The quotations from the Course are given in the second edition format. Although we have presented only the first few words of relevant quote we do consider them very important and request that you look them up.
What Is It?

Magic, one of those words we use quite freely in our everyday life, receives a radical overhaul in its meaning as given in ACIM.

Magic is defined in the Oxford Dictionary as

magic –n. 1 a supposed art of influencing or controlling events supernaturally. b witchcraft. 2 conjuring tricks. 3 inexplicable influence. 4 enchanting quality or phenomenon. –adj. 1 of magic. 2 producing surprising results. 3 colloq. wonderful, exciting. –v. (-ck-) change or create by or as if by magic. like magic very rapidly. magic away cause to disappear as if by magic. [Greek magikos: related to *magus]

The first definition is how we perhaps traditionally think of magic, and although most of us believe in processes that fall under this definition we would probably hesitate to call them magic. The second definition is also quite familiar and also more readily accepted in relation to what we initially think of as magic in the Course. The third colloquial definition “wonderful, exciting” is perhaps one we would not probably consider as falling under the Course’s definition. However we would be wrong as this definition speaks of a major aspect of the ego’s attraction that we tend to dismiss due to its “pleasurable intoxication.”

So what is the Course’s definition of magic? Simply put, magic, according to the Course is

…the mindless or miscreative use of mind. T-2.V.2:1

Perhaps this definition seems distant from the dictionary’s, however as we look at it more closely we will see that the dictionary and the Course are in good agreement.

We can understand the Course’s definition in two ways.

First at a mundane level we experience magic (and our belief in it) in all our attempts to find solutions where they are not–in the level of form or effect rather than at the cause.

Secondly we can think of the “original magic” as representing the solution to the Son’s thought of separation–namely that it is real (reality has been changed) and is to be taken seriously and defended against. This gave rise to the ego and its solution (or mechanism) of denial and projection often described as the unholy trinity of sin, guilt and fear.

We are reminded in the Manual For Teachers that a teacher of God spends his day devoted to one thought :

There is no substitute for the Will of God. M-16.10:1

All else is but a recourse to magic for the first magic thought was that there was a substitute for God’s Will.

The original magic thought is thus played out in our lives as described in the final “law” of chaos:

…there is a substitute for love. T-23.II.12:4

This is the basis for all our relationships in this world. A magic solution to a problem of magic!

In summary then, magic is a term used to describe anything other than the Will of God, and the belief in anything flowing from that.

Of course there can be nothing other than the Will of God, and nothing can flow from nothing–in other words, magic is the belief in nothing. Thank God it is this realisation that will eventually deliver us from its “spell”.

What Is Its Purpose?

To Keep Us Mindless And Prevent Us Making The Only Choice

As we have said, magic is the belief in something other than God and our continued belief in it is evidence of our desire to maintain it.

We have been told that magic is a mindless use of the mind. This is simply another way of saying it is a way to keep us mindless, and by keeping us mindless we are kept away from the one place that does offer us an answer–our mind. Thus are we seemingly trapped in illusion looking to other illusions to address the problems and issues of still other illusions.

Magic is not only the belief in existence outside of the mind, it is also the belief that a power exists outside of the mind and can affect it.

see T-2.IV.2.:8

Thus magic serves to give reality to the physical universe and thus the body, our identification with that body, and, more importantly, the vulnerability of that body. It exists on both sides of the equation in that we employ it in our very efforts to protect that which needs no protection.

see T-2.IV.4:1

And so it becomes the ego’s ally, keeping us occupied in our mindless musings, focused on what appears outside our mind, whose home we have mistaken as the body. Thus does the ego keep us away from what it fears most, our realisation that it (the ego) exists only in our belief, and we can withdraw that belief at any time.

This is another way of saying that the purpose of magic is to prevent us from making the only real choice between our real condition as created by God and the appearances as made by the illusory thought of separation in the mind of God’s Son.

When we choose the miracle of letting go our judgements we open up to the possibility of allowing a new interpretation of people, situations and events into our mind; the Holy Spirit’s interpretation. As stated in Miracle Principle 14:

Miracles bear witness to truth. T-1.I.14:1

Miracles are powerful only because they reflect our true condition of power as the co-creator with the Source of All. They are convincing because they arise from conviction. When we forget this, and begin with the premise that we are separated from our Source, all that we think, do or say must necessarily deteriorate into magic.

One of the ways in which you can correct the magic-miracle confusion is to remember that you did not create yourself. You are apt to forget this when you become egocentric, and this puts you in a position where a belief in magic is virtually inevitable. Your will to create was given you by your Creator, Who was expressing the same Will in His creation. Since creative ability rests in the mind, everything you create is necessarily a matter of will. It also follows that whatever you alone make is real in your own sight, though not in the Mind of God. T-2.VIII.1:1-5

While we are engaged in holding onto reality as we see it and fixing it up as it seems to be, in the firm belief we can do this on our own, we are choosing against awakening to our true creative ability in God. Our attempts at solving problems on the level of form may be ingenious and clever, but the Course emphatically states that this is just a mindless, destructive and finally meaningless way to direct our energies. It is useless to change the world, rather we need to change our mind about the world.

To Protect Our Individuality

Inherent in our world view is that we are individuals placed in a world apart from us which we must accommodate to or somehow control. This world arose from the idea of separation and because ideas do not leave their source, separation is inherently and inextricably a part of all we experience.

Physical life as we know it becomes possible when one cell becomes two, all of us are so different physically, emotionally, psychologically; we all have such different talents, no two snowflakes are alike and so on and so on.

Separation, individuality, or as the Course describes it, specialness, seems to be the very fabric of what we are. It seems to be our existential starting point, the very air we breathe, so to speak. Whilst we are engaged in the attempt to minimise our suffering or to make harmony and equilibrium from the elements of the world, without questioning our fundamental self-concept, we are necessarily expressing magic principles. This is powerfully described in the pamphlet Psychotherapy: Purpose, Process And Practice.

Their [a patient's] aim is to be able to retain their self-concept exactly as it is, but without the suffering that it entails. Their whole equilibrium rests on the insane belief that this is possible. And because to the sane mind it is so clearly impossible, what they seek is magic. In illusions the impossible is easily accomplished, but only at the cost of making illusions true. The patient has already paid this price. Now he wants a “better” illusion. P-2.in.2:3-8

To Punish Ourselves

The Course teaches the ego uses sickness as a form of attack, a just punishment for the Son of God who has sinned by separating from and destroying his Source.

From beginning to end, the ego expresses the authority problem; it attempts to usurp all functions of God as it sees them.

The ego believes… T-5.V.5:6-9

This magical solution to the terror engendered by the wrath of the ego’s god can be seen not just in sickness but in all our efforts to hurt or diminish ourselves–self abasement, self-sacrifice and martyrdom. Finally, of course, we all pay the great price: death. Death, however, can be seen as the great magical triumph of the ego–it finally proves that God’s Son is not as God created Him. His individual death seems to prove that the oneness of Life is a lie”

And each [idol] will fail him… T-29.VII.3:2-4

How Is It Expressed?

To speak of magic in such broad terms perhaps belies its intimate permeation of our very being, at least what we experience as our being.

Let us look at some specific expressions of magic in our lives. Perhaps the best place to start is with the thought of salvation. The major manifestation of our belief in separation is the belief that salvation can be found “outside”.

Salvation is Outside Ourselves

We are “here”, apparently separate and distinct in a body in a physical realm, because we believe there is something to find or gain here. The very fact of being here therefore shows us that our whole orientation is already outside of what we truly are in the Mind of God.

No one who comes here but must still have hope, some lingering illusion, or some dream that there is something outside of himself that will bring happiness and peace to him. T-29.VII.2:1

Ideas do not leave their source, and we continue to look outside in a myriad of ways, seeking thousands of idols to give form and shape to the original idol–the thought that there could be something other than God and His Creation:

The lingering illusion will impel him to seek out a thousand idols, and to seek beyond them for a thousand more. T-29.VII.3:1

A sense of emptiness, incompletion, restlessness and the compulsion to seek are a part of our condition as separate selves. The magical belief is that next time I will find what I am looking for and it won’t fail me. The ego’s dictum, which it does not, however, tell us is,

Seek and do not find. (T-12.V.7:1)

While we continue to seek outside ourselves and our relationship to God, the illusion of separation and that it has something to offer is maintained.

Let us briefly look at some of these ways salvation can be seen outside ourselves.

In Another Person – A Healer Of Any Description

The ego’s laws are based on the perception of differences and inequality. In the context of healing, the healer is seen to have something the patient does not. Thus the one in need of healing has to go outside themselves in order to find healing. By implication the healing does not occur within, or at least, not without the magical intervention of the healer. The traditional role of the priest can also be seen to have this magical connotation.

…Magic always sees something “special”… T-7.V.4:3-5

True healing… S-3.III.3:4

In Some Substance – Medicine, Food, Potions

We have endowed the body with a false autonomy and given matter creative ability to manifest symptoms which are not of our choosing–or so it seems. Likewise we give certain foods, medications, potions etc. the power to give energy, maintain life, fill lacks, remedy illnesses etc. There is no hierarchy of illusions and these remedies are not more or less spiritual or “real” than another. All of them are forms of spells. As long as we remain firmly convinced that we did not make the body or the universe it inhabits, but rather are defined by them, our magical beliefs in the creative properties inherent in matter will remain. The Workbook highlights this with this quaint example:

…your idea of what seeing means is tied up with the body and its eyes and brain Thus you believe that you can change what you see by putting little bits of glass before your eyes. This is among the many magical beliefs that come from the conviction you are a body, and the body’s eyes can see. W-pI.92.1:3-5

And this is what it says of medicine:

You really think a small round pellet or some fluid pushed into your veins through a sharpened needle will ward off disease and death. W-pI.76.3:3

In “Laws” Of The World – Made, Natural, Spiritual

Natural laws we believe in include laws governing the physical and biological sphere; this is what the Course says of the central idea of the man-made law of economics:

You really think that you would starve unless you have stacks of green paper strips and piles of metal discs. W-pI.76.3:2

And the laws concerning human interaction:

You really think you are alone unless another body is with you. W-pI.76.3:4

Spiritual laws are equally insane:

Perhaps you even think that there are laws which set forth what is God’s and what is yours. Many “religions” have been based on this. They would not save but damn in Heaven’s name. W-pI.76.8:4-6

It is a little daunting to discover that the Course views as trivial and insane symbols not only all areas of human endeavour as represented by the hopes and aspirations of ordinary people, but also what seem to be the great areas of learning and achievement in human culture–physics, civics, economics, health, mythology and religion.

Of course, its vision, though total, is benign, and all we have made can be used for the only valid purpose of re-awakening to our reality as God’s Son [See "The Special Function" T-26.VI]. This can only be done, however, when we cease to use them as ends in themselves and treating them as if they reflect the truth of our condition. As Lesson 76 of the Workbook states: “I am under no laws but God’s.”

In Psychic Powers And Abilities

As the belief in any powers being inherent in the laws of the world are withdrawn, a last temptation may remain. This temptation becomes apparent to anyone who has travelled on the spiritual path for some time–that unusual or psychic powers and abilities represent an end in themselves and even suggest that the owner of these abilities is in some sense special. We are warned about this towards the end of the Manual For Teachers.

Even those who no longer value… M-25.5:1-4

As usual, the ego will use anything to glorify itself. When it uses unusual abilities however, they will no longer be dependable and deception will cloud them. Thus those abilities will increasingly become tricks of magic used to deceive.

Of these abilities, however, we are told:

Given to the Holy Spirit, and used under His direction, they are valuable teaching aids. M-25.3:2

Nothing that is genuine is used to deceive… M-25.4:1-4

There is however a more important reason as to why we should not see unusual abilities as representing a solution in themselves, which would be to think magically.

Our single purpose is to remember who we are, and it is that goal which needs to be the object of all our efforts here. To do otherwise would be to delay our progress, a delay…

…[that] does not matter in eternity, but it is tragic in time. T-5.VI.1:3

In Behaviour

Perhaps implied in much of what has been said is that salvation does not reside in behaving in a certain way or equally in not behaving in a certain way. To recall our earlier discussion, salvation is represented by the miracle of choosing against the illusions of the ego and coming back to our right mind. Thus, it could be said, the only behaviour which has anything at all to do with salvation is going back into our mind and choosing again.

The Course is wonderfully enigmatic but sometimes infuriating in the lack of credence it gives to behavioural precepts and its amoral stance that everything we have made is neutral in itself; it being the purpose to which we put it that determines whether or not we are moving towards or away from the light (an illusory process anyway; we are all already home in the Light!)

Yet for all its lofty non-dualism the Course is also very practical and the Workbook and Manual for Teachers in particular are filled with advice as to how we should proceed, given that we believe we are here in the first place. Refer to, for example, “How Should a Teacher of God Spend His Day?” (M-16)

The key to its view on behaviour and the role it should play in our life is perhaps seen in the way it describes routine and ritual:

Routines as such are dangerous, because they easily become gods in their own right, threatening the very goals for which they were set up. M-16.2:5

It is when what we do or not do becomes a god in its own right–an idol, that we have fallen into a trap expressing magic rather than miracle mindedness.

The very first lesson of the Workbook warns against doing the exercises in a “ritualistic” way. To treat a behaviour, for example, repeating a spiritual idea a certain number of times each hour, as if it represented your salvation, is once again to become mindless and thus remove oneself from the honest, simple and direct choice point represented by the holy instant. The purpose of the Course is to bring us back to our minds; ritualistic motivations and practices thus defeat its goal.

We understand, of course, … W-pI.rIII.in.2

For most Course students it seems to take a considerable time before they realise that this most lofty, elevated book, which speaks of and points to that which is beyond the farthest reaches our minds can reach, is actually calling us, in practice, to become increasingly simple, honest, natural and direct. It is our complicated egoic minds which would make of behaviours something essential or anathema, and it can easily use the Course to serve its ends. The Course would say, however, do what you do, but be mindful of which guide you are doing it with. Watch carefully the results which emanate from your choices. Eventually, finally, all of us will naturally and willingly choose against the ego. There is no need to invoke any magic behaviours to serve this end because the ontological truth is that our will is one with God’s and His purpose is ours. It is only a matter of time Before We All Realise That.

How Are Magic Thoughts Reacted To?

This is a slightly tricky question to answer in that it could imply there are isolated moments in which we experience a magic thought and, at that moment, are able to control our response. As we have made clear in our discussion up to this point, the very fact that we believe ourselves to be here in this world, is based on a magic thought. In other words our whole sense of being an individual in a body and all that goes with that sense, is a magic thought. That “who” we think we are, is a magic thought. And so we are actually reacting to magic thoughts all the time. We are confused and deceived in this in that according to the ego there is a hierarchy of illusions and so some magic is noticed and even desired, while most of it seems to go unnoticed, and thus it seems as if it was not there. This is the way for most of us, most of the time. We simply have no idea that we are believing in magic. Even when we study a thought system such as the Course which plainly sets out what magic is, do we fail to see how our belief in it permeates our very being.

The fact that we feel a need to eat, breathe and even sleep are examples of our unconscious belief in magic. Although we can elevate aspects of these unconscious beliefs into a conscious pattern. An example of this could be concern over diet, pollution, or sleeping patterns. Not that any of these elevations are wrong in and of themselves, it is just that we need be careful lest we place our salvation in them by believing that they are really real and have a real effect or, more importantly, real contribution to our ultimate salvation. Our very language cries magic. The last sentence contains the phrase “real contribution to our ultimate salvation” as if time itself is real and salvation is something we need obtain. This is one of the reasons theological discussion are fraught with difficulty, even the very language we use is “contaminated”. However as long as we keep these limitations in mind we can continue fruitfully.

So we can accept magic unconsciously, and also accept it consciously. We can also simply reject it. Yet, just as our acceptance of it can be expressed in two ways, so can our rejection. The first way would be to consciously reject it yet let it be. You could say this is the same as accepting it, but just believing it is not for you.
The final way of reacting to magic is to reject it and resist it. This is perhaps the way most of us would readily recognise. Yet is perhaps also one way that can be very carefully concealed behind apparently innocent and enlightened motives.
One could say that the entire Course presents a way whereby one learns to see one’s belief in magic and learns how to deal with it. However this final way of reacting to magic gets a special mention in the Manual for Teachers under the title “How Do God’s Teachers Deal With Magic Thoughts?” As the opening paragraph states:

This is a crucial question both for teacher and pupil. If this issue is mishandled, the teacher of God has hurt himself and has also attacked his pupil. This strengthens fear, and makes the magic seem quite real to both of them. How to deal with magic thus becomes a major lesson for the teacher of God to master. M-17.1:1-4

We are instructed right through the Course not to make the error real, and what is magic but an error.

You have been told not to make error real, and the way to do this is very simple. If you want to believe in error, you would have to make it real because it is not true. But truth is real in its own right, and to believe in truth you do not have to do anything. T-12.I.1:1-3

And here is the key, to not only what we should do, but how to recognise when we need to do it, for we are reminded in the Manual:

If a magic thought arouses anger in any form, God’s teacher can be sure that he is strengthening his own belief in sin and has condemned himself. M-17.1:6

Our response to anger is one of the keys to the Course process. We are told anger in any form is never justified. We are not told not to get angry, simply that the anger we feel is never justified. We are told in the Workbook that we are never upset for the reason we think, or in other words we never know why we are angry in the first place, so how can we possible justify it! Given that magic stands for any thought other than God’s Will, our anger to any thought other than God’s Will says quite plainly that we believe it is possible to have a thought separate from God’s Will. And so our anger , no matter how apparently justified, be the justification ethical, moral or spiritual, is actually a statement of belief in the basis of the very thought we actually think we are rejecting.

This is why the truth needs no defence. Why, as we read before, we do not need to do anything to believe in truth. For to do anything implies there is “not truth” and that “not truth” needs to be resisted.
How Should We Deal With Magic Thoughts?
Given that our whole apparent existence here in this world is based upon a magic thought the very first thing we are asked to do is simply recognise it.

Recognition though does not imply denial.

However, it is almost impossible to deny its [the body's] existence in this world…. T-2.IV.3:10-13

The last line of the above quote is very important and will be discussed a little later when we talk about some magic thoughts concerning the Course itself.

Anger is quite a powerful and emotive word. It describes a state of mind that we can all readily identify and understand. We’ve all been there! Perhaps that is one of the reasons Jesus uses it as a teaching device. As he says in the Manual:

God’s teachers’ major lesson is to learn how to react to magic thoughts wholly without anger. M-18.2:1

But as he often points out to us we are totally confused over pain and joy and he could just as easily have said that our major lesson is to learn how to react to magic wholly without emotion. How often have you felt good about getting angry? How often do we confuse our response to magic by having a desire to “help” and “do the right thing” and because this is not anger, fool ourselves into believing that we have avoided the trap. Any response to error that does not overlook it, reinforces it. Any response to error, that doesn’t come from the Holy Spirit, reinforces it. Any response to error that tries to do something about it, teaches you that the error is real.

Are we not to respond to anything in the world then? Hardly, for that would indeed be “engaging in a particularly unworthy form of denial.” Our being here is already a response. We are simply asked to be aware of our involvement, and with the Holy Spirit beside us, see it without judgement of any kind.
ACIM As Magic!

The Holy Spirit’s Function
Miracle mindedness rest firmly on the understanding that the only healing is to be found at the level of the mind, because the only problem, the belief in separation, is only a belief in the mind. As miracle principle #3 states”

The real miracle is the Love that inspires them. [miracles] T-1.1.3:2

Only what God created is real; what appears to be added in the mind of God’s Son is literally an illusion, dream or hallucination. It follows logically, therefore, that to seek for signs of God’s presence or the Holy Spirit’s in the machinations of the world is to look for them precisely where they are not. That is magic mindedness and is to be seen in the common misconception among Course students that the Holy Spirit fixes things for them in the world. As Keneth Wapnick so frequently points out, if the Holy Spirit were to function in the world He would have to believe in it and would therefore be as insane as us. He would also have to deem some outcomes as being more appropriate than others and therefore would be establishing the very hierarchy of illusion His teaching is meant to dispel. The Course teaches the only outcome the Holy Spirit seeks is to reinterpret all things we made through His eyes, so that we may finally let them go and return to being what we truly are. This has absolutely nothing to do with anything happening in the world. It has everything to do with how we see ourselves in the world, and it is that area alone which is the Holy Spirit’s focus.

Special Favours

Nor does the Holy Spirit deal in special favours, which is expressed by the magical belief that He will some how look after His students (in a material or physical sense) no matter what they do. Seeking special favours or attention is what got the Son of God into trouble in the first place! Thinking that they will be specially treated or exempted from consequences which all other face according to the “laws of the world” is to re-enact that original error. We made the world and therefore we believe in it, it is only us who can take responsibility for our beliefs and change our mind so that what was made to die can be restored to eternal life. To seek for special treatment for the one who appears to participate in the dream is to miss the mark completely on a number of counts.

It is to

1. Ignore the fact that forgiveness is not dependant on what happens in the world.

2. Presume that the one seeking favour actually exists and has real needs and wants which are different from those of others. (The error is made real!)

3. Believe that salvation exists in achieving certain outcomes apart from what is in one’s mind.

4. Believe that the Holy Spirit acknowledges and supports one’s own hierarchy of needs and wants. (You have a special or exclusive relationship with the Holy Spirit.)

To have any feeling that one is different because of one’s association with the Course is a sure sign that one has bought into magical beliefs hook line and sinker and that the ego’s thought system (no matter how holy it looks) has not been challenged in a fundamental way. The “me” that believes it is being taken care of in an ever shifting world is a figment in a dream. The solution is not to be found in any outcome in the dream; the solution is to wake up. To help us in that process is the Holy Spirit’s only purpose. The ego will always attempt to compromise or add just one more purpose. That effort is magic.

Final Word
It is perhaps apt we finish with a quote form the section “How Should a Teacher of God Spend His Day?” from the Manual for Teachers

“There is no will but God’s.” His teachers know that this is so, and have learned that everything but this is magic. All belief in magic is maintained by just one simple-minded illusion;–that it works. All through their training, every day and every hour, and even every minute and second, must God’s teachers learn to recognize the forms of magic and perceive their meaninglessness. Fear is withdrawn from them, and so they go. And thus the gate of Heaven is reopened, and its light can shine again on an untroubled mind. M-16.11:6-11 (emphasis ours)

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Miracle Studies Australia

12.03.06

Magic: What is it and how do we deal with it (Jul 18, 1997)

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