1. Your distorted perceptions produce a dense cover over miracle impulses, making it hard for them to reach your own awareness.  The confusion of miracle impulses with physical impulses is a major perceptual distortion.  Physical impulses are misdirected miracle impulses.  All real pleasure comes from doing God's Will.  This is because not doing it is a denial of Self.  Denial of Self results in illusions, while correction of the error brings release from it.  Do not deceive yourself into believing that you can relate in peace to God, or to your brothers with anything external.

2. Child of God, you were created to create the good, the beautiful and the holy. Remember this!  The Love of God, for a little while, must still be expressed through one body to another, because vision is still so dim.  You can use your body best to help you enlarge your perception so you can achieve real vision, of which the physical eye is incapable.  Learning to do this is the body's only true usefulness.

3. Fantasy is a distorted form of vision.  Fantasies of any kind are distortions, because they always involve twisting perception into unreality.  Actions that stem from distortions are literally the reactions of those who know not what they can do.  Fantasy is an attempt to control reality according to false needs.  Twist reality in any way and you are using it destructively.  Fantasies are a means of making false associations and attempting to obtain pleasure from them.  But although you can perceive false associations, you can never make them real except to yourself.   You believe in what you make, remember? 

4. If you offer miracles, you will be equally strong in your belief in them.  The strength of your conviction will then sustain the belief of the miracle receiver.  Fantasies become totally unnecessary as the wholly satisfying nature of reality becomes apparent to both giver and receiver.  Reality is "lost" through usurpation, which produces tyranny.  As long as a single "slave" remains to walk the earth, your release is not complete.  Complete restoration of the Sonship is the only goal of the miracle-minded.

5. THIS IS A COURSE IN MIND TRAINING.  It is not meant to replace the Bible, or the Koran, or any other religious beliefs or writings.  It is only meant to straighten your mind, to help you know what is real, and to ease your path wherever it may lie.  All learning involves attention and study at some level. Some of the later parts of the course rest too heavily on these earlier sections not to require their careful study. You will also need them for preparation. Without this, you may become much too fearful of what is to come to make constructive use of it.  However, as you study these earlier sections, you will begin to see some of the implications that will be amplified later on.

6. A solid foundation is necessary because of the confusion between fear and awe to which Jesus has already referred, and which is often made.  Jesus has said that awe is inappropriate in connection with the Sons of God, because you should not experience awe in the presence of your equals. However, it was also implied that awe is proper in the presence of your Creator.  Jesus has been careful to clarify his own role in the Atonement without either over- or understating it.  He has also stressed that awe is not an appropriate reaction to him because of your inherent equality with him as "brother."  Some of the later steps in this course, however, involve a more direct approach to God Himself.  It would be unwise to start on these steps without careful preparation, or awe will be confused with fear, and the experience will then be more traumatic than beatific.  Healing is of God in the end.  The means are being carefully explained to you. Revelation may occasionally reveal the end to you, but to reach it, the means are needed. 

(Continue to Text, Chapter 2, Section I:   The Origins of Separation)