Really, as earlier versions of the text indicated, this chapter is about the two different used of projection – the ego’s and the Holy Spirit’s. It explains how both work – why understanding how they work matters – and then makes clear which one is more desirable, because it’s the only one that eventually restores our awareness of our identity in God.
Hint: it’s not the ego’s.
Understanding projection is essential to understanding the belief system of A Course in Miracles. This section is as succinct as any in explaining it. What we don’t like in ourselves, we project onto others, and then we attack them for it. Let’s look at each step.
1. We don’t like something in ourselves – greed, say. I don’t like how I covet money and material abundance. I think it’s contrary to God and the laws of the Kingdom of Heaven. If I’m serious about salvation, I can’t be rich and/or covetous. Thus, those feelings are not allowed to be part of me. So I attack them by rejecting them. That leads us to:
2. I project those feelings/ideas onto others. I have some friends who are familiar with this process. I’m poor so I’m holy. They’re wealthy – a relative phrase to be sure – so they’re doomed. Or at least spiritually ignorant. I mean, they’re nice and all but . . . you know. God doesn’t like the upper tax brackets. Thus, I adopt a sanctimonious and self-righteous and altogether judgment view. That leads to:
3. I attack money and material abundance in those upon whom I have projected it. I conveniently forget those feelings/ideas started with me and pretend they are exclusively the domain of people who are not – because they’re so greedy/covetous – brothers and sisters. Rather, they are separate people who aren’t as holy and God-like as I am.
What a sad mess!
In that process (which is going on all the time – we have to see and appreciate this) – I am effectively attacking myself twice. First, I attack the desire for affluence in myself. Then, once I’ve rejected it and pasted it onto somebody else, I attack them. Thus I am separated from myself and from my brothers and sisters, in whom my salvation truly rests.
It’s a hopeless process – one which the ego uses for no reason other than to perpetuate our sense of separateness. There is no other tool of the ego that is quite so insidious and vicious.
This section compares that gruesome mess to what the Holy Spirit knows. The Holy Spirit knows that perception – of a neighbor as greedy and covetous because they have a big house, say – is not true. But since I made perception, and since the Holy Spirit, is perfectly happy and willing to use what I make to undo what I make, it can revise my projection and bring it into closer alignment with God’s thinking. Thus, it doesn’t focus on the elements I’ve rejected – the greed. It sees the neighbor as kind and helpful. By doing so, it reinforces my acceptance of those qualities in myself. And it undermines and undoes my reliance on the so-called meaner qualities.
Over time, that’s a recipe for real happiness and sure release. That’s because the ego’s use of projection causes pain and conflict while the Holy Spirit’s heals conflict and restores peace and joy and sanity.
Our job is to see these two competing processes at work (the lessons are an important tool in this seeing) so that we can consistently choose for the Holy Spirit. The more we do, the more natural that loving projection, or extension, becomes. And the more natural it becomes, the more light shines in our minds and the more light that creeps in . . . then start to experience our minds as whole. We realize they never left God. And then we realize that if our minds never split from God then the separation never happened. That is the Atonement in a nutshell. That is salvation! And we arrive there together, by refusing the ego’s view of projection which pits us against one another, and accepting the Holy Spirit’s, which binds us in Truth and Love.
Each of us is the light of the world, and by joining our minds in this light we proclaim the Kingdom of God together and as one (T-6.II.13:5)
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