Manual for Teachers and Extension Articles

I doubt there is a person alive who does not in some sense want to be a healer. No matter how selfish we may seem to be, all of us have a spark inside that yearns to provide help, comfort and upliftment to others. Yet how do we do this? The Course has a great deal of...

This is a response Robert wrote on the CCC Teacher’s Blog, in response to a discussion about whether or not a group leader should offer an interpretation of a Course passage being read by the group, or merely point the students back to the passage itself and their own...

What exactly does the term "special function" mean in A Course in Miracles? At first glance, the term appears to imply there is actually some special job for each of us—a specific calling, a life purpose. Yet it seems to me that most students have managed to resist...

1. I am as God created me. My performance does not create me (shape my image). Is my identity fixed by God and therefore unalterable? Or am I an image that is up for grabs, at the mercy of my performance as a teacher? Believing the latter is an expression of the...

In Part I: "What on Earth Is Our Special Function?" I argued that our special function is a case of us expressing our special abilities in the form of a particular active role, through which we heal the specific people sent to us, and thereby make our own unique...

As students of A Course in Miracles, we all know that even though its title might give one the impression that it's a formal course that one learns under a teacher, it's actually a "self-study" course. You learn it on your own, since we are all teachers and students...

Many students believe that our special function is not some kind of function we actually take up in the world, by which we actively contribute to the world's salvation, but that it is forgiving just one person, perhaps our biggest forgiveness challenge. In this view,...

We've received a lot of questions about how to conduct Course study groups. Each group is unique, and any advice we offer would need to be adapted to the needs and desires of a particular group. And of course, asking the Holy Spirit for guidance is a vital part of...

Mary Anne recently suggested we talk about being self-conscious as a teacher. Since self-consciousness is more or less the same as embarrassment, this triggered my longstanding desire to do a study of embarrassment in the Course. It is particularly prevalent in the...

The following are short phrases to repeat in one's mind to aid in the forgiveness of one's patient. They are designed to be short enough to not get in the way of paying attention to the patient. Awake and be glad, for all your sins have been forgiven you....

Think of someone you have tried to help or are currently trying to help, someone who seemed particularly less "together" than you. It may be helpful to think not of a single person but a class of people, perhaps people you have helped in a particular capacity. This...

A Commentary on "Who Are Their Pupils?" Jean Petersen's response to my article on the teacher-pupil relationship raised a commonly-asked question: If we are in fact meant to have a human teacher of A Course in Miracles, how do we find this person? For most of us, this...