1. This is a crucial question both for teacher and pupil. ²If this issue is mishandled, the teacher of God has hurt himself and has also attacked his pupil. ³This strengthens fear, and makes the magic seem quite real to both of them. ⁴How to deal with magic thus becomes a major lesson for the teacher of God to master. ⁵His first responsibility in this is not to attack it. ⁶If 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. ⁷He can be sure as well that he has asked for depression, pain, fear and disaster to come to him. ⁸Let him remember, then, it is not this that he would teach, because it is not this that he would learn.

2. There is, however, a temptation to respond to magic in a way that reinforces it. ²Nor is this always obvious. ³It can, in fact, be easily concealed beneath a wish to help. ⁴It is this double wish that makes the help of little value, and must lead to undesired outcomes. ⁵Nor should it be forgotten that the outcome that results will always come to teacher and to pupil alike. ⁶How many times has it been emphasized that you give but to yourself? ⁷And where could this be better shown than in the kinds of help the teacher of God gives to those who need his aid? ⁸Here is his gift most clearly given him. ⁹For he will give only what he has chosen for himself. ¹⁰And in this gift is his judgment upon the holy Son of God.

3. It is easiest to let error be corrected where it is most apparent, and errors can be recognized by their results. ²A lesson truly taught can lead to nothing but release for teacher and pupil, who have shared in one intent. ³Attack can enter only if perception of separate goals has entered. ⁴And this must indeed have been the case if the result is anything but joy. ⁵The single aim of the teacher turns the divided goal of the pupil into one direction, with the call for help becoming his one appeal. ⁶This then is easily responded to with just one answer, and this answer will enter the teacher’s mind unfailingly. ⁷From there it shines into his pupil’s mind, making it one with his.

4. Perhaps it will be helpful to remember that no one can be angry at a fact. ²It is always an interpretation that gives rise to negative emotions, regardless of their seeming justification by what appears as facts. ³Regardless, too, of the intensity of the anger that is aroused. ⁴It may be merely slight irritation, perhaps too mild to be even clearly recognized. ⁵Or it may also take the form of intense rage, accompanied by thoughts of violence, fantasied or apparently acted out. ⁶It does not matter. ⁷All of these reactions are the same. ⁸They obscure the truth, and this can never be a matter of degree. ⁹Either truth is apparent, or it is not. ¹⁰It cannot be partially recognized. ¹¹Who is unaware of truth must look upon illusions.

5. Anger in response to perceived magic thoughts is a basic cause of fear. ²Consider what this reaction means, and its centrality in the world’s thought system becomes apparent. ³A magic thought, by its mere presence, acknowledges a separation from God. ⁴It states, in the clearest form possible, that the mind which believes it has a separate will that can oppose the Will of God, also believes it can succeed. ⁵That this can hardly be a fact is obvious. ⁶Yet that it can be believed as fact is equally obvious. ⁷And herein lies the birthplace of guilt. ⁸Who usurps the place of God and takes it for himself now has a deadly “enemy.” ⁹And he must stand alone in his protection, and make himself a shield to keep him safe from fury that can never be abated, and vengeance that can never be satisfied.

6. How can this unfair battle be resolved? ²Its ending is inevitable, for its outcome must be death. ³How, then, can one believe in one’s defenses? ⁴Magic again must help. ⁵Forget the battle. ⁶Accept it as a fact, and then forget it. ⁷Do not remember the impossible odds against you. ⁸Do not remember the immensity of the “enemy,” and do not think about your frailty in comparison. ⁹Accept your separation, but do not remember how it came about. ¹⁰Believe that you have won it, but do not retain the slightest memory of Who your great “opponent” really is. ¹¹Projecting your “forgetting” onto Him, it seems to you He has forgotten, too.

7. But what will now be your reaction to all magic thoughts? ²They can but reawaken sleeping guilt, which you have hidden but have not let go. ³Each one says clearly to your frightened mind, “You have usurped the place of God. ⁴Think not He has forgotten.” ⁵Here we have the fear of God most starkly represented. ⁶For in that thought has guilt already raised madness to the throne of God Himself. ⁷And now there is no hope. ⁸Except to kill. ⁹Here is salvation now. ¹⁰An angry father pursues his guilty son. ¹¹Kill or be killed, for here alone is choice. ¹²Beyond this there is none, for what was done cannot be done without. ¹³The stain of blood can never be removed, and anyone who bears this stain on him must meet with death.

8. Into this hopeless situation God sends His teachers. ²They bring the light of hope from God Himself. ³There is a way in which escape is possible. ⁴It can be learned and taught, but it requires patience and abundant willingness. ⁵Given that, the lesson’s manifest simplicity stands out like an intense white light against a black horizon, for such it is. ⁶If anger comes from an interpretation and not a fact, it is never justified. ⁷Once this is even dimly grasped, the way is open. ⁸Now it is possible to take the next step. ⁹The interpretation can be changed at last. ¹⁰Magic thoughts need not lead to condemnation, for they do not really have the power to give rise to guilt. ¹¹And so they can be overlooked, and thus forgotten in the truest sense.

9. Madness but seems terrible. ²In truth it has no power to make anything. ³Like the magic which becomes its servant, it neither attacks nor protects. ⁴To see it and to recognize its thought system is to look on nothing. ⁵Can nothing give rise to anger? ⁶Hardly so. ⁷Remember, then, teacher of God, that anger recognizes a reality that is not there; yet is the anger certain witness that you do believe in it as fact. ⁸Now is escape impossible, until you see you have responded to your own interpretation, which you have projected on an outside world. ⁹Let this grim sword be taken from you now. ¹⁰There is no death. ¹¹This sword does not exist. ¹²The fear of God is causeless. ¹³But His Love is Cause of everything beyond all fear, and thus forever real and always true.