1. Anything in this world that you believe is good and valuable and worth striving for can hurt you, and will do so. ²Not because it has the power to hurt, but just because you have denied it is but an illusion, and made it real. ³And it is real to you. ⁴It is not nothing. ⁵And through its perceived reality has entered all the world of sick illusions. ⁶All belief in sin, in power of attack, in hurt and harm, in sacrifice and death, has come to you. ⁷For no one can make one illusion real, and still escape the rest. ⁸For who can choose to keep the ones that he prefers, and find the safety that the truth alone can give? ⁹Who can believe illusions are the same, and still maintain that even one is best?

2. Lead not your little life in solitude, with one illusion as your only friend. ²This is no friendship worthy of God’s Son, nor one with which he could remain content. ³Yet God has given him a better Friend, in Whom all power in earth and Heaven rests. ⁴The one illusion that you think is friend obscures His grace and majesty from you, and keeps His friendship and forgiveness from your welcoming embrace. ⁵Without Him you are friendless. ⁶Seek not another friend to take His place. ⁷There is no other friend. ⁸What God appointed has no substitute, for what illusion can replace the truth?

3. Who dwells with shadows is alone indeed, and loneliness is not the Will of God. ²Would you allow one shadow to usurp the throne that God appointed for your Friend, if you but realized its emptiness has left yours empty and unoccupied? ³Make no illusion friend, for if you do, it can but take the place of Him Whom God has called your Friend. ⁴And it is He Who is your only Friend in truth. ⁵He brings you gifts that are not of this world, and only He to Whom they have been given can make sure that you receive them. ⁶He will place them on your throne, when you make room for Him on His.