Metaphor in the Course: Summary of a Class Presentation

by Robert Perry

My teacher’s class Thursday was on metaphor in the Course. Here is a very brief summary (somewhat reorganized) of my main points:

Approaching the Course as if it is largely metaphorical has a massive effect on our understanding of it. Things it says repeatedly and straightforwardly can be basically dismissed, because they are just “metaphor.”

Does the Course itself justify such an approach?

I did a study on this several years ago and discovered a key concept: interpretive distance. Interpretive distance is the distance that has to be traveled to get from the form (e.g., the words) to the content (the meaning behind the words). The less interpretive distance, the shorter you have to travel in getting from the form to the content.

What I found the Course saying is that love expresses itself with a minimum interpretive distance, because it wants us to arrive at its meaning, its message, its content. Therefore, it is clear, direct, and unambiguous.

When the ego expresses itself, on the other hand, it injects a maximum interpretive distance. Why? Because it doesn’t want you to find out its real content. It is, in short, deceptive. It says one thing but, behind its words, means another.

Further, the ego also injects maximum interpretive distance when you are trying to understand what truth tells you, when you are trying to traverse the distance from truth’s words to its message. The ego doesn’t want you to arrive at the message, and so it tries to create blocks, detours, and diversions that manage to turn a short distance into an endless journey.

What does this mean when applied to the Course? Being an expression of love, the Course utilizes minimum interpretive distance. It is clear, direct, simple, unambiguous-–i.e., it is straightforward. It “means exactly what it says.” To this end, it actually employs a minimum of symbolism, because symbols tend to involve a lot of interpretive distance.

The Course, in fact, claims to be so direct that in a number of places it says that we can’t fail to understand it, that we do in fact understand it—that is, before our ego comes in and obscures that understanding.

The Course seems to utilize maximum interpretive distance, but that is an illusion produced by our ego. Our ego introduces roadblocks, detours, and diversions onto the short journey from the Course’s words to its meaning, turning that short straight jaunt into an endless wandering in a trackless wilderness.

Why does the ego do this? Because it doesn’t like the content. It doesn’t like what the Course is saying and so wants to make sure we don’t lay hold of that message. This takes a number of forms. For example:

  • The ego obscures the Course’s message, so that even though on some intuitive level we immediately understand it, that understanding is immediately obscured by the ego’s fog. The Course’s simplicity is obscured by a cloud of complexity.
  • The ego distorts the Course’s message, turning it into something palatable to the ego.
  • The ego discounts the Course’s message, assuming the Course cannot really mean what it is saying.

Oddly enough, the metaphor approach turns this whole thing on its head. It claims that Jesus wrote the Course in such a way as to intentionally produce a maximum interpretive distance, even though that kind of deceptiveness is how the ego expresses itself. And it claims that in interpreting the Course, we have to assume a great distance between the form and the content, the words and the message, even though that is exactly what the ego is doing while we read the Course—trying to expand that distance.

The metaphor approach, then, does not reflect the Course’s own attitude toward its words. Rather, it oddly replicates what the Course says about how the ego uses words and how the ego interprets words.

In reading the Course, then, our real job is to let love’s symbols in with the directness in which they were given us. Love is trying to get through to us. Will we let it in? Or will we assume its words are meant to deceive us? Will we let its message shine on us full in the face, or will we obscure that message, twist it, or discount it, deciding that it surely can’t mean what  it says?

Sure, there is metaphor, but the metaphor tends to be isolated concrete imagery, that is usually sandwiched in between literal teaching, teaching that will tell us, directly or indirectly, what the metaphor means. When we don’t encounter those concrete images—which is most of the  time—we need to trust that love is explaining itself to us just as plainly and directly as it can, so plainly and directly that we are understanding it, if we will only admit that understanding to ourselves and let it come to the surface.

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