Publisher's Synopsis
A TEACHING MANUAL FOR ADVANCED STUDENTS OF A COURSE IN MIRACLES The six associated teaching manuals were all written to help a student digest the mountains of meaning found in this true religious revelation called MIRACLES. But keep in mind that nothing is going to make this course easy to grasp; after all, the aim of the course is to "reverse the thinking of the world entirely." However, this teaching manual is designed to shorten the time it takes to understand A COURSE IN MIRACLES by taking phrases, sentences, paragraphs, pages, and even sections from throughout the Course material and then re-arranging them in a teaching format that is designed to help readers more easily understand the text when taken out of its original context before the student studies the original. Therefore, central to the organization of this parti-cular manual is a focused effort to systematically define terms and spell out concepts in a step-by-step fashion rather than a "stream of consciousness" fashion, as the text may often appear to be written. In addition to these problems of organization, the text is written from such a lofty level that it continually strains the human mind to follow its labyrinthine thought processes, then put it all back together in an understandable body of teachings when that level of organization is not readily available--until this series of six teaching manuals took on the task. This manual is #4, meaning fourth most difficult. Because of the way the original text is written, it oftentimes assumes the reader already understands terms and concepts which it has not yet defined. This leads to much frustration, and it necessitates much study before a basic understanding of the text can be grasped. In order to offer a more simplified version to the reader as a "primer" to begin studying the concepts in MIRACLES before graduating to the original text, itself, this manual offers a "time-line" of basic concepts. This time-line defines the fundamental concepts of the Course one at a time in building-block fashion, using only terms and concepts whose definitions have already been established through the time-line. Once one term or concept has been defined, then this manual builds on that concept with another new concept, then another new concept, until a selected group of basic concepts has been presented in a more simplified, step-by-step progression than the original. Moreover, this manual is also offered for more experienced readers of the Course, who might have read MIRACLES over and over for years or even for decades without understanding its full impact because of the complex level from which the text is written and the lack of a truly effective organization and definition of terms. This level of difficulty presents concomitant challenges to the human mind to unlock its secrets while re-organizing it for easier understanding. This manual is designed to help solve that exact problem, so it could easily become a welcome simplification even for veterans of many years of study of the Course. The ultimate goal of these six manuals is to train you as a student to graduate to the original text of A COURSE IN MIRACLES, itself--like studying beginning math, intermediate math, and then advanced math. Each effort you make will be well worth your time and effort because of the importance of the teachings, but it is recommended to consider studying the text over your lifetime, just as people study the Bible all their lives in order to continually increase the depth of their understanding of its important teachings.
