Our Lives: Magical Attempts to Get Rid of Imaginary Guilt [STAFFCLS]

Dr. Jeffrey Seibert and Dr. Rosemarie LoSasso

“All the world’s a stage,” and upon this stage the greatest magic show of all plays out. Our lives, filled with challenges and problems, are simply a string of clever magic tricks or deceptions designed to keep our attention focused on the form of our lives, so we overlook completely the underlying content—guilt—which is being chosen by the magician behind the scenes. And perhaps the greatest trick of all is that we are the magician but have deceived ourselves into believing we are the powerless figures on the stage, pulled out of the magician’s hat. This class explores what the Course means by magic—the use of bodily means to get rid of the guilt in our mind—and how pervasive it is in our thinking. We will consider its purpose—to demonstrate that we are innocent victims and that guilt rests not on us but on others and the world, so that the reality of the mind’s guilt is never questioned. The class also examines the miracle as the means for escaping from the ingenious magical trap we have set for ourselves, for it shifts our focus from the body and form to the mind and its content. Jesus’ goal for us in his course is to help us realize increasingly that “magic of any kind, in all its forms, simply does nothing” (M-16.9:7). If we can begin to question the reality of guilt, both our own and others’, which the miracle helps us do, we will find our need for magic disappearing, as we open ourselves to the beauty and joy that await us beyond all magical illusions.