The Twenty-Second Principle of A Course in Miracles

Miracles are associated with fear only because of the belief that darkness can hide. You believe that what your physical eyes cannot see does not exist. This leads to a denial of spiritual sight (T-1.I.22:1-3).

The ego advocates for reliance on physical perception as the sole means of understanding reality. If the body cannot sense it, then it does not exist. Only the body and the material world – each of which brings the other forth – are valid. Anything else is unreal and without effect.

When we believe that, then spiritual sight and understanding are denied. They are dismissed and devalued. They atrophy without use.

On the ego’s view, when it is dark (when it’s night, when the lights are switched off, et cetera) then people and objects are obscured. They either can’t be seen or can’t clearly be seen. This is evidence the ego uses to bolster its argument that what cannot be seen cannot actually exist. The eyes – not the mind, the eyes – are the witnesses to reality.

Thus, if we cannot “see” God (the way we “see” a maple tree, say), then God cannot exist. If we cannot “see” Love, then Love cannot exist.

Miracles – which occur at the level of the mind, at the level of thought – cannot be seen and therefore – on ego’s view – do not exist. You can think about a maple tree but good luck getting any sap from the thought.

This line of reasoning distorts our awareness of reality. We lose our appreciation for our true nature in Creation, which does not depend on the body or its senses for either existence or awareness. The interconnectedness of all life – and the underlying knowledge that Love holds everything – are lost to us, because all we see is the gap between us and everything else.

What is the world except a little gap perceived to tear eternity apart, and break it into days and months and years? And what are you who live within the world except a picture of the Son of God in broken pieces, each concealed within a separate and uncertain bit of clay? (T-28.III.7:4-5).

When we think this way, we deprive ourselves of true power and creativity, as well as actual knowledge. The effect is the appearance – tangible, believable, causative – of a world that in which scarcity and judgment, suffering and pain abound.

That is the basic framework of separation, for those who need or want it explained from the perspective of a body.

The twenty-second miracle principle invites us to hold fast to our spiritual sight by declining to hide from ourselves the transformative power of miracles. Darkness cannot actually hide anything – the maple tree is still there, even at night. We can’t eat the idea of bread but we can use it to guide us to a bakery. Just so, reality cannot be hidden. Indeed, reality is the light.

Understood this way, miracles are effectively a light in self-imposed darkness that reveal the underlying unity and love that is always present in our minds and in our mind’s projections, when they are give to the Holy Spirit for translation.

As our acceptance of Christ Vision, or spiritual sight, is enhanced, we naturally begin to perceive the world as extending beyond the limited reach of the body’s senses. We learn – and begin to live – the truth that nothing real can be threatened and nothing unreal exists (T-in.2:2-3).