Exploring A Course in Miracles

Millions of people are streaming out of the Christian church these days. Most of them are unaware that A Course in Miracles may be the perfect landing spot for them. The Course was intentionally written to those who were rooted in the Christian tradition yet also need healing from it. It brings to the foreground all that we loved about Jesus and Christianity, but that was buried beneath so much that was confusing, divisive, and hurtful. Join Circle founder Robert Perry and executive director Emily Bennington as they open a dialogue on this very important topic.

A Course in Miracles says that Heaven is “merely an awareness of perfect oneness.” Yet it also talks about God, Christ, Sons of God, our creations, the Holy Spirit, and angels all being within that oneness. So how do we resolve that? Are those names just different ways of talking about the oneness? Or are there distinct beings within the oneness? And if there are, is it still “perfect oneness”? If you want to learn more about the Course's teaching on oneness (including how it does and doesn't connect with nonduality), you will not want to miss this episode of Exploring A Course in Miracles with Circle founder Robert Perry and executive director Emily Bennington.

Many students ask us what A Course in Miracles has to say about plants and animals? If the world around us is an illusion, what does that mean for nature? Should we just ignore it? We usually assume that humans have great worth and intelligence, but we don’t tend to grant that same assumption to plants and animals. In light of this, when the Course talks about animals, plants, and even grains of sand and waves on the ocean, it offers us a surprisingly different perspective. In this fascinating conversation, Robert Perry and Emily Bennington ask us to consider the concept of all living things being an honored part of the Sonship, and how this can help us heal a world that is in desperate need of healing.

Roger Walsh, professor of psychiatry and religious studies at University of California at Irvine, has been with the Course from nearly the beginning and has practiced the Course on a daily basis for decades. He brings a breadth of learning into how the Course relates to the world’s great spiritual traditions as well as the unique contributions it offers. His interests focus on topics such as exceptional psychological health and wellbeing, practices to cultivate them such as meditation, yoga and lifestyle, virtues such as wisdom and altruism, transpersonal and integral studies. During this episode with Roger we discuss guidance, Bill Thetford stories, relationships, forgiveness, the Christian dimension of the Course, and much more.

This is a time in which good leaders are desperately needed, and our collective ideas about leadership are changing dramatically. In this heartfelt discussion, Emily Bennington and Robert Perry discuss what ACIM has to say about leadership, and asks how we can be the kind of leaders it is asking us to be - in our lives and in the world. They also invite us to question the influence we have over others, whether or not we consider ourselves to be “leaders” in a formal sense.

If you're a Course student, you've likely approached the Holy Spirit many more times than you have approached a conversation with God. "Ask the Holy Spirit." "Turn it over to the Holy Spirit." These are such common phrases in practice, but we still see a lot of confusion around who and what He (Holy Spirit) is. In this episode of Exploring A Course In Miracles, Robert Perry and Emily Bennington discuss the basic questions to help viewers gain a more complete understanding of the Holy Spirit. How did He come into being? What does He do in our lives? What is His relationship to God and Jesus? We hope you enjoy the episode and strengthen your relationship with both the Holy Spirit and the Course itself.

A Course in Miracles is a very practical path, but its practicality rests on some extremely unconventional views about the nature of reality. Is there evidence for those views? That is what we discuss with philosopher and writer Sharon Hewitt Rawlette. Sharon is a recent prize winner in the Bigelow Institute contest for essays on the evidence for life after death. In this conversation, Circle founder Robert Perry and executive director Emily Bennington ask Sharon about evidence for the existence of God, life after death, angels, whether there is a prearranged plan for our lives, and much more. Join us for an illuminating discussion on remarkable evidence for a different picture of reality.

Perhaps we remember our parents saying, “Wait till you get out into the real world!” We know that world, where life is a struggle because no one gives you a break. But according to A Course in Miracles, that’s the illusion, and we can look past that illusion “into beauty that will enchant you, and will never cease to cause you wonderment at its perfection.” That, says the Course, is the real world. What is it? How can we see it? Join Circle founder Robert Perry and executive director Emily Bennington for a discussion on this important Course teaching.

"Shadow figures” is the term A Course in Miracles uses for the images we carry of people from our past who didn’t give us the love we craved. These “ghosts” haunt our present. We project them onto individuals in the present, so that we relate to those present individuals as if they were the ghosts from the past. No wonder our relationships don’t work! Join Circle Teachers Robert Perry and Emily Bennington as they discuss shadow figures, how they guide our search for love, as well as the cost of carrying this burden.

We have witnessed an unprecedented focus on the self for the past few decades. This focus has permeated society, mainstream spirituality, and the ACIM community. Circle founder Robert Perry and executive director Emily Bennington call this “the cult of self” and in this podcast episode, they explored what it is, its effects, how we can spot it, and what we can do to resist its lure.