1. What would you see without the fear of death? ²What would you feel and think if death held no attraction for you? ³Very simply, you would remember your Father. ⁴The Creator of life, the Source of everything that lives, the Father of the universe and of the universe of universes, and of everything that lies even beyond them would you remember. ⁵And as this memory rises in your mind, peace must still surmount a final obstacle, after which is salvation completed, and the Son of God entirely restored to sanity. ⁶For here your world does end.

2. The fourth obstacle to be surmounted hangs like a heavy veil before the face of Christ. ²Yet as His face rises beyond it, shining with joy because He is in His Father’s Love, peace will lightly brush the veil aside and run to meet Him, and to join with Him at last. ³For this dark veil, which seems to make the face of Christ Himself like to a leper’s, and the bright Rays of His Father’s Love that light His face with glory appear as streams of blood, fades in the blazing light beyond it when the fear of death is gone.

3. This is the darkest veil, upheld by the belief in death and protected by its attraction. ²The dedication to death and to its sovereignty is but the solemn vow, the promise made in secret to the ego never to lift this veil, not to approach it, nor even to suspect that it is there. ³This is the secret bargain made with the ego to keep what lies beyond the veil forever blotted out and unremembered. ⁴Here is your promise never to allow union to call you out of separation; the great amnesia in which the memory of God seems quite forgotten; the cleavage of your Self from you;—the fear of God, the final step in your dissociation.

4. See how the belief in death would seem to “save” you. ²For if this were gone, what could you fear but life? ³It is the attraction of death that makes life seem to be ugly, cruel and tyrannical. ⁴You are no more afraid of death than of the ego. ⁵These are your chosen friends. ⁶For in your secret alliance with them you have agreed never to let the fear of God be lifted, so you could look upon the face of Christ and join Him in His Father.

5. Every obstacle that peace must flow across is surmounted in just the same way; the fear that raised it yields to the love beyond, and so the fear is gone. ²And so it is with this. ³The desire to get rid of peace and drive the Holy Spirit from you fades in the presence of the quiet recognition that you love Him. ⁴The exaltation of the body is given up in favor of the spirit, which you love as you could never love the body. ⁵And the appeal of death is lost forever as love’s attraction stirs and calls to you. ⁶From beyond each of the obstacles to love, Love Itself has called. ⁷And each has been surmounted by the power of the attraction of what lies beyond. ⁸Your wanting fear seemed to be holding them in place. ⁹Yet when you heard the Voice of Love beyond them, you answered and they disappeared.

6. And now you stand in terror before what you swore never to look upon. ²Your eyes look down, remembering your promise to your “friends.” ³The “loveliness” of sin, the delicate appeal of guilt, the “holy” waxen image of death, and the fear of vengeance of the ego you swore in blood not to desert, all rise and bid you not to raise your eyes. ⁴For you realize that if you look on this and let the veil be lifted, they will be gone forever. ⁵All of your “friends,” your “protectors” and your “home” will vanish. ⁶Nothing that you remember now will you remember.

7. It seems to you the world will utterly abandon you if you but raise your eyes. ²Yet all that will occur is you will leave the world forever. ³This is the re-establishment of your will. ⁴Look upon it, open-eyed, and you will nevermore believe that you are at the mercy of things beyond you, forces you cannot control, and thoughts that come to you against your will. ⁵It is your will to look on this. ⁶No mad desire, no trivial impulse to forget again, no stab of fear nor the cold sweat of seeming death can stand against your will. ⁷For what attracts you from beyond the veil is also deep within you, unseparated from it and completely one.