The Three Stages of Spiritual Bypassing

Spiritual bypassing is defined as using spiritual truth to sidestep the work of facing issues on a personal, interpersonal, or societal level. This is a topic that has been associated with A Course in Miracles due in part to the Course’s core teaching of unconditional forgiveness as well as the teaching that, no matter what we do to each other here - including the worst of what human beings do to one another, we can never make ourselves guilty on the level of spirit.   The arguments around the Course and spiritual bypassing can initially sound persuasive - and very serious Course students who have been confronted with these ideas have questioned the path or even abandoned it altogether. But for those who also care about making the world a more just and safe place for everyone and who want to keep the Course as our path - where does that leave us? How are we to think about all of this? In this podcast, Circle executive director Emily Bennington Perry answers these questions using a three-stage process in Course of partial innocence, partial wisdom, and true innocence. This bonus episode is taken from a sermon Emily delivered for our Course Companions Community and in it you will learn that what’s really going to create the change that everyone wants to see is not our withdrawal or our anger but our love.