1. Specialness is a lack of trust in anyone except yourself. ²Faith is invested in yourself alone. ³Everything else becomes your enemy; feared and attacked, deadly and dangerous, hated and worthy only of destruction. ⁴Whatever gentleness it offers is but deception, but its hate is real. ⁵In danger of destruction it must kill, and you are drawn to it to kill it first. ⁶And such is guilt’s attraction. ⁷Here is death enthroned as savior; crucifixion is now redemption, and salvation can only mean destruction of the world, except yourself.

2. What could the purpose of the body be but specialness? ²And it is this that makes it frail and helpless in its own defense. ³It was conceived to make you frail and helpless. ⁴The goal of separation is its curse. ⁵Yet bodies have no goal. ⁶Purpose is of the mind. ⁷And minds can change as they desire. ⁸What they are, and all their attributes, they cannot change. ⁹But what they hold as purpose can be changed, and body states must shift accordingly. ¹⁰Of itself the body can do nothing. ¹¹See it as means to hurt, and it is hurt. ¹²See it as means to heal, and it is healed.

3. You can but hurt yourself. ²This has been oft repeated, but is difficult to grasp as yet. ³To minds intent on specialness it is impossible. ⁴Yet to those who wish to heal and not attack, it is quite obvious. ⁵The purpose of attack is in the mind, and its effects are felt but where it is. ⁶Nor is the mind limited; so must it be that harmful purpose hurts the mind as one. ⁷Nothing could make less sense to specialness. ⁸Nothing could make more sense to miracles. ⁹For miracles are merely change of purpose from hurt to healing. ¹⁰This shift in purpose does “endanger” specialness, but only in the sense that all illusions are “threatened” by the truth. ¹¹They will not stand before it. ¹²Yet what comfort has ever been in them, that you would keep the gift your Father asks from Him, and give it there instead? ¹³Given to Him, the universe is yours. ¹⁴Offered to them, no gifts can be returned. ¹⁵What you have given specialness has left you bankrupt and your treasure house barren and empty, with an open door inviting everything that would disturb your peace to enter and destroy.

4. Earlier I said consider not the means by which salvation is attained, nor how to reach it. ²But do consider, and consider well, whether it is your wish that you might see your brother sinless. ³To specialness the answer must be “no.” ⁴A sinless brother is its enemy, while sin, if it were possible, would be its friend. ⁵Your brother’s sin would justify itself, and give it meaning that the truth denies. ⁶All that is real proclaims his sinlessness. ⁷All that is false proclaims his sins as real. ⁸If he is sinful, then is your reality not real, but just a dream of specialness that lasts an instant, crumbling into dust.

5. Do not defend this senseless dream, in which God is bereft of what He loves, and you remain beyond salvation. ²Only this is certain in this shifting world that has no meaning in reality: When peace is not with you entirely, and when you suffer pain of any kind, you have beheld some sin within your brother, and have rejoiced at what you thought was there. ³Your specialness seemed safe because of it. ⁴And thus you saved what you appointed to be your savior, and crucified the one whom God has given you instead. ⁵So are you bound with him, for you are one. ⁶And so is specialness his “enemy,” and yours as well.