“I find your “Oh, what about 9-11 and Boko Haram” boo-hoo as though such things never occurred to me less than specious.”

I offered examples of how the world does hurt people. They are prima facie evidence that directly contradicts the Course’s assertion that “your perceptions of ‘external reality’ is a pictorial representation of your own attack thoughts” Which makes those examples anything but specious.

I never even implied that those examples had never occurred to you. Though your statement that, “we are not truly hurt by the world any more than we are hurt by a bad dream.” indicates otherwise. Bad dreams cannot withstand the light of day but a missing arm easily weathers the light.

“Surely, as Jesus’ current messenger of love, in a modern day miracle, she will walk unmolested, night after night.”

“You don’t seem to recall how Jesus died.”

Gee that never occurred to me… oh wait, first Jesus performed many miracles before multitudes of witnesses, which were convincing validation of his not being a conman guru. After receiving the “Holy Ghost”, his apostles also reportedly performed miracles, which validated their faith in Jesus. Were ALL the witnesses delusional?

“Miracles may or may not happen, but orthodox Christians have never made the mistake of assuming their faith made them immune to suffering and violence.”

Williamson, to validate her status as Jesus current avatar, must first prove her immunity before sacrificing herself. Nearly every prophet & apostle followed that pattern.

Unlike Jesus, she comes not to fulfill the law but to dismiss it.

“I’m not asking you to believe the Course or Williamson. But if one is interested in understanding Williamson beyond New Age caricatures, one might be interested in knowing her core motivation.”

I never suggested that you were proselytizing. As for her core motivation, I suspect I understand that better than she does herself, as she’s a perfect example of willful blindness.

For if she were not, by now she’d have offered evidence of the validity of her greater reality, rather than regurgitating platitudes that must be accepted solely on faith.

James 2:26 comes to mind; “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.”

Read the “tells” of the participants, including the “sponsors” leading with the
“topics”. What they’re actually saying, and what the implied topic-at-hand actually is, is unimportant.
IF you know how to read that sort of stuff, and can discriminate between the classic, textbook, practiced, “staged” body language, and the “unrealized” involuntary.

Which does NOT provide immunity for the actual transcript in it’s OWN, separate, chicanery of course.

She is a grifter. One of many.

I’m not expert on Jesus, but to the best of my knowledge he never said anything like the Course’s: “Each of your perceptions of ‘external reality’ is a pictorial representation of your own attack thoughts. One can well ask if this can be called seeing. Is not fantasy a better word for such a process, and hallucination a more appropriate term for the result?”

I don’t believe that Jesus ever denied external reality. It is my impression that when he spoke of rewards they were in the world to come. It seems as though the Course is saying something rather different, at least from those particular quotes. It seems the Course is saying that external reality either doesn’t exist, or can be controlled and changed in this lifetime.

Geoffrey Britain: It works for me. I find your “Oh, what about 9-11 and Boko Haram” boo-hoo as though such things never occurred to me less than specious.

Surely, as Jesus’ current messenger of love, in a modern day miracle, she will walk unmolested, night after night.

You don’t seem to recall how Jesus died.

Miracles may or may not happen, but orthodox Christians have never made the mistake of assuming their faith made them immune to suffering and violence.

I’m not asking you to believe the Course or Williamson. But if one is interested in understanding Williamson beyond New Age caricatures, one might be interested in knowing her core motivation.

See this, and in particular the Updike quote that is the intro.

Each to his own guru. If one is following any spiritual or religious path, one must choose one that resonates. The Zen teacher who says “Good evening” in the morning and vice versa, is (apparently) trying to shake up the usual order of things and jolt his students into a different way of seeing the world. I’ve read quite a bit about that sort of thing, starting in the 1960s.

But there are also a ton of quacks and con artists, as well as people who claim to have powers and insights they do not have. We all use whatever tools are at our disposal to evaluate which person to listen to and which to shrug off. We may all make different decisions about which is which.