraine headaches. I had a whole variety of bizzare diseases not too familiar to the public leading to gangrene of the fingertips, rheno's disease, vibration disease, impaired circulation. I had a middle-age syndrome--at age fifty I was cold, male menopausal--was cold all the time; libido disappeared--forget it, my hair was falling out. I wore bifocals and we were going to trifocals at the time I came onto the Course. We were advancing from bifocals to trifocals. Uhh, I had all kinds of alergies, poisen ivy, for instance, I had it every year, in fact I had poisen ivy so bad I've been in the hospital twice with it. Severe migrain headaches which really impaired my functioning.

In the world I was very successful. The world saw that really I had achieved the ultimate. I had one of the largest practices in the United States--I had fifty employees, I had a huge clinic, I had a staggering hospital practice, I had a magnificent estate on Long Island; I had an apartment on 5th Avenue; a fleet of cars and household help. I had the world the way everyone would like to have the world because they imagine that would bring them happiness. (laughter)

I was happy, you might say, if I could eat something. Can you imagine going into a restaurant with this variety of diseases--often looking at the menu and the only thing I could have was the lettuce and the carrots. (laughter) I gave up going to friends houses for dinner because I would look on their menu for dinner and there was nothing there I could eat. Italian food with tomatoe sauce . . forget it. Pasta . . forget it with hypoglycimia. Desert .forget it. Strawberries? No. . they have little seeds in them--diverticulitus, you see.
.
Couldn't eat poppy seeds, couldn't eat starch, couldn't eat rolls, couldn't eat sugared foods, couldn't eat meats couldn't eat bread. Because of the gout all those things were trouble, and with the elevated cholesterol, forget butter and seasonings. I eliminated one class of foodstuffs after another and then with the allergies that were left which cancelled things like milk and all, I really ate very little and so I was quite thin at the time (laughter) No caffeine of course and I didn't drink coffee for fifteen years. And then I started the Course In Miracles.

I'd also had a severe tragedy in my family life and was quite depressed on top of all of that. Who wouldn't be with all those ailments anyway [laughter] and a loss of a family member is of course another severe disruption in one's life . the disruption of the family and a marriage of many years also. So all this was happening at the same time. External causes for depression; internal causes--enough unconscious guilt to kill a horse, and uh, all that unconscious guilt manifesting itself through all these ailments.

Well, I was at the Monroe Institute in Virginia taking a course on Astral projection, you know, going out of body at will--it was a ten day training course and while I was down there, just before I left, somebody mentioned A Course In Miracles. All he said to me was, "By the way, when you get back home, look up the Course In Miracles" which I'd never heard about. This was in 1977. Well, I found out it was published by the Foundation for Inner Peace and I wrote them in California and the next day I got a set of books from Saul's (Steinberg) publishing house in Long Island and I began doing the Workbook on my own.

I knew nothing about metaphysics, consciousness, all this was all strange new territory. I was a left-brained scientist; a skeptic! Right-brained phenomena to me was airy-fairy and bizzarre and. . uh. . unnatural (laughter). And of course, unscientific. So, I was a scientist, a skeptic and a clinician. Also I was a pragmatist and I still am to this day. I only believe what I see, witness or experience myself. And I was never too impressed by "booklearning."
So, here's this skeptical pragmatist with all these ailments and life is collapsing around him and he came upon something called A Course In Miracles.

Well, the effect of the Course was spectacular. Within ninety days, the Depression disappeared. And then, as I got further into the Course, all these ailments began to disappear. One by one . . every single one of them has eliminated itself. The hypoglycemia disappeared--I had it really severe, so severely I couldn't get off the couch, in fact, nor could I drive home the day I had the five-hour glucose tolerance test but I did have hypoglycemia.

In hypoglycemia, what I cancelled was the belief system. I turned it over to God and asked for a miracle. And, the hypoglycemia disappeared. I had cervical Arthritis and impairment of the vertebrae in the neck and that triggers a lot of headaches -- in between the migraines, I just had ordinary headaches. (laughter) with cervical Arthritis and a displaced 4th cervical vertebrae which showed up on X-ray -- its supposed to be lined up neat in a curve, and this showed it was waaaay out. It was supposedly impinging on nerves and triggering reflex headaches. I had cervical Arthritis so bad I went to the chiropractor two or three times a week regularly. I had my standing appointments at the chiropractor to keep my neck from twisting too badly. And, so that's the kind of life I lived. Staggering from day to day.

When the cervical arthritis disappeared, the X-rays showed the vertebrae had gone back into place. Now I haven't seen a chiropractor in quite some time. So without any particular treatment except disco dancing, which I recommend for curing conditions of that kind, I found in disco dancing, I could feel the vertebrae beginning to snap back into place. Also I didn't dance, you see that was something else I did after I got in A Course In Miracles. That's right . . another condition I forgot: non-dancing was another condition I came across. In our society, you had to dance once in awhile, and I hated dancing. I avoided weddings and all because the women would grab you by the arm and say "c'mon, let's dance" Aw Gawd I hated it. So that's another miracle I forgot about: Dancing.

Well, I recommend disco dancing plus A Course In Miracles to cure cervical arthritis and scoliosis and all those things that affect the spine. Because the spine cured itself and of course, the gout disappeared. I remembered the day the gout disappeared. All these illnesses were beginning to disappear. Some days I would just wake up in the morning knowing they were gone. I would just wake up knowing it. It had nothing to do with thinking, figuring or reasoning. I just woke up as though it had happened and I just knew it was now gone.

But I had a cat. I was out in Sedona and the cat was sortof a finicky eater. So I bought him some liver and kidneys. And I cut it up raw and he stuck his nose up at it. Some cat, he doesn't like raw kidney . . So I thought I know what. . he wants them fried. So I fried his liver and kidneys with onions and I put in lots of catnip. [laughter] Well, I love liver and kidneys and things like that, you know, with an English background, a bacon and kidney pie to me is heaven. So, here are these delicious smelling livers and kidneys frying away with onions and I finally got the cat's dinner ready . . and he stuck his nose up at it. And wouldn't eat the fried liver and kidneys either. So I'm standing there looking at this frying pan full of this concoction, and in an instant I knew that gout was a figment of my imagination. In that instant I cancelled gout and I ate half the frying pan of liver and kidneys. [laugher]

And the next day finished them. So the cat didn't like them, but I did. So that was the cure of the gout. His kidney and liver dinner was my gout cure.

And then one morning I woke up and I suddenly knew I was immune to poison ivy. In fact I had a program I had to do that day. So I went outside and where I lived on Long Island was full of poison ivy and I dug up a potfull and put it in a pot, and played with it. As a matter of fact I took pot of poison ivy with me to the program. And someone said, "don't get that near me" (laughter). But you see, even the name "poison ivy" -- the minute I tell you, "poison ivy" you've got a program that says this ivy is poison In the name itself, is the program. Naturally, if someone tells you "this is poison ivy and it causes an itchy rash, well that's what you're gonna do. You're gonna get an itchy rash. So anyway, I was suddenly immune to poison ivy.

I had migraines so severe that once in awhile just had to be driven home. I drove to the hospital, I had a very large practice, I'd see 25-35 patients every morning and they would use insect spray only on Friday afternoons after I'd left the hospital. I was so sensitive to insecticide that if they'd sprayed this room, within a week, I'd get a migraine headache. And I could tell a migraine was coming on because of certain (snaps fingers) clicks on in the brain. You get a whiff of that and once you're sensitive to a thing, you can pick up one part in a million. If they sprayed this room, within a week I would instantly tell you there's been insect spray here. I still have that sensitivity and there's been no insect spray in here by the way.

One time at the hospital they made a mistake and they sprayed on a Wednesday morning. And I walked into the hospital and I got one whiff, that's all it took, one whiff, I felt the click and the migraine was so overpowering, my bloodpressure dropped, my pulse went way down, I became very pale and they actually had to drive me home in a limosine. I couldn't see the patients that day. That's how severe the migraine was.

So one day, I went to visit a friend in Sedona, I had been doing the Course for about two years at the time, in fact I was teaching it in Sedona, I went to visit this friend and I sat on the porch . . I then went up to the front door and knocked on the screen door and Kathryn came to the door and as she opened the door I smelled this terrific smell of insecticide. In Sedona, the houses are sprayed once a week. Anyway, the smell was overwhelming. And so I prayed and I backed away from the door and I said, "Oh Kathryn, I can't come in, I'm allergic to that stuff -- let's sit on the porch. So we sat on the porch and as we were sitting on the porch, all of a sudden I got a message in my mind telling me I was immune to it.

Again, it had nothing to do with thinking or reasoning or figuring anything out. I just in one instant knew that I was immune to whatever that was. But I still was afraid to go in. Because a migraine is pretty severe--just the fear of that pain. So I was afraid to go into the house. Anyway, this voice in my mind seemed to be rather insistent about it, that I go in. So, despite the fear, I had faith in the Voice. So I said, "Well, Kathyrn, I used to be allergic to this stuff, why don't we go inside." (laugher) I went inside and I breathed this powerful fume very deeply and I breathed it with no anxiety and I knew that I was immune. And, there was no migraine headache, no clicks, nothing. Also, as an aside, the other thing that happened was, I also got from this same Voice that it was important to experience this because "Now you know you're also immune to radioactivity." As though that's a necessary thing to know regarding the future.

By having this experience, I was so profoundly convinced that you are only subject to what you hold in mind, that I also knew the same holds for, no matter what it is, in the outer world. Doesn't make any difference . . whether it's Sweet n Low" whether it's caffeine, or it's poison ivy, whether its smoke or whether it's radioactivity. Same Lesson. All the same.

You're either subject to all of them, or your subject to none of them. There's no order of gradation as you know, in Miracles, its all or none. You're either subject to all of it, or you're subject to none of it. Being subject to none of it, radioactivity to me then would be just another aspect, another form of the One energy of the Universe. And I frankly expect to get high on it should it ever come around. (laughter)

Sedona is a very interesting community, its unlike any community I've ever experienced. Everybody in Sedona is psychic, telepathic, metaphysical healers. [laughter]. There is no such thing as a private thought in Sedona, forget it. [more laughter] Your thoughts, where you're at, what you're going thru, the lessons you are learning are known by everyone. We all pitch in together you know. . on the innerplanes, we constantly support each other. We all know what lessons our brothers are struggling with and everyone in town knows it, and everyone is sending you all the support in the world to make that next leap in consciousness that you're working on. Very unusual community. And it seems to attract people of that type.

I just met some new people last week and she said "guess what I do" and I said, "I don't need to guess" [laugher] I already know what you do. I already saw a peek in advance as she was telling. Ahhh yes, strange community. [more laughter].

So anyway, these ailments began to disappear one by one. The allergies disappeared. The diverticulitus took a little longer. It took maybe a year. I kept cancelling the idea. The diverticulitus is a belief system. All these things are belief systems. We're heavily programmed by television and the media to believe in them--the medical profession of course, I used to program people into believing these things and in so doing, of course, I programmed myself into believing these things.

Overcoming these belief systems sometimes takes some conscious effort. You ask for a miracle, you cancel the belief, you can picture it as something on a blackboard--you can write whatever ailments you've got on the blackboard in your mind--you erase it, and you ask for a miracle. And of course in the mean time, you're busy with the work of forgiveness. Your working on your willingness to forgive. Because the unconscious guilt, of course is what brings the illness, is what makes the illness manifest.

The form of the illness is usually from some chance remark. For example: "It runs in our family--we Williamses are all allergic." To a three-year old, that is already a program. All he has to do is hear it once . ."Everybody in our family is allergic!" Being a good kid, he cooperates. He immediately becomes allergic. [laughter] afterall he's one of the family. You think he wants to feel separated--the only kid without allergies in the family? [more laughter]

Allergies are very programmable. In fact I've never seen an allergy that wasn't just a program. There is no such thing as an allergy that can't be eliminated by the Course In Miracles. All the allergies disappeared. The diverticulitus disappeared. The ulcer disappeared. The hyperacidity disappeared -- let's see I forgot the whole part of the gastrointestinal tract didn't I -- well that's the delicate part [laughter] There were some delicate problems also going down the GI tract going into the other -- in fact these structural problems were scheduled for surgery. And taking the Course and eliminating the beliefs,, those structural changes which are supposedly only healed by surgery also cleared up. So from one end of the gastrointestinal tract to the other, everything cured.

I also had the belief system that smoking gives you smoker's cough, right? One day I was coughing as usual, from cigarettes, and it suddenly hit me -- I saw the advertisement about T-zone for smoker's cough remedy, etc. So, I had my choice, either give up smoking or give up the belief system in coughing [laughter] as they had these injurious affects on your life. So I said (to myself) which would I rather do? So I gave up the idea that cigarettes had an injurious effect on your health and the smoker's "hack" disappeared.

So this is the way we let one thing go after another. One day I was in a class and I was talking about getting rid of all these ailments, how the Course had eliminated all these ailments, from athlete's foot to the middle-age syndrome and all these things and going down my disease list as usual, and one lady in the class said, "well, if you got rid of all those things then, how can you still wear glasses? So, I had never thought of that myself, I'd never thought of glasses as an ailment, I'd only always thought of structural defects of the body; eyeballs too long or too short--I forget which [huge laughter] whatever it is . its some structural, anatomical impairment of the eyeball, the lens. . something . I don't know, who cares about it.

So anyway, I had worn glasses my entire life since I was a child. and as I said, they were getting stronger and in middle age, both of your eyes get worse, so mine did, [laughter] I had to get new lenses every six months. As I said we went from reading glasses to bi-focals and now we were about to hit tri-focals and so, because this lady had said that, I said, "Well, I had never thought of that to tell you the truth, I never thought of wearing glasses as some kind of impairment" But in an instant, I suddenly saw it was a whole belief system.

So I took my glasses off and I put them in my pocket and that was about 1980-81 somewhere in there and I've never put them on since. Well, it was an interesting experience. It was an interesting experience . . because I put the glasses away. for some peculiar reason I never put them on . . and as I walked out of the class that night I couldn't see anything. [huge laughter] That was the first problem of not wearing glasses, was not being able to see . [more laughter] . . between nearsightedness, farsightedness and astigmatism all in one bag, I could barely see my hand in front of my face.

I remember walking out and not being able to see the car . . but I remembered where the car was. . and by feel . .I went ahead and got in and then a peculiar phenomena began to happen. I could see only what I needed to see. I couldn't see what I wanted to see. I could only see what I needed to see and I could only see it when I needed to see it. Not beforehand. I noticed as I got in the car I could see where to put the key. I noticed that I could see what I needed to see to drive. I could see the curve just when I needed to see the curve. But not any sooner.

Now, Sedona is in the mountains. [laughter] And there's thousand-foot drop-offs from these "switchbacks" [huge laughter] . .now here I'm driving around the mountains and I was frightened. frightened. Simply just to walk around without your glasses alone, if you've never worn glasses, you probably wouldn't know what to do. But you develop an unconscious dependency on these glasses -- just to walk around without your glasses is already frightening. Then you top it off without not being able to see it becomes doubly frightening. And then you're trying to drive on top of it . [laughter]

But I noticed, that as I got to the edge of the cliff, for instance, I would see the curve just in time to. .to not go off the cliff. Several times we came very close [huge laughter] Couple times we came within an inch of going off the cliff. So as I say, there is no order of difficulty in miracles -- an inch is as good as a mile [laughter] To Spirit, an inch is a mile -- whats the difference! I didn't go off the cliff and that was all He was arranging. So I could see what I needed to see.

Well, its interesting as it was a very wonderful experience. I remember I couldn't read anything. I couldn't read the newspaper, I couldn't read Time Magazine. I could hardly see the picture on Time Magazine. Then Tuesday night came and it was going to be time for A Course In Miracles and I thought, "how am I going to read the Textbook?" Well, I went to class, I opened the book and I could read it as clear as day. And at the time I was also reading Ramano Marhashi, yogi. Rahmano Marhashi is very hard to get as its printed in India. Very often whats printed in India, the ink is very light. And it was small light print. And then I could read Ramano Marhashi with no difficulty. So I could read the Course In Miracles and I could read Ramono Marhashi and that was all. I could not read anything else. I couldn't even read a calendar.

I found out that 99 percent of seeing--looking, is ego. We look out of curiosity. We look for titilation. We look for erotic interest, for aesthetic amusement; for comical relief. We look for ten thousand reasons--all ego. Only about one second per minute do you have any real need to see anything. Because I could only see very little, I'd say I saw about four percent of what I usually saw. So the period went on, I can remember one night, I'm driving down the highway and not only couldn't I see thru the windshield very far, but it was raining. And it was pitch-black and there's no street lights in Sedona and I had to turn left at the Unity Church to go to class that night. So I'm going down the highway all of a sudden its raining and I couldn't see anything, so I had one moment of doubt. Up to this time I had only fear but no doubt. But in this second, I suddenly had doubt. And I said, "Well God are you I'm up to this?"

And since then I got in my mind that it was a lesson in faith and trust. A lesson in faith and trust. And no sooner did I get that message, then a truck appeared from the other side of the road and his headlights shown on the curb and I could see instantly where to turn left. It was like God just suddenly lit it up and said, "turn this way and I turned that way and there I was at the Unity Church. So it was just a constant series of miracles. And being able to see 3-4 percent of what you ordinarily saw.

By the end of six weeks, it was all right with me. I said, "Well God, if I'm only to see four percent of what I used to see, then that's the way its going to be." I'll just see what I need to see when I need to see it. Which is the way it goes with money too [laughter] I get the money I need only when I need it. No pay in advance [more laughter]. So after six weeks of this phenomena, the anxiety suddenly went away. And I just accepted that that was God's Will for me. And that would be the way my life would be. And I was perfectly comfortable with it. I stopped resisting it, I surrendered to it and it was perfectly alright.

And as soon as it was perfectly alright, one day I was standing in a friend's home and suddenly I could see everything perfectly. I now have better vision than people who never wore glasses. They ask me what the street sign says up a block ahead.

So, in that surrender, in that turning over one's will to God's Will -- the third step, I use the third step quite frequently as a form of applying A Course In Miracles. The third step and the Course, because they're almost the same. But by gradually letting go, and letting go of that much of ego in that particular area, a true miracle occurred.

Now whether the eyeball has changed or not, I have no idea. I know when I go for my driving test, and they give me the eye test, and I pass it. I used to have a driver's license that said I must wear glasses. Now my last two driver's license's I don't need glasses.

So under objective scientific testing with optical machines, I have perfect vision and 3-dimensional depth perception, color, everything is perfect. All the things that have been alleviated in myself I have scientific evidence. I have X-rays of the duodenal ulcer before and after. I have a normal X-ray showing no ulcer. I have X-rays of the neck before and after. I have my visual ability which holds up under testing. Before I couldn't see the optical machine -- they'd say come up here we want to test your eyes and I'd say, "Where?" [laughter] And so all these things are objectively, scientifically proveable. They're all of them obstacles, and they're all experiential.

Something happens when we take A Course In Miracles that allows these phenomena to go thru some profound change. Some of the changes have required actual alteration in the body's organic structure. First of all all these illnesses obviously took correction in the body's structure, some of them proven by X-ray there's been actual physiological-physical change. How can this be then? How can it be that what you hold in mind can literally change the physical structure of the body? Well, we'll go into that.

Before we leave, I want to mention one thing before we leave vision. That one thing I discovered--and it was revealed to me, was, that we do not see thru the body's eyes in the first place. This is a belief system. So heavily believed by everyone--actually, everyone on the planet, which is a powerfully supported belief system in thought, that it becomes practically so only because so many people believe it--because we all believe it. Literally, however, we see thru the mind. It’s the mind that sees. It actually bypasses the eyes and I saw it, and I remember also from several other experiences, when I was not in the body, that I saw physically.

I remember one time, about twenty years ago when I was dying of, I'll say, "Bill Wilson's disease" [laughter] I was in a rather severe advanced state and I was in this hospital and I was given up as hopeless by everyone. My case was so bad that my local group suggested that I try another group (AA) [huge laugher] which did not indicate a too hopeful prognosis. My psychoanalyst suggested that I not drive into the city anymore. So I was given up as pretty hopeless. This happened while I was in hell the last night. Hell also being a state of consciousness and a belief system. I was in hell for . . one characteristic of hell, if you may have been there, is that it is timeless. Just as the "top state" is timeless, the "bottom state" is also timeless. It went on for eons. There was no hope anywhere, ever under any circumstances and the mind was in total black despair.

No hope now or ever. That's the message you get in hell. Give up all hope as you pass thru these gates . . and it's not just a bit of poetry. One characteristic was, that it goes on forever without end. An infinity of agony and suffering.

In that state, all of a sudden, I found myself out of this body looking down at I'm in the bed. And I was about four feet over the bed and I look at "Dave up in the air here" and uh, geez he was a perfect replica of this Dave--body, everything was similar except he seemed to be of a much higher vibration. It was almost as though you could see thru this body. Almost like a holographic kind of a body. And I looked down, and there was Dave's body anyway, lying in this bed and he was a pretty bad-looking specimen, I'll tell ya [laughter] He didn't look like he was long for this world.

I looked at this pathetic creature lying in the bed and I realized that consciousness went with this body that was "up here" that it wasn't remaining with that body in the bed. That was a spontaneous occurrence. So I was being out of body, and I had no trouble at all in seeing. The eyeballs were in their socket laying in the body on the bed. And I was four feet above in another body, another sortof an energy body which suspended itself effortlessly in space.

In those days, I knew nothing about astral projection. I didn't know anything about emotional bodies or etheric bodies or anything. I thought there was just this body and that was the end. Since then I've learned quite a bit different. So this was a spontaneous out-of-body experience long before I ever read, "Journeys out of the Body" by Bob Monroe. And, there I was, without eyeballs but perfect vision. Perfect vision. Of course in dreams, you do the same thing. You go out of body, go tearing around the astral universes and you have no difficulty seeing. And before my vision returned to perfect, one time I was sitting on the patio and in one second, I had perfect vision. It only lasted a second, but in that second, I saw that I was seeing, like, beyond the eye, beyond the body. And of course, the same phenomena occurs with hearing.

(end of Side B, Tape 1)
continues on Tape 2
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