1. This is a course in miracles. ²As such, the laws of healing must be understood before the purpose of the course can be accomplished. ³Let us review the principles that we have covered, and arrange them in a way that summarizes all that must occur for healing to be possible. ⁴For when it once is possible it must occur.

2. All sickness comes from separation. ²When the separation is denied, it goes. ³For it is gone as soon as the idea that brought it has been healed, and been replaced by sanity. ⁴Sickness and sin are seen as consequence and cause, in a relationship kept hidden from awareness that it may be carefully preserved from reason’s light.

3. Guilt asks for punishment, and its request is granted. ²Not in truth, but in the world of shadows and illusions built on sin. ³The Son of God perceived what he would see because perception is a wish fulfilled. ⁴Perception changes, made to take the place of changeless knowledge. ⁵Yet is truth unchanged. ⁶It cannot be perceived, but only known. ⁷What is perceived takes many forms, but none has meaning. ⁸Brought to truth, its senselessness is quite apparent. ⁹Kept apart from truth, it seems to have a meaning and be real.

4. Perception’s laws are opposite to truth, and what is true of knowledge is not true of anything that is apart from it. ²Yet has God given answer to the world of sickness, which applies to all its forms. ³God’s answer is eternal, though it works in time, where it is needed. ⁴Yet because it is of God, the laws of time do not affect its workings. ⁵It is in this world, but not a part of it. ⁶For it is real, and dwells where all reality must be. ⁷Ideas leave not their source, and their effects but seem to be apart from them. ⁸Ideas are of the mind. ⁹What is projected out, and seems to be external to the mind, is not outside at all, but an effect of what is in, and has not left its source.

5. God’s answer lies where the belief in sin must be, for only there can its effects be utterly undone and without cause. ²Perception’s laws must be reversed, because they are reversals of the laws of truth. ³The laws of truth forever will be true, and cannot be reversed; yet can be seen as upside down. ⁴And this must be corrected where the illusion of reversal lies.

6. It is impossible that one illusion be less amenable to truth than are the rest. ²But it is possible that some are given greater value, and less willingly offered to truth for healing and for help. ³No illusion has any truth in it. ⁴Yet it appears some are more true than others, although this clearly makes no sense at all. ⁵All that a hierarchy of illusions can show is preference, not reality. ⁶What relevance has preference to the truth? ⁷Illusions are illusions and are false. ⁸Your preference gives them no reality. ⁹Not one is true in any way, and all must yield with equal ease to what God gave as answer to them all. ¹⁰God’s Will is One. ¹¹And any wish that seems to go against His Will has no foundation in the truth.

7. Sin is not error, for it goes beyond correction to impossibility. ²Yet the belief that it is real has made some errors seem forever past the hope of healing, and the lasting grounds for hell. ³If this were so, would Heaven be opposed by its own opposite, as real as it. ⁴Then would God’s Will be split in two, and all creation be subjected to the laws of two opposing powers, until God becomes impatient, splits the world apart, and relegates attack unto Himself. ⁵Thus has He lost His Mind, proclaiming sin has taken His reality from Him and brought His Love at last to vengeance’s heels. ⁶For such an insane picture an insane defense can be expected, but can not establish that the picture must be true.

8. Nothing gives meaning where no meaning is. ²And truth needs no defense to make it true. ³Illusions have no witnesses and no effects. ⁴Who looks on them is but deceived. ⁵Forgiveness is the only function here, and serves to bring the joy this world denies to every aspect of God’s Son where sin was thought to rule. ⁶Perhaps you do not see the role forgiveness plays in ending death and all beliefs that rise from mists of guilt. ⁷Sins are beliefs that you impose between your brother and yourself. ⁸They limit you to time and place, and give a little space to you, another little space to him. ⁹This separating off is symbolized, in your perception, by a body which is clearly separate and a thing apart. ¹⁰Yet what this symbol represents is but your wish to be apart and separate.

9. Forgiveness takes away what stands between your brother and yourself. ²It is the wish that you be joined with him, and not apart. ³We call it “wish” because it still conceives of other choices, and has not yet reached beyond the world of choice entirely. ⁴Yet is this wish in line with Heaven’s state, and not in opposition to God’s Will. ⁵Although it falls far short of giving you your full inheritance, it does remove the obstacles that you have placed between the Heaven where you are, and recognition of where and what you are. ⁶Facts are unchanged. ⁷Yet facts can be denied and thus unknown, though they were known before they were denied.

10. Salvation, perfect and complete, asks but a little wish that what is true be true; a little willingness to overlook what is not there; a little sigh that speaks for Heaven as a preference to this world that death and desolation seem to rule. ²In joyous answer will creation rise within you, to replace the world you see with Heaven, wholly perfect and complete. ³What is forgiveness but a willingness that truth be true? ⁴What can remain unhealed and broken from a unity which holds all things within itself? ⁵There is no sin. ⁶And every miracle is possible the instant that the Son of God perceives his wishes and the Will of God are one.

11. What is the Will of God? ²He wills His Son have everything. ³And this He guaranteed when He created him as everything. ⁴It is impossible that anything be lost, if what you have is what you are. ⁵This is the miracle by which creation became your function, sharing it with God. ⁶It is not understood apart from Him, and therefore has no meaning in this world. ⁷Here does the Son of God ask not too much, but far too little. ⁸He would sacrifice his own identity with everything, to find a little treasure of his own. ⁹And this he cannot do without a sense of isolation, loss and loneliness. ¹⁰This is the treasure he has sought to find. ¹¹And he could only be afraid of it. ¹²Is fear a treasure? ¹³Can uncertainty be what you want? ¹⁴Or is it a mistake about your will, and what you really are?

12. Let us consider what the error is, so it can be corrected, not protected. ²Sin is belief attack can be projected outside the mind where the belief arose. ³Here is the firm conviction that ideas can leave their source made real and meaningful. ⁴And from this error does the world of sin and sacrifice arise. ⁵This world is an attempt to prove your innocence, while cherishing attack. ⁶Its failure lies in that you still feel guilty, though without understanding why. ⁷Effects are seen as separate from their source, and seem to be beyond you to control or to prevent. ⁸What is thus kept apart can never join.

13. Cause and effect are one, not separate. ²God wills you learn what always has been true: that He created you as part of Him, and this must still be true because ideas leave not their source. ³Such is creation’s law; that each idea the mind conceives but adds to its abundance, never takes away. ⁴This is as true of what is idly wished as what is truly willed, because the mind can wish to be deceived, but cannot make it be what it is not. ⁵And to believe ideas can leave their source is to invite illusions to be true, without success. ⁶For never will success be possible in trying to deceive the Son of God.

14. The miracle is possible when cause and consequence are brought together, not kept separate. ²The healing of effect without the cause can merely shift effects to other forms. ³And this is not release. ⁴God’s Son could never be content with less than full salvation and escape from guilt. ⁵For otherwise he still demands that he must make some sacrifice, and thus denies that everything is his, unlimited by loss of any kind. ⁶A tiny sacrifice is just the same in its effects as is the whole idea of sacrifice. ⁷If loss in any form is possible, then is God’s Son made incomplete and not himself. ⁸Nor will he know himself, nor recognize his will. ⁹He has forsworn his Father and himself, and made Them both his enemies in hate.

15. Illusions serve the purpose they were made to serve. ²And from their purpose they derive whatever meaning that they seem to have. ³God gave to all illusions that were made another purpose that would justify a miracle whatever form they took. ⁴In every miracle all healing lies, for God gave answer to them all as one. ⁵And what is one to Him must be the same. ⁶If you believe what is the same is different you but deceive yourself. ⁷What God calls one will be forever one, not separate. ⁸His Kingdom is united; thus it was created, and thus will it ever be.

16. The miracle but calls your ancient Name, which you will recognize because the truth is in your memory. ²And to this Name your brother calls for his release and yours. ³Heaven is shining on the Son of God. ⁴Deny him not, that you may be released. ⁵Each instant is the Son of God reborn until he chooses not to die again. ⁶In every wish to hurt he chooses death instead of what his Father wills for him. ⁷Yet every instant offers life to him because his Father wills that he should live.

17. In crucifixion is redemption laid, for healing is not needed where there is no pain or suffering. ²Forgiveness is the answer to attack of any kind. ³So is attack deprived of its effects, and hate is answered in the name of love. ⁴To you to whom it has been given to save the Son of God from crucifixion and from hell and death, all glory be forever. ⁵For you have power to save the Son of God because his Father willed that it be so. ⁶And in your hands does all salvation lie, to be both offered and received as one.

18. To use the power God has given you as He would have it used is natural. ²It is not arrogant to be as He created you, nor to make use of what He gave to answer all His Son’s mistakes and set him free. ³But it is arrogant to lay aside the power that He gave, and choose a little senseless wish instead of what He wills. ⁴The gift of God to you is limitless. ⁵There is no circumstance it cannot answer, and no problem which is not resolved within its gracious light.

19. Abide in peace, where God would have you be. ²And be the means whereby your brother finds the peace in which your wishes are fulfilled. ³Let us unite in bringing blessing to the world of sin and death. ⁴For what can save each one of us can save us all. ⁵There is no difference among the Sons of God. ⁶The unity that specialness denies will save them all, for what is one can have no specialness. ⁷And everything belongs to each of them. ⁸No wishes lie between a brother and his own. ⁹To get from one is to deprive them all. ¹⁰And yet to bless but one gives blessing to them all as one.

20. Your ancient Name belongs to everyone, as theirs to you. ²Call on your brother’s name and God will answer, for on Him you call. ³Could He refuse to answer when He has already answered all who call on Him? ⁴A miracle can make no change at all. ⁵But it can make what always has been true be recognized by those who know it not; and by this little gift of truth but let to be itself, the Son of God allowed to be himself, and all creation freed to call upon the Name of God as one.