BLASPHEMY
KEYS – T28f/33=TEXT pages 28&29 in 1st edition – page 33 in 2nd edition. W=Workbook. M=Teachers Manual. SOP=A Song of Prayer. PPP=Psychotherapy: Purpose, Process and Practice.
The
rituals of the god of sickness are strange and very demanding. Joy is never
permitted, for depression is the sign of allegiance to him. Depression means
that you have forsworn God. Many are afraid of blasphemy, but they do not
understand what it means. They do not realize that to deny God is to deny their
own Identity, and in this sense the wages of sin is death. The sense is
very literal; denial of life perceives its opposite, as all forms of denial
replace what is with what is not. No one can really do this, but that you can
think you can and believe you have is beyond dispute. T175f/189
Allegiance to the denial of God is the ego's religion. The god of sickness obviously demands the denial of health, because health is in direct opposition to its own survival. But consider what this means to you. Unless you are sick you cannot keep the gods you made, for only in sickness could you possibly want them. Blasphemy, then, is self‑destructive, not God‑destructive. It means that you are willing not to know yourself in order to be sick. This is the offering your god demands because, having made him out of your insanity, he is an insane idea. He has many forms, but although he may seem to be many different things he is but one idea; ‑ the denial of God.
Sickness and death seemed to enter the mind of God's Son against His Will. The "attack on God" made His Son think he was fatherless, and out of his depression he made the god of depression. This was his alternative to joy, because he would not accept the fact that, although he was a creator, he had been created. Yet the Son is helpless without the Father, Who alone is his Help. T176/190
Do
not look to the god of sickness for healing but only to the God of love, for
healing is the acknowledgment of Him. When you acknowledge Him you will know
that He has never ceased to acknowledge you, and that in His acknowledgment of
you lies your being. You are not sick and you cannot die. But you can confuse
yourself with things that do. Remember, though, that to do this is blasphemy,
for it means that you are looking without love on God and His creation, from
which He cannot be separated. T177/191
If
God knows His children as wholly sinless, it is blasphemous to perceive them as
guilty. If God knows His children as wholly without pain, it is blasphemous to
perceive suffering anywhere. If God knows His children to be wholly joyous, it
is blasphemous to feel depressed. All of these illusions, and the many other
forms that blasphemy may take, are refusals to accept creation as it is. If God
created His Son perfect, that is how you must learn to see him to learn of his
reality. And as part of the Sonship, that is how you must see yourself to learn
of yours. Do
not perceive anything God did not create or you are denying Him. His is the only
Fatherhood, and it is yours only because He has given it to you. T178/192
I
have said that the crucifixion is the symbol of the ego. When it was confronted
with the real guiltlessness of God's Son it did attempt to kill him, and the
reason it gave was that guiltlessness is blasphemous to God. To the ego, the
ego is God, and guiltlessness must be interpreted as the final guilt
that fully justifies murder. You do not yet understand that any fear you may
experience in connection with this course stems ultimately from this
interpretation, but if you will consider your reactions to it you will become
increasingly convinced that this is so. T224/240f