This article on Gary Renard's plagiarized Gospel has been getting a lot of interest and many enquiries so I have now expanded this page to include three articles:
"Gary Renard's Stolen Gospel"
"Jesus, Abba and A Course in Miracles." People have wondered about my Guides so this article includes much channeled material coming from Jesus and Abba about ACIM
"Considerations which have arisen from emails" is written in answer to a lot of questions from readers.
I think you will find all of these very interesting.
Circle of
Atonement click: http://www.circleofa.org/
Email Bruce at: TheThomasBook@gmail.com
Thomas Book Homepage: http://www.ThomasTwin.com
Gary Renard’s Stolen Gospel
© Bruce Fraser MacDonald, PhD 2010
The evidence is incontrovertible. Gary Renard has plagiarized one of the most important parts of his book, Your Immortal Reality. What he calls “Pursah’s Gospel of Thomas” comes directly from Stephen Patterson and Marvin Meyer’s translation of The Gospel of Thomas fromThe Nag Hammadi Library,
available online at: http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/gosthom.html.
Renard has objected to my using the term “stolen” in regard to this Gospel. It is actually a title taken from a quote which
precedes Pursah’s Gospel. Renard says, ““The Hugh Lynn Cayce version was obtained illegally, I guess meaning it was stolen,
by someone who put it on the Internet” (p. 144). If he is justified in calling this version “stolen,” when it was actually tried
in court and found not to be stolen at all, then it is certainly justified to call Pursah’s Gospel “stolen” when it is so obviously
taken directly from the translators without their permission. It has not been tried in court yet, but other similar cases have
been considered to be “theft of intellectual property.”
I
know many people will find that what I have to say here brings them considerable hurt because they have benefited from
I am not the only one who has found reason to doubt Renard’s truthfulness. Miracles Magazine, a Course in Miracles journal,
recognized, in 2006, the serious nature of what they felt to be
Renard’s
plagiarism from Patterson and Meyer is part of a pattern. In his article, “Why Don’t the Masters Have An Original Thought,”
now at Circle of Atonement: http://www.circleofa.org/articles/DuOriginalThought.php?dig=renard (originally in Miracles Magazine)
Robert Perry gives extensive evidence that Renard used the same phrases and ideas used by a teacher of ACIM named Ken Wapnick, without
acknowledging the source. Perry has even presented the borrowings in graph form, first to show the parallels and, secondly,
to demonstrate how Renard’s ideas are different from the actual teachings of ACIM. However, few people in the Course community
have taken any of the three writers seriously and many have even attacked them viciously for daring to ask for honesty.
Renard has created a strange dynamic around himself, in which his many followers refuse to see what he is doing in his works. They attack anyone who demonstrates the truth to them. I think this time they will be forced to acknowledge that Renard has
actually plagiarized almost the whole of “Pursah’s Gospel of Thomas.” Strangely, he and others argue that because “Pursah” left
out 44 verses “she” changed it drastically. That is a bit like arguing that “I did not steal your jewels because I only took
two thirds of them and left the other third in your jewelry box.”
I will present the evidence for the plagiarism first and then will look at some of the serious implications which arise from this
plagiarism.
For those not familiar with Renard’s work, he claims in his books, The Disappearance of the Universe and Your Immortal Reality (Hay
House), that Pursah and Arten, supposed Ascended Masters and reincarnations of Thomas and Thaddaeus, Jesus’ disciple, appeared in
his living room and dictated lessons about ACIM. He says he recorded the conversations, copied them into his books and then
destroyed the tapes. He has become a best-selling writer and speaker on the spiritual speaking circuit on the basis of these books
and their claims.
In Your Immortal Reality, Renard claims
that Pursah again appeared to him and recited a new version of The Gospel of Thomas. The same pattern is supposed to have been
followed, Renard recording the text, copying it and then destroying the tapes. Pursah is quoted as saying the following:
“I consider
it an act of completion to have J’s [Jesus’] words in The Gospel of Thomas recorded accurately by a later incarnation of myself. I recorded J’s words 2,000 years ago, and now you will record them again. Thus will the Gospel be corrected and passed along
in its original form.” NOTE: I [Gary] inserted the title below. Pursah spoke all 70 of the sayings. They were recorded
for accuracy.
Pursah is referring here to “The Gospel of
Thomas” which was found in
We now know, without any doubt, that all of this is fabrication because the work Pursah “recites” is an almost verbatim copy of Patterson
and Meyer’s translation of the work. I include several passages here to demonstrate the exact nature of the plagiarism.
I have gone through all 70 verses of “Pursah’s Gospel of
Thomas” and have the following surprising statistics on the composition of Renard’s work in relation to the original. I will
present my findings as five categories with examples of each drawn from the original source (left hand column) and from Renard (right
column).
Category One: 29 verses. Renard’s
verses are identical to the original -- I have underlined the plagiarized text in the right column.
|
(Patterson/Meyer) 90.
Jesus said, “Come to me, for my yoke is comfortable and my lordship is gentle, and you will find rest for yourselves.” |
(Renard)
90. J said, “Come to me, for my yoke is comfortable and my lordship is gentle, and you will find rest for yourselves.” |
|
(Patterson/Meyer) 91. They said to him, “Tell us who you are so that we may believe in you.” He said to them, “You examine the face of heaven and earth,
but you have not come to know the one who is in your presence, and you do not know how to examine the present moment.” |
(Renard)
91. They said to him, “Tell us who you are so that we may believe in you.” He said to them, “You examine the face of heaven and earth,
but you have not come to know the one who is in your presence, and you do not know how to examine the present moment.” |
Even in the following rather convoluted passage, Renard plagiarizes word for word from Patterson and Meyer. I have included a third
column so you can compare this passage to Thomas O. Lambdin’s translation of verse 92 (similarities with Patterson/Meyer underlined)
to see that the Patterson/Meyer translation is not somehow inevitable but their own careful choice which
A translator is a writer and, in the same way
as styles of writers vary, so the styles of translators vary. There may be some minor similarities because they are using the
English grammatical structures and wordings we all use, or even because they are drawing on a common cultural base. For instance,
the first sentence in Lambdin’s translation is the same as Patterson/Meyer because the phrase “Seek and you will find,” has actually
become part of the cultural heritage of the English language. The rest is almost completely different. The amount of actual
identity (not similarity) between Renard and Patterson/Meyer is unheard of in any stylistic comparison of two writers without plagiarism
being involved.
Actually, the difference should be
greater than usual because Pursah has told us that she is going to give us a completely new, corrected and previously unheard version
of the gospel drawn directly from Jesus’ words -- which would have been in Aramaic. We should have a new translation from Aramaic
which would indeed provide a completely different linguistic original from which to translate, with strikingly new renditions arising
from the different language base, rather than the Greek or Coptic origins of the Gospel of Thomas we now have.
|
(Patterson/Meyer) 92. Jesus said, “Seek and you will find. In the past, however, I did not tell you the things about which you asked me then. Now I
am willing to tell them, but you are not seeking them.” |
(Renard) 92. J said, “Seek and you will find. In the past, however,
I did not tell you the things about which you asked me then. Now I am willing to tell them, but you are not seeking them.” |
(Lambdin) 92. Jesus said, “Seek and you will find. Yet, what you asked me about in former times and which I did not tell you then, now
I do desire to tell, but you do not inquire after it.” |
Category Two: 18 verses: Identical except for one simple change as in “God’s Divine Rule” for “The Father’s Kingdom,” “Brother” for “mister,” “shall” for “will,” “fortunate” for “congratulations,.” Changes are in bold capital letters: plagiarized
text underlined.
|
52. His disciples said to him, "Twenty-four prophets have spoken in He said to them, "You have disregarded the living one who is in your presence, and have spoken of the dead." |
52. THE disciples said
to him, "Twenty-four prophets have spoken in He said to them, "You have disregarded the living
one who is in your presence, and have spoken of the dead." |
|
72. A [person said] to him, "Tell my brothers to divide my father's possessions with me." He said to the person, "Mister, who made me a divider?" He turned to his disciples and said to them, "I'm not a divider, am I?" |
72. A person said to him, "Tell my brothers to divide my father's possessions with me." He said to the person, "BROTHER,who made me a divider?" He turned to his disciples and said to them, "I'm not a divider, am I?" |
Category Three: 12 verses: Minor phrase removed or changed, minor word added: the rest is identical. Text which was removed or changed is italicized in
the left column. Added words in Renard’s text are in bold capitals on the right, plagiarism underlined.
|
(Patterson/Meyer)
23. Jesus said, "I shall choose you, one from a thousand and two from ten thousand, and they will stand as a single one." |
(Renard)
23. "I shall choose you, one from a thousand and two from ten thousand, and they SHALL stand as a single one." |
|
76. Jesus said, "The
Father's kingdom is like a merchant who had a supply of merchandise and found a pearl. That merchant was prudent; he sold the merchandise
and bought the single pearl for himself. So also with you, seek his treasure that is unfailing, that is enduring, where no moth comes
to eat and no worm destroys." |
76. J said, "GOD’S DIVINE RULE is like a merchant who had a supply of merchandise and THEN found
a pearl. That merchant was prudent; he sold the merchandise and bought the single pearl for himself. So also with you, seek THE treasure
that is unfailing, that is enduring, where no moth comes to eat and no worm destroys." |
Category Four: 5 verses: Omits major parts of the verse but what remains is identical. Italicized bold words in
the left column are those which Renard omitted.
Underlined text in the right column is plagiarized: bold capitals are added words.
|
61.Jesus said, "Two will recline on a couch; one will die, one will live." Salome said, "Who are you mister? You have climbed onto my
couch and eaten from my table as if you are from someone." Jesus said to her, "I am the one who comes from what is whole. I was granted from the things of my Father." "I am your disciple." "For this reason I say, if one is whole, one will be filled with light, but if one is divided, one will be filled with darkness." |
61. "I am the one who comes from what is whole. I wasGIVEN from the things of my Father." "I am your disciple." "THEREFORE I say, if one is whole, one will be filled with light, but if one is divided, one will be filled with darkness." |
|
28. Jesus said, "I took my stand in the midst of the world, and in flesh I appeared
to them. I found them all drunk, and I did not find any of them thirsty. My soul ached for the children of humanity, because they
are blind in their hearts and do not see, for they came into the world empty, and they also seek to depart from the world empty. But meanwhile they are drunk. When they shake off their wine, then they will change their ways." |
28. I STOOD in the world, and found
them all drunk, and I did not find any of them thirsty. They came into the world empty. But meanwhile they are drunk. When they shake off their wine, they will change their ways." |
Category Five: 6 verses: major rearranging, sometimes using the same words or phrases as the original, but not always. It is only in these six verses that we see any original work. Note that there are very few similarities. This is the kind
of difference which usually arises between versions of translations but is absent in 64 of the 70 verses in Pursah’s gospel. Underlining and capitalization as usual.
|
26. Jesus said, "You see the sliver in your friend's eye, but you don't see the timber
in your own eye. When you take the timber out of your own eye, then you will see well enough to remove the sliver from your friend's
eye." |
26. "You see the SPECK THAT IS in your BROTHER’S eye, but you DO NOT see the LOG THAT IS in your own eye. When you take the LOGout of your own eye, then you will see CLEARLY enough to TAKE THE SPECK OUT OF your BROTHER’S eye." |
|
54. Jesus said, "Congratulations
to the poor, for to you belongs Heaven's kingdom." |
54. FORTUNATE ARE the poor, FOR YOURS IS THE FATHER’S kingdom." |
|
56. Jesus said, "Whoever
has come to know the world has discovered a carcass, and whoever has discovered a carcass, of that person the world is not worthy." |
56.
"Whoever has come to UNDERSTAND THIS world has FOUND a CORPSE, and whoever has FOUND A CORPSE, of that ONE the world is NO LONGERworthy." |
|
8. And he said, "The person is like a wise fisherman who cast his net into the sea and drew it up from the sea full of little
fish. Among them the wise fisherman discovered a fine large fish. He threw all the little fish back into the sea, and easily chose
the large fish. Anyone here with two good ears had better listen!" |
8. J said, "A wise fisherman cast his net into the sea. WHEN
HE drew it up IT WAS full of little fish. Among them HE discovered a LARGE FINE [reversed] fish. He threw all the little fish back
into the sea, and HE chose the large fish. Anyone here with two good ears SHOULD listen!" |
The easiest way to see the extent
of the plagiarism is to scan the underlined text in the right column and multiply by the number of verses in that category. We can see from these examples that almost the whole of Pursah’s gospel is plagiarized.
Statistics reveal another striking feature of Pursah’s gospel. In the first 39 verses of the gospel, Renard at least tried to make
some minor changes. However, starting with verse 63, he stopped making changed almost entirely. Again, statistics prove
the point. Of the final 31 verses
19 verses are identical
8 verses are identical with one word replacement
4 verses have a
minor phrase omitted but the rest is identical
This can be
presented in table form which is perhaps more revealing:
|
Categories |
Total verses |
First 39 verses |
Final 31 verses |
|
Category One |
29 |
10 |
19 |
|
Category
Two |
18 |
10 |
8 |
|
Category Three |
12 |
8 |
4 |
|
Category Four |
5 |
5 |
|
|
Category Five |
6 |
6 |
|
It looks like Renard got tired of revising about half way through the text because, in the last 31 verses of the total 70 verses,
there are no “original” verses, nor are there any of the Category Four verses which required a bit more work than Categories 1, 2
and 3. All of the eleven verses which show signs of having had more work done on them are in the first 39 verses.
Surprisingly, this gospel, which was supposed to be a genuine, new, original and CORRECTED version, translated from a completely new
language, has only 6 out of 70 verses (14 %) which might be considered original. At least 86% of the text is identical to the
Patterson/Meyer translation. There is absolutely no doubt that Renard plagiarized at least 86% of his text.
One wonders why Renard omitted verse 6 from his gospel rendition, since its message is of tremendous importance. It reads as
follows, again using the Patterson/Meyer translation:
Jesus said, “Don’t lie, and don’t do what you hate, because all
things are disclosed before heaven. After all, there is nothing hidden that will not be revealed, and there is nothing covered
up that will remain undisclosed.”
There are several troubling
implications which arise logically from the discovery of plagiarism in almost all of Pursah’s gospel.
First, at the beginning of the chapter in which the gospel appears, Renard comments about a version of ACIM over which there is considerable
controversy. He says, “The Hugh Lynn Cayce version was obtained illegally, I guess meaning it was stolen, by someone who put
it on the Internet. That’s why it is available” (p. 144, quotes are taken from the 2006 paperback edition). Renard is
obviously opposed to plagiarism in any form so, I assume, would also condemn his own actions in having plagiarized almost his entire
Thomas gospel from Patterson and Meyer. It is odd that this passage is introduced just before the “stolen” (to use his term)
gospel. Was it designed to divert the reader’s attention away from the possibility of theft, by condemning theft, as part of
an attempt to hide the plagiarized text which follows shortly after this passage?
We now know that Pursah is a fictional character because Ascended Masters do not plagiarize and lie to the world about such an important
matter as a new translation of such an important work as the Gospel of Thomas. Thus, when Renard portrays Pursah as saying to
him, before her recitation, that she has “a little surprise . . . for you,” we know it is not actually Pursah speaking but Renard
constructing a dialogue for his own purposes. Is he intentionally trying to deceive the reader into thinking the gospel is real
because an “on the spur of the moment” recitation could not have been carefully laboured over and therefore could not be plagiarized?
After the recitation is over, even though almost the whole of the gospel comes straight from Patterson and Meyer and is not new at
all, Renard says, “Whoa, Pursah. That was incredible. It really rang true for me. And the whole thing has a much
better flow to it now, too. I could picture J saying the words. In fact, the first time I really heard his Voice, he said
a few of the words to me that you said near the end there, at number 110” (p. 171). We know this is also not part of an actual
conversation because Pursah is not real. That means it was also planned along with the plagiarism itself. The troubling question
here is whether this is another part of a carefully planned pattern of deception to make the reader think that what they have just
heard is so new it would be futile to look for its source in a published document.
I suppose we will never know but, given our present knowledge that the gospel is plagiarized, these passages seem to be designed to
deceive the reader, like the smoke and mirrors which magicians use to distract the audience from what is really going on. They
are so strategically placed that one can’t avoid wondering if they were planned that way to distract the reader’s attention at key
points in the fictitious dialogue to divert the reader’s attention. We know generally that plagiarism must be concealed carefully
with whatever means are available because to be caught in the act is fatal to one’s reputation.
If these were planned or if they were not, the result has been
the same. In the four years since the book was published, I am the only one (as far as I know) who has noticed that the gospel was
actually plagiarized. Not even the editors at Hay House knew about it and even Rogier Van Vlissingen, who wrote a whole book
about the contrast between Pursah’s gospel and the supposed ordinary, contemporary translations, did not notice that this one was
plagiarized.
In 2006 Robert Perry outlined a fantasy
of what it would be like for a writer to make up a fictional story and then pass it off as real: “Imagine you yourself going through
all the steps to plan such a deception, carry it off, and then maintain it in the face of criticism, as you ride its wave of ill-gotten
fame. It’s hard to imagine, isn’t it? And yet it is done.” It seems unquestionable that the fantasy has become truth,
at least in regard to the gospel.
The Course community will
have to come to terms with a number of serious questions. What is it about parts of the Community that has made it possible
for Renard to get away with this kind of deception when so many voices have been warning about what was really going on?
We now know that Pursah is not real. As I have observed, Ascended Masters do not steal the work of others and lie about it to
the world. And if Pursah is not real, we also know that Arten is also not real. It follows that they are both fictions
invented by Renard. And since Renard made the claim to have heard the voice of Jesus in the context of this major deception,
we can be quite certain that is false also.
It is also
safe to assume that Renard is not a reincarnation of the Apostle Thomas, as he claims, even though Kevin Ryerson, spiritual guide
to Shirley MacLaine has said he is. There are actually two disciples in the Bible named Thomas and Renard claims to be both
of them at the same time. I have addressed that complicated question more fully in the sample chapter readings on this website.
Perhaps the most troubling question the community will have
to address is how someone could work so carefully to deceive readers who bought books in good faith, and at the same time could stand
in front of those same people and claim to teach them spiritual truths.
These are illustrations of the problems facing Renard’s many followers -- they will have to determine exactly what they can believe
of what he has told them over the years.
If Renard had been
writing on any other subject, he probably would have been exposed long ago. But it seems from the extremely negative reaction
to his critics that people actually wanted to be fooled – and not just ignorant people. Many prominent people in the media and
film and writing industries have been fooled. Perhaps people wanted to believe that what he was telling them was actually possible. The sad thing is that he answered some of the spiritual longings of his readers with untruths and now they are left with a great blank
which had been filled by his fantasies. They will have to start over again to find the truth they thought they had found in
him.
There are spiritual sources which are true but
every time someone commits another fraud in the name of the things of the Spirit, it becomes harder to find the really true things. Those who plagiarize and commit fraud harm not just the authors from whom they have stolen. They especially cause harm to the
spiritual Seekers who turned to them in good faith expecting truthful insight and meaning. And perhaps most important, plagiarists
betray all of Spirit in Its attempt to make Its Presence known to the people of the world, because the frauds put yet another stumbling
block in the way of trust.
[A number of people have asked questions which are related to the information which I
have presented on this website. Instead of writing long, individual emails in answer to these questions, I have chosen to write
two longer pieces which will address most of the questions. One is the following article, “Jesus, Abba and A Course in Miracles”
and the other follows this one and addresses some of the spurious ways people have found to try to defend what Renard has done with
“Pursah’s Gospel.” I think they will answer most of your questions and at the same time introduce you to some profound ideas.
The article addresses directly the claim which Renard and others
make, “It's very clear that Jesus dictated A Course in Miracles to Helen Schucman.” On the contrary, I assert that it
is very clear that Jesus did not write ACIM and the following article provides much information which will make that clear to most
people who have not yet had their minds closed by the repeated exercises of ACIM.]
Jesus, Abba
and ACIM
©Bruce Fraser MacDonald, PhD
It is quite obvious
to most people, now that they have read of the extent of the plagiarism in "Pursah's Gospel of Thomas," that Gary Renard has been
deceiving them. If you have read elsewhere on this website, you will also be aware of my opposition to a number of things in
ACIM. Renard claims in his “defense” that I have not been honest or clear about that. On the contrary, I have been very
clear and honest in telling people in almost every article on this website, that my Guides teach that ACIM is not a reliable spiritual
guide.
However, it still seems some people do not realize that
someone could seriously take that position in regard to ACIM, since I have had a number of emails asking for clarification. I say things like, "my Guides teach against ACIM" and it is obvious that I have to be even clearer about what I mean by that. The problem is that the original article about Renard's plagiarism was part of a chapter in my recent book, The Thomas Book: Near Death, a Quest and a New Gospel by the Twin Brother of Jesus. In taking the plagiarism article out of that context, the
explanation for it disappeared and I have had to provide the background which is thus missing, although part of it is still in the
“Sample Chapter Readings” on the website.
Robert Perry, as
a faithful teacher of ACIM, has been concerned about my criticism of ACIM and thinks that either I have misunderstood my Guides or
that my Guides are themselves mistaken. He recently wrote me an email to that effect:
I think we have more in common in
terms of spiritual beliefs than may be apparent. True, there are significant differences. But some of your issues with ACIM come from
misunderstandings about what it teaches. For instance, it radically redefines forgiveness, so that in its system we let go of resentment
through realizing that the offense didn’t really occur, we weren’t really hurt, the other person is not really a sinner and is not
really “other,” but shares the same Self. Forgiveness, used in this sense, is an undoing of our belief in separation and duality,
an undoing that needs to occur so that we can remove the blocks to love and reawaken to oneness. It is not the end, but a means to
that end.
Even though ACIM is a channeled work there seems
to be some misunderstanding about channeling. It is very important to make sure that everything is in the open and I have tried
to be as honest in all of this as I can, even admitting my mistakes if I have made them. I have “channeled” a gospel which many
people find life changing. However, I know that when someone "channels" material from discarnate sources, the material can be
distorted by the person doing the channeling. Thus, I could be getting certain material from my Guides, and then could be distorting
that material because of some unresolved issues which would not allow me to express clearly what I heard. Also, we who draw
on the instruction of "Spiritual Guides" have to take on faith that they are who they claim to be and that they are telling us the
truth. In the same way, of course, Helen Schucman had questions about who was dictating through her and she could also have
distorted material which came from her Guides. As Robert says, "It happens." I therefore wrote an email to him, part of
which follows here:
These are certainly valid questions you
ask and I will be as demanding in asking for explanations as I have with other issues. Perhaps my Guides will mess
up this time around or perhaps I am misreading what they have said, so we will ask for clarification. I have certainly stepped
into a hornet's nest and I hope my Guides have some insect repellent in the form of explanations. I have grown used to trusting
them so did not really ask for detailed clarification, merely repeating the concerns I picked up from them [although “Simon Magus
and the Trinity” on this website is quite detailed.]
I have
asked my Guides if they would comment on your questions and they said yes, so I will write their reply and send it to you. I
sense it may be fairly long so will take a while to write. [These emails were sent on
I have not planned where this will go. I have made a commitment to Robert (and to others, since he is obviously in contact with
others who will read this) before getting the following material from my Guides and I will write what my Guides give me to write,
even if it turns out to be unsatisfactory.
Up to now I have
merely used the generic "My Guides." In order to clarify who these Guides are I must give some background about how I met them
and what they have been able to tell me so far in my life. I apologize if I repeat here some of what is described elsewhere
on the website, but this background is essential for understanding who my Guides are and many people have obviously not read the other
articles which explain this material so I must include it here.
As I say elsewhere on the website, in 1966 I had a Near Death Experience after a fall down a 37 foot piling shaft. I landed
feet first and crushed one of my vertebrae to half size, badly fractured two others and tore all my inner organs out of place. After a few days in hospital, I died. I went through the whole process of dying (described in detail in The Thomas Book) and
then, in the state between life and death, I met with Yeshua (Jesus), Elijah and Moses, as unlikely as that may sound. [No more
unlikely than meeting two Ascended Masters from the future in someone’s living room, even though Renard thinks my claims are “over
the top.”] We had a long talk about a project in which we were all involved and in which I, as the Bruce who had just died,
was supposed to have taken part. Now it looked like I would be unable to carry out my part of the project. I was given
a choice: I could stay "on the other side" and go through the immensely attractive tunnel of light to the Love I sensed was
there waiting to welcome me home, or I could go back to my body.
Yeshua warned me, "You don't have to go back. We can do this in another way. You don't have to go back to your body." Three times he warned me, almost severely, that the old machine was very badly smashed up and it would be very difficult to get it
going again. I didn't have to go back. But I decided to return.
It took seven months in hospital, including four months of being immobilized so that the bone splinters would not damage the spinal
cord more than they had, just be get well enough to leave, walking with two crutches and braces on leg and back. [All of this
background is discussed in detail in the book because it led to some important discoveries about human consciousness -- which were
then written into another book on a particular kind of meditation called The Prayer of Silence which is to be released later this
year.]
I had been planning to become a minister in the United Church
of Canada but now knew that I could not. I had brought some mysteries back from death. One of those mysteries was the strange
conviction that something was very wrong with the Gospel stories in the Bible, and part of the reason I came back was to find what
was wrong and to correct the errors of those stories.
As
soon as I was well enough to take classes at university, I jumped at the chance. I knew I had to learn as much as I could. I worked in a frenzy. Ten years, almost to the month, after the accident, I was back in the city where the accident took place
but, in the interim, I had completed a BA and an MA in Literature in Canada and a PhD from the University of Leeds in England in the
literature, written in English, of Africa, India, Australia, the West Indies and Canada with a dissertation on "The Colonial Experience
in Nigerian and Trinidadian Fiction." I was searching the world in order to find answers to the questions which were posed in the
NDE. Five of those ten years I had also been a professor at the
You might think that
Yeshua, Elijah and Moses were my Guides, but that was not the case. After I came back to life, I lost touch with all three of
them for a while and it was not until about 1980, after I had begun a concentrated life of meditation and spiritual search that I
was able to be in touch with Yeshua again. I managed to achieve the same level of spiritual consciousness through meditation
which I had achieved in the NDE.
This was a very important
discovery, actually, because I realized that death was not an end or some terrible event, as it is claimed in most religious traditions
(including ACIM), but merely a shift in consciousness which could be achieved in meditation as well as at the time of the dissolution
of the body in what we call death.
At this point, Yeshua became
my Guide. He gave me many teachings which ultimately became part of the new Gospel which is in Part Two of The Thomas Book,
featured on this website.
After I had a collection of Yeshua's
sayings, another voice began to speak in my time in the Silence. It turned out this was Judas Thomas, known in the early church
as the twin brother of Jesus. I saw things through his eyes and felt his emotions as I recorded the events surrounding the final
years of Yeshua’s ministry. It was through his senses that I wrote the rest of the Gospel. I was told at the time, in
the early 1980's, that I was the reincarnation of this Judas Thomas but I refused to pay any attention to that claim. It didn't
seem important until 2007 when I had a reading with Kevin Ryerson, one of the most influential trance mediums in the
This is the claim that Renard laughs at in the website referenced
at the end of these articles, but it is very real and very serious for humanity because it is, indeed, true and signals that Jesus
is very active in the affairs of the present. The presence of Jesus and Judas Thomas has led to the production of a profound
new version of the story of Jesus. Some people have asked why I continue to insist on this identity as Judas Thomas when Renard
has claimed the same thing. Renard says it is “silly.” On the contrary, it is very serious because Renard has stolen not
just a gospel from Judas Thomas and from Patterson/Meyer: he has stolen Thomas’ name and it is essential for the Work which I talked
to Yeshua about during the 1966 NDE, to reclaim the name, even though that means proving that Renard has lied about that identity
as well (which proof is in The Thomas Book.)
Judas Thomas became
another Guide for a while and I have kept in contact with him and Yeshua on a constant basis since the early 1980s. It was from
them that I received all the writings in the new gospel, The Thomas Book during those years. But as my spiritual growth progressed,
Yeshua said that I needed to go to the One who had been his Guide and he then introduced me to the One he called Abba, Father.
Of course, we cannot know God in God's entirety, but we can know
God through our inner consciousness, and this is who Jesus introduced me to. Jesus knew God and talked to Him intimately as
Abba, the Aramaic word for Dad. This is the same as the Still Small Voice with which Elijah communicated and the voice which Moses
heard in the burning bush and to whom he talked later "as a man talks to his friend." It is possible to know God in this way and I
teach how to achieve this level of intimacy in another book, to be released later this year, called The Prayer of Silence.
My three Guides are, then, Abba, Jesus (Yeshua) and Thomas. They are the three who have agreed to answer the questions about
ACIM. (However, after Yeshua and Abba had given me their answers, Thomas felt his contribution would be redundant so decided
to withdraw from the response.)
At this point I will turn
this over to them and record what they tell me. You will have to judge for yourselves how authentic their account is. Their guidance has already produced a Gospel which many people have found to be extremely profound. It was their guidance which
led to the discovery of Renard's plagiarism and other false claims he has made which are explained in detail in The Thomas Book. I
have based my whole life of what they have taught me and it has led to tremendous healing, not only from a broken back and a serious
case of viral encephalitis (in 1991) but from the kinds of emotional, intellectual and spiritual ills which plague all of humanity
and from which I was not immune. Many other people have found the same kinds of healing through their words. [The Thomas
Book was published privately in 1985 as According to Thomas, by the way, so has been around for twenty-five years. It is not
a new work, as Renard implies, and the claims it makes are not new claims.]
Just a note on how they convey their ideas to me: I am in constant touch with them through the same Still, Small Voice with
whom Elijah spoke, and I enquire about anything in my life which needs guidance. In this case I made the specific request that
they explain why they teach what they do about ACIM. They "impress" the large pattern of what their answer will be on my mind. Then, in this case at least, they led me through an exploration of the blue copy of ACIM, guiding me to the appropriate pages where
material is to be found which concerns them and from which I can quote, and then they give me the words which express their reaction
to the quotes. We then go through the material on the computer to make sure I have gotten things right, making revisions where
things are not clear. Since this is a very important document, I have also been guided in dreams to correct anything which has
not come through clearly in a conscious state and I have woken a couple of times with insights which came in that way. The process
has been fairly thorough but I suppose it is still possible for some errors to creep in. As with all the things they teach me,
I have to go through a lot of inner change as I assimilate their teachings – which are never just words. That part of the message
I cannot communicate, obviously, but this process has led to some profound inner spiritual growth.
Yeshua said it would be best
for him to start. Abba then gives His comments. I put their words in indented italics.
YESHUA
I am Yeshua, the one you know as Jesus of
In the early 1980's I dictated sayings to him
for a work which was privately published as According to Thomas in 1985 and more recently published as The Thomas Book. It is
a gospel, seen through the eyes of my twin brother, Judas Thomas. Bruce is a reincarnation of this same Judas Thomas.
It is important for me to state all of this at the outset in answering Robert Perry's question of why I am teaching people to abandon
ACIM, since it is not a reliable source of spiritual teaching and since it is leading many devout people into unnecessary difficulty
from which they will have to recover before they can progress much farther.
You may not believe that I am speaking here through the pen of Bruce MacDonald, but if you read The Thomas Book, you will know without
a doubt that I am speaking there because you will find me speaking directly to your heart and mind. You will find your spirit
opened to a new perception of the love of God because that book has been designed to meet the needs of many future generations of
people seeking to find the Presence of God within themselves.
You
do not have to wait until the end of the universe to find God's Presence and when you do discover that Presence you will not suddenly
disappear, as ACIM claims. The Manual for Teachers states, "If God were reached directly in sustained awareness, the body would not
be long maintained" (p. 61). This is false, and I have returned to speak through Bruce MacDonald at this time in order to teach
people how to know God, how to talk to God in sustained awareness and how to feel the love of God as I know God, as Abba, Father. You can know God and remain in this world at the same time, contributing to the spiritual growth of humanity.
If you do accept that I am speaking to you here, now, then you will realize this is an important event, indeed. But you may
think you have already heard me speaking to you in ACIM, because many of you believe I was the one who wrote that work.
I must speak unequivocally here – the writer of ACIM was not me but someone who disguised their words as if they were coming from
me. But their disguise is also confused. There is no conclusive sense of who is teaching and who is speaking in ACIM so,
you who follow the books in your spiritual path, you do not know whose words you are following. That is a very important point
because it is always extremely important to know who your spiritual teacher is since their teachings are affecting the most important
aspects of your life.
If you examine the books carefully,
as many of you have, you will find they claim sometimes to come from me (Jesus), but sometimes they claim to come from another voice
entirely and sometimes the speaker's identity is unclear because of the uncertainty of who the author really is.
The claim is made in the Manual for Teachers that "This course has come from him (Jesus) because his words have reached you in a language
you can love and understand" (p. 56). This is the central claim of the text and of many who read the text of ACIM. Helen
Schucman, through whom the text was written, also believed that it was Jesus who dictated the teachings. This passage claims
that the content of the Course comes from Jesus.
In The Text it
is likewise recorded, "I myself said, 'If I go I will send you another Comforter and He will abide with you.'" (p. 67). This
passage is presented as if coming directly from the Jesus who was a man.
But we are told also, "So he (Jesus) became identified with Christ, a man no longer, but at one with God. The man was an illusion,
for he seemed to be a separate being, walking by himself, within a body that appeared to hold his self from Self, as all illusions
do. . . And Christ needed his form that He might appear to men and save them from their own illusions" (Manual, p. 83).
Here Jesus is no longer a separate self who can talk to us or who can teach or write. He is presented as the illusory physical
form used by "Christ" to speak to humanity.
The separate man was
an illusion, we are told, and he is now "one with God" and so no longer a separate ego through whom teachings can be given.
It
would be impossible for him to be the one who is the teacher in ACIM if this were true because, if he were required to teach again,
he would have to return to being an "illusion" in order to do that, yet we are told that he has gone beyond the world of illusions
and the language of illusions to be one with God.
We also know that
he is not the one teaching in ACIM because, in the Manual for Teachers, the narrator says, "Jesus has led the way. Why would
you not be grateful to him? He has asked for love, but only that he might give it to you. . . " (p. 55). In this
passage, as in many, Jesus is described by the narrator in the third person – he is not the speaker. Yet who is the speaker
here?
Jesus is called "the Christ" in ACIM as in the Bible. There is confusion in ACIM about who or what "Christ" is and who or what Jesus is. Is he a man through whom teachings can come? Was he the physical illusion taken by the Christ to teach in his day? Has he now returned as an illusion in order to teach again
in ACIM – we are told this is not the case? Or is he something else?
In Manual for Teachers Jesus is called "Jesus Christ," the "risen Son of God," and "his name [has] become the Name of God, for he
no longer sees himself as separate from Him" (p. 55).
Jesus is further described as having achieved "complete identification with the Christ – the perfect Son of God, His one creation
and His happiness, forever like Himself and one with Him – Jesus became what all of you must be" (83). But what is he in this
passage? He seems to have become the Christ, the Son of God, God Himself, yet he is sufficiently separate to have been able
to achieve complete identification with the Christ who is God's one creation and His happiness. Yet in order to teach, we were also
told, he had to take on the illusory body of Jesus which he has now given up. We are told in ACIM that God cannot teach directly but
needs the illusory body to do that. Neither the perfected Son of God nor the Holy Spirit nor God can teach directly. They
need an illusory body in order to teach, but that body, which Jesus has now given up, is no longer available. Who does the teaching
in ACIM, then?
In Workbook for Students, the narrator identifies
Jesus as a separate person, capable of giving the teachings in ACIM, but also identifies this separate person as "the Christ" who
elsewhere is "the perfect Son of God," "a man no longer." Yet, in spite of being describes as "a man no longer" he is
described as if he were a man when the narrator seems to forget that "the Christ" is actually another name for God's "one creation
and His happiness," and describes him as someone who can touch us on the shoulder -- "You cower fearfully lest you should feel Christ's
touch upon your shoulder, and perceive His gentle hand directing you to look upon your gifts" (p. 309). This passage seems to
revert to the customary Christian teaching that "the Christ" is another name for Jesus, so this is Jesus touching us on the shoulder,
but how could he do that if he no longer has a body?
Who is the
narrator here? Who is the Christ? Who is the perfect Son of God? The teachings are obviously not coming from Jesus,
as is claimed in the passage quoted earlier. However, in some places it is claimed that Jesus is talking directly to the reader,
although in others he is describes as having given up the illusory body which would allow him to teach. If this passage had
been Jesus speaking it would have said, "You cower fearfully lest you should feel My touch upon your shoulder." If it had been
the Christ, the abstract "one creation and His happiness," this Christ could not touch anyone on the shoulder and another phrase would
have been used. The narrator is obviously confused.
Again, in Manual
for Teachers, the narrator says, "We have repeatedly said. . . " (55). Who is this "we"? From whom do the teachings come? If it is a "we" who is talking, it is not Jesus or the Christ but someone else entirely, someone or a group which can be addressed
as a plural.
A further problem arises when the Manual says "Jesus
is the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, Whom he called down upon the earth after he ascended into Heaven, or became completely identified
with the Christ, the Son of God as He created him" (85). Here Jesus is the manifestation of the Holy Spirit, but earlier we were told
that he was the illusory body of the Christ, not the Holy Spirit, because the Christ could not teach directly. The page to which this
is the introductory sentence is so convoluted it suggests that the narrator is thrashing around to try to make some sense of a Trinity
which does not hold together. The whole page shifts uneasily between the idea of illusions and bodies and aspects of God and
the Holy Spirit and the Son of God and the Christ and Jesus. We finally do not know who or what Jesus is in relation to any of the
“parts” of God. We are told of a "part of your mind" that is "part of the Christ mind" but are assured elsewhere in a number
of places that there cannot be parts of minds or parts of the Christ mind. Page six of the Manual says that "His plan can have no
levels" yet here we have levels. Page 86 of the Manual says that the Holy Spirit "alone is functionless," yet on the page before it
says that "In order to fulfill this special function the Holy Spirit has assumed a dual function."
In a text which teaches there are no levels and no dimensions and no functions and no up and down and no parts separate from
other parts, how can there be a "part of the Christ Mind" and how can the Holy Spirit be "called down upon the earth" from somewhere
else as if the Holy Spirit is limited to a place in space until Jesus calls Him down from where ever He is, especially if Jesus himself
is the incarnation of that Holy Spirit? How can a functionless Holy Spirit have a dual function? And how can Jesus, who
is the incarnation of the Christ and also of the Holy Spirit "call down" the Holy Spirit from somewhere else when he is said to be
both?
In spite of all of this the Manual asserts that "The Course
is simple" (73). Hardly!
This is only a small sampling, drawn
from all three books, of the inconsistencies of the narrator, even after the texts have been edited for consistency. How much
more inconsistency there must have been before the editors tried to straighten out this whole matter, yet still they did not succeed.
It is clear, even from the text itself, that the narrator is not
Jesus, yet the text claims that Jesus is the teacher. But we know now that this is could not be the teaching of Jesus, just by looking
at the text of the three books, however people may claim the contrary. Did the error come because Helen Schucman did not hear correctly?
Hardly. She has recorded faithfully the confusion of who the teacher of this course in miracles is. And in recording the inconsistencies
of narrator, she has recorded the falsity which underlies the whole text.
Who is the narrator behind ACIM? Whose teachings do you believe? From what source is all of this contradictory material
coming?
I assert again that the narrator was not Jesus because I
am Jesus who wrote The Thomas Book, along with Judas Thomas, to bring new life to your spirit. I am Yeshua and I did not
write ACIM nor did I have anything to do with the writing of ACIM except to point out that it is a source of much spiritual confusion.
The uncertainty of narrator arose from the attempt of the real
narrator to disguise who was really speaking in the books. To read of who the real narrator was, read the article on this website
about Simon Magus and the Trinity. There you will find the true source of ACIM.
You can now see for yourself why I do not support the teachings in ACIM.
The tragedy of ACIM is that many very fine people are attracted
to it because it does have some very find lessons to teach, some profound words and ideas. However, mixed in with the lessons
which can guide you, are confused and inconsistent and false teachings which are already leading you far from God. The biggest
cause of difficulty is that ACIM denies the reality of the world which has arisen from God.
ACIM teaches that the universe is illusion. Whether you are starting with Lesson One of the Workbook which states, "Nothing
I see in this room [on this street, from this window, in this place] means anything," or whether you are reading about the end
of the universe in the Manual for Teachers, the world is seen as illusion.
The Manual states this directly, "The world you see is an illusion of a world. God did not create it, for what He creates must
be eternal as Himself" (p. 81). This is direct support for the teaching of Ken Wapnick and Gary Renard that "there is nothing
out there" and in that they have been faithful to ACIM.
The Manual
for Teachers says of the end of the world: "Can what has no beginning really end? The world will end in an illusion, as
it began. Yet will its ending be an illusion of mercy. The illusion of forgiveness, complete, excluding no one, limitless
in gentleness, will cover it, hiding all evil, concealing all sin and ending guilt forever. So ends the world that guilt had
made, for now it has no purpose and is gone" (p. 35).
The
error of the philosophy which underlies ACIM, that the universe is illusion and arises only from guilt and not from God, and must
vanish when "forgiveness is complete" (p. 35), is that the universe in most of its aspects is tremendously beautiful and is the direct
manifestation of God, the Divine Source of all that is. Only a very small part of the universe is ugly and cruel, (although
to suffering humanity it may seem, at times, as if the whole universe is ugly).
The cruelty and ugliness arise, not from God, but from what the souls both in and out of bodies have themselves made in their attempts
to assert the freedom which God has given them, from which they seek to learn and experience.
ACIM blames the creation of the world on the ego and says that it is out of the ego that the illusion arose. This is the ultimate
ego trip. It says, "God did not create it. Our egos did." It says, "God did not create bodies" (Manual, p. 64). The universe may be a mistake but we have created it, claims ACIM. All that we see around us, it says, was created by us and
we can destroy it all just by changing the way we perceive. The ultimate ego trip is thus to say, “God did not create the universe: we did.”
Some may argue that this idea of the illusory nature of
the universe is not applicable to everything in the universe, but ACIM argues differently. In the Workbook it states definitely,
"The purpose of the workbook is to train your mind in a systematic way to a different perception of everyone and everything in the
world. The exercises are planned to help you generalize the lessons, so that you will understand that each of them is equally
applicable to everyone and everything you see" (p. 1).
Later
on, as the mind in conditioned by the exercises to accept that the universe is illusion, the idea is even introduced that the universe
is hell. This idea that the universe (which I assert is actually the manifestation of God) is hell will make it impossible for
any follower of ACIM to find oneness with God because no one will look in what they believe to be hell to find God.
The universe is a place of infinite beauty, and the souls of human beings are likewise capable of infinite beauty, because both the
universe and the life within it are manifestations of the inner Divine Beauty and Love and Joy and Peace of God. ACIM says that
Love, Joy and Peace are possible, but are not completely possible until the universe disappears. I tell you instead, as I told
people two thousand years ago, that the
ACIM teaches, "This world is not the Will of God, and so it is not real" (Workbook, p. 308). I teach, to the contrary, that
all that is, arises from the Will of God and is very real. Nothing can exist which is not the will of God and all that exists
is real. Even the suffering you create is real, and for that reason it can be eliminated. As you are finding in trying
to follow ACIM, it is impossible to eliminate suffering when you think of it as illusion, until a mythical end of things.
Accept its reality as something which has arisen from the freedom which God has given you, and you can change it immediately
by changing yourself. It is that simple. You do not have to train your mind, as the Workbook argues, to accept that none
of what you see comes from God. In that kind of illusory world you can do nothing until you have somehow found your way out of the
illusion – which is impossible because the illusion itself is not real.
However, out of the freedom which people have been given, they have been allowed to manifest whatever they wished in order to learn
of the real meaning of freedom and ultimately of love and joy and bliss. It may take time for them to learn these, but when
it is learned, they have become wise and loving in the same way as God is wise and loving. Their learning has become theirs
through actual experience and it is not necessary to deny all their experience of life as illusion in order to find God.
If what ACIM teaches were true -- that as soon as the ego made a choice which was not in accord with what is beautiful and loving
and true, and that the resulting universe was merely illusion -- then souls have no freedom, even to make mistakes, and God is merely
a tyrant who promises freedom but gives slavery. Even the claim in the Course that, "You are not free to choose the curriculum,
or even the form in which you will learn it. You are free, however, to decide when you want to learn it. And as you accept
it, it is already learned," (Manual, p. 4) -- this philosophy is not freedom but slavery. There is no real freedom here. You
are forced by this tyrant God to follow only his pre-determined way.
The Manual for Teachers says that anything that changes has not come from God. It says, "The world you see is an illusion of
a world. God did not create it for what He creates must be eternal as Himself. Yet there is nothing in the world you see
that will endure forever" (p. 81). This says that God never changes and that anything that changes is not from God. But without
change there can be no learning and without change it is even impossible for anyone to return to God, even in an illusory universe.
ouls can only learn in a world that changes and has consequences
to action, but instead, the Course says that it is given to souls "To close all things of time; to end the sight / Of all things visible;
and to undo / All things that change" (Manual, p. 69). No learning has taken place in this vision of the end of all of human
effort, which is seen as mere illusion, and the end is merely to be what one was at the beginning.
And so all that people have achieved, all that they have learned, all the results of their efforts, all the results of their pain
and suffering as well as of their striving for a better life for themselves and others – all of this is seen in ACIM as mere illusion
and a striving after wind. And when it is all over, they are merely back at the beginning, having achieved nothing.
This is NOT what I teach and these words of the Course are NOT mine.
Robert Perry, like many others in the Course community, is a devout
man who truly seeks to follow the ways of God and, in the absence of any other guide, has sought in the twisting words of ACIM for
a path to God. So he questions in his email to Bruce the following concerning ACIM:
"For instance, it radically redefines
forgiveness, so that in its system we let go of resentment through realizing that the offense didn’t really occur, we weren’t really
hurt, the other person is not really a sinner and is not really “other,” but shares the same Self. Forgiveness, used in this sense,
is an undoing of our belief in separation and duality, an undoing that needs to occur so that we can remove the blocks to love and
reawaken to oneness. It is not the end, but a means to that end."
Robert's observation is in tune with ACIM but, as with the rest of ACIM, this observation is based on the idea that the universe is
an illusion and that, therefore, all action must be an illusion as well. Forgiveness, in the view of ACIM, as Robert points
out, merely asserts that the hurt never happened and so the division which exists between those who think they have been hurt by any
sin is healed and they are awakened to their oneness.
However,
in ACIM, hurt is illusion, separation is illusion, but so too are forgiveness and mercy and love, as is stated in the passage quoted
above, "Yet will its ending be an illusion of mercy. The illusion of forgiveness, complete, excluding no one, limitless in gentleness,
will cover it, hiding all evil, concealing all sin and ending guilt forever. So ends the world that guilt had made, for now
it has no purpose and is gone."
If all is generalized, as
the Workbook says, then all forgiveness, all mercy, all love, all peace, all community – everything is illusion and there is no purpose
in putting effort even into love and mercy and forgiveness which themselves must end in illusion. It is better, in this view
of the universe, to commit suicide, since even that is illusion and will at least deliver the ego from suffering. And if the
aim is to "undo the ego," as ACIM prescribes, then death of the body, which is portrayed as the ego, will definitely get rid of the
ego.
Some of what is said of forgiveness is true, but
only if the world is actually real, and that shows up the error of the rest of ACIM. Once forgiveness comes between two people
who are estranged by any action, then they are no longer separate but can live in harmony, but only if harmony is real, which the
above quotation says is not so.
However, the universe must
be real if any forgiveness is to have effect. If the universe is real, and not illusion, only then, in the larger purpose of
the universe for the souls of those who seek spiritual growth, action does have results, people are hurt and offences are committed
and have real consequences.
In order to grow past an action
which hurt someone else, people must experience in their own souls what they have brought into the experience of others. If
this leads to their suffering in order to learn, that is what must arise, but the ultimate goal of this learning is love and harmony
and wisdom. But without change and without consequences, there is no learning and ultimately, as ACIM does claim, there is no
purpose. For ACIM there is no purpose in the universe and no purpose in human effort, except to let go of human effort and to
return to where one began before effort started.
Passivity before
the tyrant God who would allow souls to seek fulfillment in illusion, only to force them "home" to experience a "bliss" which has
learned nothing, is what is ultimately taught by ACIM.
And so all
of human effort comes to naught, according to ACIM, and this philosophy seeks annihilation, the disappearance of the universe, death
of the world of time, destruction of the self, society and the universe. And no one is held to account for honesty, which is
why Gary Renard and others can perpetrate what they do on their fellows -- people who are merely trying to learn of the ways of God
and are taught illusions and fantasy instead by ACIM which claims to come from me but definitely does not.
Many of the beliefs of ACIM come from a distortion of the role of death in life. "If death is real for anything, there is no
life. Death denies life. But if there is reality in life, death is denied. No compromise in this is possible," says
the Manual for Teachers (p. 63). But this is to distort what death is, in the same way as the Course distorts almost everything
in life by making everything absolute. If there is one death, it says, then all is death. But this is not true, in the
same way as it is not true to say, "If there is one sadness then all is sadness." In denying degrees or distinctions, the Course makes
it impossible to understand life. Life is not absolute, unchanging or eternal. If it were, there would be no learning,
no growth or development, no moving from hatred to love, no growing awareness of the Presence of God and the dawning of wisdom.
One of the beauties of God is that God is not eternally the same,
nor does God require that people be eternally the same. Such a God would indeed be a tyrant because such a God would insist
that no one try to learn anything. But the Course argues through the twisting of words and meanings. That is why it takes
so long, with so much repetition, to learn the lessons of the Course, because its beliefs are not the truth of the soul but rather
the result of twisting the mind to accept what it knows is not true.
Many people have learned much good through ACIM – things like forgiveness -- and that has been good, but because of its inner contradictions,
it cannot take you any farther on your spiritual path and must end in conflict within the soul and between people because, if all
is illusion, then each person is creating their own illusion and each illusory world must come into conflict with all the other illusory
worlds. The mind cannot deal with all these levels of illusion, finally, in spite of the Course's insistence that there are
no levels, and so the mind must come into conflict with itself and with others.
It is now time to leave the Course and seek an active participation in the universe which God has manifested. Seek guidance
in works of the spirit which can guide you there. I have spoken recently in The Thomas Book which has been planned over two
thousand years and has been brought to you by my reincarnated twin, Didymos Judas Thomas, who tells his story in that book. And when the time is ripe, you can learn from the prayer which I taught my disciples, The Prayer of Silence.
I teach that ACIM is now and has always been obsolete because it can take you no farther. The universe will not disappear because
it is not an illusion. The universe is the manifestation of God and in exploring its depths and heights and width, you
will be able to discover much about God. When you move into your inner being and explore there as well, you will find yourself
entering into the very person of God because the Kingdom of God, the very Presence of God, IS within you, as I said often when in
the body.
Seek first the
All of this immediately creates a conflict, as you can see. You are left with the choice whether to believe what is written through Bruce MacDonald or what is written through Helen Schucman.
That is a critical choice. Again I assert that ACIM did not
come from me, from Yeshua, Jesus, the one you know as the Christ. We have already seen that the narrator, the person actually doing
the teaching in ACIM is not reliable. And in claiming that it came from me, it also lies. ACIM thus has a primary level
of its meaning which came from a major deception when it claimed to come from me. It is built on a lie, and your confidence
in it is based on a lie.
The choice is yours, of course, whether
to believe the lie or to examine the matter more closely. The consequences are very real, since neither your life nor the world
are illusions and decisions you make have real effects which stretch through centuries.
We have chosen to launch The Thomas Book primarily to the Course community in the first instance because that is where the major lie
exists, where the major need is where the major plea for clarification has come and where the major benefit can be achieved in letting
those who try to find God through ACIM know that they will not find God there because they will have to wait for the end of the universe
to achieve the Course's goal. There are lies elsewhere, of course, and The Thomas Book addresses those as well. Once the
lie of ACIM has been addressed, it will be possible to move to other audiences.
Within the framework of the major lie about the authorship of ACIM there is a more immediate lie which is being addressed on the ThomasTwin
website right now. This has to do with the plagiarized "Pursah's Gospel of Thomas." It is also related to Renard's claim
to be a reincarnation of
There is
a pattern of deception here. The author of ACIM claims to be Jesus but is not. The author of "Pursah's Gospel of Thomas"
claims to be a reincarnation of
The whole thing is built on a series of interconnected
deceptions.
This brings us to another question which Robert Perry
raises. Shouldn't we work together for the light, for what is positive and right? I must reply with a definite "Yes and
no."
Yes, I always work with those committed to truth, to forgiveness
and love, to harmony and cooperation, because those are the values all teachers of God work with. I work constantly with people
of all religions and all creeds, since creed is not a sign of following God. This is why I feel compassion for those who seek
in the Course for a path to spiritual maturity, because I have seen them searching for truth and know they will not find it there
and will spend their effort looking for the light in dark alleys.
No, I cannot work with a lie and where there is danger and error on the path to truth, I must point that out. I will always
continue to work with people of all religions or philosophies so long as we are working toward love, harmony, forgiveness, joy, honesty
and other positive values and will continue to support any in the Course community who seek those values. They will feel my
presence and encouragement, even when they do not think my presence is possible because of what they have learned in ACIM – that I
have withdrawn into the impersonality of their imagined God. But I will also try to present them with an alternative which will
be more productive for them to follow.
As to asking Bruce the question
which Robert has, whether he should work with those in the Course community, I must state that he has been trained through a
whole lifetime to carry, as accurately as possible, the message which we have to present to the world. He has given up all of
his life to the Work in which we are involved and his work is to be a channel for the truth we convey through him, with as little
distortion as possible. It would have been much easier for him to retreat to a comfortable retirement and forget the recriminations
and accusations of those who are attached to the lie of ACIM, but he has given that up as well, as have all my Teachers. Bruce
is already working with Robert Perry and others in presenting this material on this website, to find truth and to guide others to
truth and light, even if the others are not aware of the important service they are giving to others.
However, if you want to know what I feel about ACIM, this is it. It has provided a step in the spiritual path for a lot of people
since its publication in 1975, and in as much as it has been positive, it has been good. It will likely continue to provide
a path for some people for some time to come, but gradually, as its limits become manifest, as people of good will try to put its
principles into practice and find that it leads to negative results, it will be abandoned and will, like the gods of Mount Olympus,
become a historic document in the spiritual development of humanity – no more – because it is not what it claims to be and it cannot
take people where they want to go on the spiritual path.
It is
interesting. Gary Renard gave the Course one last shot of life by simplifying its message, by taking the convoluted language
of the original course and putting it into the ordinary language of ordinary people. But he has also inadvertently revealed
the underlying deceptive nature of the Course itself and the claims which it makes, and will help to hasten its death.
This brings us back to the actual authors of ACIM. I have asserted through Bruce MacDonald elsewhere on this website that the
book was written by a first century magician by the name of Simon Magus.
That is only partly accurate, of course. In the same way as Judas Thomas was the ego centre of a particular Individuality (Spiritual
Centre of Consciousness) in the first century, and Bruce MacDonald is the incarnation of that same Individuality in the twentieth
and twenty-first centuries, so Simon Magus and Gary Renard are the incarnations of a particular Individuality who is exploring the
potential and the limits of the Docetic philosophy.
Individualities,
Spirits, those centers of spiritual consciousness which are manifestations of the Divine Source, can choose to explore anything they
wish – God has given them freedom to explore what they will.
It
is technically this Individuality which is exploring Doceticism. It is this Spirit who developed the philosophy, partly in the
incarnate state and partly between lives. The shorthand version of that is to say that Simon Magus developed the philosophy,
since a major part of any of these explorations must take place in the body, and then, after developing and refining the philosophy
further in the discarnate state, dictated it through Helen Schucman as A Course in Miracles.
Simon Magus was not the only one involved, but he was the primary focus of the Soul Group exploring the philosophy. And Gary
Renard is not the only one involved in ACIM now, although he is the direct incarnation of what we can call the "Simon Magus Individuality."
Ken Wapnick and a larger group of souls are also involved, although Renard is the present focus who will ultimately lead to its demise.
In the first century Simon Magus claimed to be a lot of things he was not, including the Messiah and the incarnation of Father, Son
and Holy Spirit (check the Simon Magus article on this website for clarification of that). ACIM claims for itself a lot of things
it is not. And Gary Renard claims for himself a lot of things which are not his.
The pattern of deception operating through two thousand years in the promotion of this philosophy is obvious. So, whatever good
there may be in ACIM (and there are many good and very devout people involved with it who are worthy of much more than they are receiving
in this Course), the primary lies on which it is built must finally destroy it. Many good and perceptive people have imposed
a meaning which has come from their own integrity onto the Course and in the necessity to change the Course in order to reveal truth
they have shown its weaknesses. That meaning is theirs, not the Course's.
As I have pointed out before, it is a self-destructive philosophy. Instead of valuing all that God has manifested in the universe
and instead of searching for the tremendous good which is to be found in all that is and in the human ego, ACIM seeks the dissolution
of the universe and of the ego. It seeks annihilation, a destruction of all that human beings have achieved and it presents
a suicide of ego and universe as a union with the Father.
Union
with the Father comes, not through the disappearance of the universe but through an exploration of the tremendous, infinite power
for good in all that is.
Instead of looking out at the world and
saying, as in Lesson 13 of the Workbook, "I am looking at a meaningless world," learn to look at all the world and at your fellow
human beings and say, "I am looking at a world full of meaning which has come from God. As I look more closely at myself and
at the world, I can begin to discover God's Presence in the beauty of the world and in even the most sordid of things, and I can thus
transform myself and the world I share with all God's creatures so that it becomes the Kingdom of Heaven, present on Earth as in Heaven."
If you do this exercise consistently, you can undo the harm which
the Course has done you. It took 360 lessons, repeated over and over daily for a year or more, and much reading and discussion,
to train the mind to see the illusion which is not there. It will take only a short time to undo that damage and to find the
truth which is within your inner being -- because you will begin, very quickly, to return to the awareness of the Divine Presence
which is always with you, never far away, never hiding from you until the dissolution of the universe. Remember, the
Abba is the Guide to whom Yeshua introduced me in about 1984 and I have been constantly in touch with Him since then. Abba is
the way God manifests in the intimate contact of the inner Spirit. I do not claim to have all the truth of the universe at my
fingertips, nor do I claim that I am special because I have had the privilege of being able to speak in my inner being to Abba, to
God, to the Consciousness of the Universe. Jesus turned to God as Abba, in the intimate relationship with God which he says
is possible for everyone to achieve
What follows here comes from
Abba, speaking through my consciousness – and, of course, coloured by my awareness because this is the intimate voice of God which
can speak to all of us in our own way, with the words we need. Any errors are mine and I do not claim that "God told me so."
However, I do present what has come through my consciousness, claiming to come from Abba. Look in it for insights which might
be able to enlighten your awareness and your life.
ABBA
I called out to the young boy in the dark of the
Moses, shepherding his flock in the hills of Midian, heard a voice coming from a burning bush. "Remove your shoes," I said,
"for the place where you walk is holy ground." Later, Moses learned to know me "as a man talks to his friend."
Elijah, running away from King Ahab, hid in a cave and slept. An earthquake, a great wind and a fire passed by but he
knew he could not commune with me in those. When he heard the direct Still, Small Voice, he covered his head with his cloak
for he knew I was ready to speak with him. Elijah established the Schools of the Prophets to teach others to speak with me in
their inner being.
Yeshua, the one you know as Jesus, knew me from
the first, babbling his childish words. "Dad," he called me. "Abba." "My Father who is in Heaven," he told his disciples,
"is the source of my strength and my comfort. But," he said, "the
All of these knew me in the way I want to know all people. Children often hear my voice. Listen closely. You can
overhear as they talk to me about the simplest of things. Do not seek for only the profound things when you talk to me. Share the events of your life, your joys and sorrows, your questions and doubts as well as your hopes. In all of these I am
present to you whenever you wish to make the contact which will change your life.
And what does this have to do with A Course in Miracles, you may wonder? Many of you read in its pages and seek for union with
Me, trying to do what it demands. Yet it guides you in the wrong way.
You seek My Peace and you look in ACIM for clues. It tells you, "God's peace is recognized at first by just one thing; in every
way it is totally unlike all previous experiences. It calls to mind nothing that went before. It brings with it no past
associations. It is a new thing entirely," (Manual, p. 49). Yet I tell you that My Peace is always familiar because it
does not have to be found in a time long ago before the imaginary fall into illusion. My Peace is not a memory of what was,
as ACIM says, but is an experience of My presence in you and in the world, now.
Look at Yeshua or Samuel. "God is like your Dad, Abba, speaking comforting words in the night." "God's peace is like the Still
Small Voice which you have heard many times before in the wind in the trees or the singing of birds, except before you did not recognize
it as my voice."
My voice is always to be found in something familiar
because I am in all things and you have experienced me many times without realizing it. You have seen me in the loving glance
of a stranger or a friend or a lover or parent. Unlike the assertion of ACIM, which would make My Peace distant and different,
I tell you that My Peace is entirely familiar. That is why you can look around you in all you see and find me there when your
eyes are opened.
It is stated in ACIM that "God indeed can be reached
directly . . . Yet this awareness and this memory can arise across the threshold of recognition only where all barriers of truth have
been removed. In how many is this the case?" (Manual, p. 61). Here ACIM claims that ALL barriers to truth must be resolved
before you can reach me directly. This also is not so.
You
have not been in a dark hotel room, as I have, listening to the cries of one whose life seems to have come to nothing. In that
bleak place, and in many like it, I have made many direct contacts with those who are far from perfect. Almost none of the barriers
of truth have been removed for these people, yet I make My love known directly to so many in like state when they call out for my
help.
In many cases the direct contact with me is made when
truth has been abandoned completely and life has reached the depth of despair. Contact with me is, in those cases, the beginning
of the path to truth, not the result of a search for truth where all error has been eliminated.
The philosophy of ACIM is similar to that of the Pharisees and Essenes in the time of Yeshua. They also taught that you could
know me only when you were holy and had fulfilled all the requirements of the law and had proved yourself perfect. Yet Yeshua
told the prostitutes and tax collectors and sinners that they were not condemned to a life apart from God. My love extended
to them in spite of their lack, and my love filled the lack they felt.
Unfortunately, ACIM would claim that I am far away, somewhere before the universe came into being, waiting for ALL barriers to be
thrown down before direct contact can be made with me. But this is not so. I am always available, even for those who have
not succeeded in forgiving everything that has been done to them or which they have done. They need only express the desire
for my contact and it has begun.
Your ego, your sense of who you
are, your sense of "I am," does often distort the world which has come from me. And in that distortion the ego makes it hard
to hear my voice.
But the ego is not evil and is not even
the problem. The ego, in one of its phases, wants to keep me at a distance, to deny I even exist, because without this claim the ego
could not claim to be the centre of the universe. The idea of the ego which is presented in ACIM is at this stage. It
wants to say that God is far away, hiding in the past before the ego created the world. This stage of ego really does think
that it made everything and that in order to find me it must claim that the world is illusion. The ego will go through many stages
of development before it is ready to hear my voice.
But the ego
must not be destroyed or "undone." I have not really made or created anything. All that is is more intimately related
to me than that. All that is is a manifestation of my being. It arises from who and what I am. And since I am also
freedom, what arises from me, the Individualities that become egos when they take a body for themselves, these also have freedom to
explore whatever they wish, without punishment or condemnation. That is the meaning of forgiveness – you are not condemned for
doubting or thinking or exploring or looking for answers to the many questions which will eventually lead you to My wisdom. But that wisdom is always a new thing for everyone who seeks it. It is never what has always been, eternally waiting for the
ego to return to the past.
So the ego which thinks it is God is
only asserting what it actually is – it is a manifestation of My being, but it does not have to resort to the idea that the world
is illusion to claim that identity. It can claim it directly. In the long run, this does not even separate the ego from
Me, even if for a time it seems to. And when you get to the point of feeling you have completely isolated yourself in the universe,
call on Me and I will again remind you of my Presence with you so that you can continue your journey of discovery without fear.
The ego is God. It is Me, but it is also afraid because it thinks I will be jealous of other Gods. I have no jealousy,
even though people project their own fear onto me for a time and think I will be jealous and will want to punish them. That
is why people create punishing deities, because they don't think they would punish themselves and they feel guilt and feel that they
should be punished for claiming to be what they are.
If truth were
known, I want all egos to be strong enough to believe they are Gods. Didn't Yeshua say just as much? "You are Gods" he
said. When the ego is strong enough to know the Source from which it came, and to know that it, too, is God, then it will not
fear because it has become One with Me. Only equals can become one and we are equals. I have even become the servant of
all in order that you may know of my love for you.
That again is
what Yeshua said, "I and the Father are one." That is the aim for all people.
This is given in answer to why Bruce's Guides teach that ACIM is not a reliable guide to spiritual growth. ACIM wants the ego
to disintegrate and wants the universe to disintegrate since, it says, "The world of time is the world of illusion" (Manual, p. 4)
and "The world of bodies is the world of sin, for only if there were a body is sin possible" (Manual, p. 81).
The body is not sin, nor is it the cause of sin. I say that in whatever state you are, you have a body. Those who are
in the world have a physical body. Those in the Spirit have a spiritual body. A body is merely the vehicle for the Spirit
to experience the various dimensions of the universe. As the rainbow has colours, and light has even more colours than the rainbow,
so all of reality has an infinite number of realms in which bodies of various kinds are necessary in order to explore the "many mansions
of the Father." Bodies are neutral. They indicate nothing about sin or no sin, about guilt or no guilt. As Yeshua
said, "It is what is within the cup which defiles you, not the cup itself."
ACIM has a whole series of exercises to teach the ego its philosophy. The writer of ACIM, whoever that writer is (and Yeshua
has addressed that issue), knows its conclusions do not come naturally to the ego and that the ego will resist, so it says not to
repeat some exercises more than two or three times a day or for too long a time, lest the exercises lead to discomfort.
The reason these exercises become uncomfortable is that the ego carries the Divine Wisdom within it and it becomes uncomfortable at
being told what it knows is not true. If the ego persists, of course, it can learn the lie that the world is meaningless, but
it is never comfortable with this conclusion and always feels insecure in the teachings of ACIM. Consequently, it lashes out
at those who threaten its tenuous hold on those conclusions, even swearing at those who dare to question its teachings.
Lesson 14, early in the training, claims, "The world you see has nothing to do with reality. It is of your own making and it
does not exist."
The ego can never be comfortable with that message
or with the result of all 360 lessons. It takes that long to persuade the ego of this falsehood because the ego knows the truth
of what Yeshua taught: "The
The ego also knows the truth
of what Judas Thomas wrote in the Gospel of Thomas (now in the Nag Hammadi Library), that I am everywhere: "Split a piece of
wood and I am there. Lift up a stone, and you will find me there," says one verse. Putting stones in place for a cooking
stove and laying split wood between the stones for a fire was the work of poor, servant or slave women in that society. It was
the most menial of tasks, yet the assertion is true that I am present even in this most simple and menial of events.
The world is not illusion and the ego does not separate you from Me. All aspects of the world are an expression of my nature,
and if the ego chooses suffering or anger or cruelty, that choice is also an expression of the freedom I am, although the cruelty
is not of my nature.
Simon Magus is also free to explore
the Docetic philosophy and to work out its ultimate implications, as he has in ACIM, but you who have followed its teachings do not
need to stay there. When souls learn of the destructive or painful nature of their choices, they are also free to let go of
what they have created and to try something else until they learn wisdom.
But enough people have called out for clarification about ACIM so that this effort has been made to answer their questions. Do I speak against ACIM? Perhaps Bruce has chosen the wrong word there as he interpreted the feeling he received from Me. I
warn against expecting that ACIM will bring you to truth. It is certainly a path which people are free to follow if you want
what it brings. You are free to live by its dictates, but they will take you progressively farther from Me and you will have
to work hard to reverse the pathways it has created in your mind. Perhaps that is what you have chosen to experience in this life. If that is the case, you can continue in its way.
You are also
free to choose union with Me, because your being is mine. When you choose love, joy, peace, compassion and anything which moves
toward union, you begin to discover the bliss of which you are capable. Once having chosen that bliss, there are few who would
return to their old ways of illusion and separation.
All possibilities
are open to you to explore. I do not condemn or punish but you create the conditions appropriate to your beliefs and actions. As it is said, "He who lives by the sword dies by the sword. He who lives by love continues to live by love, even when the body
dies." Each action and each belief has its own effect and its own realm of experience which you will need to explore to know
the experience in its entirety.
But experiences must be explored
in their entirety. You cannot choose to experience only what it is for you to be cruel to others. You must also experience
what that has brought into the lives of those to whom you have been cruel. All experiences have a completeness which must be
lived once you have chosen part.
This brings us to the question
with which Robert Perry opened the questioning. He wonders if ACIM brings a radical forgiveness where an action has no consequences
and is not real.
All action has consequences and all action is real. Forgiveness means that there is no condemnation and the person who forgives is no longer bound to the prison of judgment. But
the action still has its consequences so that the soul which has acted can learn the consequences of all its actions. If this were
not so, there would be no learning, no responsibility and no wisdom.
You must learn in the experience of your own soul what you have brought into the experience of others. If you torture others
you must learn in your own soul what you have brought to others. That goes for all you do, so that you may learn of the nature
of cause and effect in the universe.
That is why it is recommended
that you "do unto others what you would have them do unto you." What you do to others will come back into your experience so
you can learn the lessons you set out to find.
ACIM cannot lead
to union with Me because it seeks to destroy both the ego and the realm of manifestation where union can take place. It seeks to destroy
the connection between cause and effect. What is eternal and unchanging is not from Me because there is no such place or condition.
Even the vision of ACIM, where everything is dissolved and souls are returned to the bliss of eternity, depends on change back to
where it started.
Everything changes, including Me, because
all that is is the movement of creativity and consciousness, growth and development, exploration and discovery. In human life,
this is a source of hope, because you do not have to wait until "ALL barriers are removed" (Manual, p. 61) to begin to discover My
Presence within you. If you remove some barriers, you have gone part way on the path and have your reward.
In ACIM there is no learning because it claims, "As God created us so will we be forever and forever" (Manual, p. 66). This is in the context of the dissolution of the ego and of the universe. When that happens, the Course concludes, souls will
return to where they began and all they have been and all they have learned will have disappeared. There is no cause and effect
in this teaching. All cause and effect have disappeared in ACIM and no learning takes place.
But you must learn the effects of the causes you put in motion. Once you have learned the consequences of action you will gradually
realize that it is better to act from love rather than hatred, from honesty rather than from lies, from compassion and generosity
rather than from cruelty and greed. Knowledge and wisdom will arise from your own action and will truly be yours.
Action is, indeed, very real and has very real consequences. That is why souls will eventually turn to love. And in love
they will find union with Me. And that union can be achieved many times a day with every act of kindness and with every act
of love which you express. In time, you will find, arising from your own actions and thoughts, a sustained relationship with Me which
is the greatest Bliss, Love and Joy.
All of this is achieved in
small degrees, in small increments, in all those small and gradual steps which ACIM says do not exist. It is the small degrees
which are of most importance; because everyone is capable of small things, and those can gradually bring you to the point where you
will, like the children, speak freely to me "as a child speaks to his/her friend."
And so I call out to those who have taken a hard road, like the oxen whose yoke is heavy and who are required to pull a heavy load,
"Come to me all you who are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn of me, for my yoke is easy
and my burden is light."
If you want to take the hard road which
ACIM holds for you, where you believe you are far from Me and that I cannot be reached in your world. That is up to you. But you can take the gentle road where you come to me daily in the Prayer of Silence, and in the Silence we will commune together
and in the Silence you will gradually be healed of the burdens you have taken on yourself and in the Silence you will come to know
me, also, as Abba, Dad.
Come to Me, in all the small things of life,
and gradually you will find your whole life filled with the light and love of My being.
None of this is illusion.
That brings me to the
end of what I received from Yeshua and Abba. I hope it has explained why I have said the things I have about ACIM and about
what Gary Renard claims. And I hope these words bring you to a more gentle life, one filled with the presence of God and not
a life of illusion.
Peace, Bruce
Considerations which have arisen from emails
It looks like this part of the website may be something like a blog.
A number of people have enquired about the purpose of the above article. Rogier van Vlissingen, for instance, comments in his
blog, "I have perused the website on MacDonald's book a bit, and it seems to me that he comes from a very different frame of reference
than
Just to clarify the matter for readers, my "frame of reference" is diametrically opposed to what
I present a great deal of evidence in The Thomas Book that
He has also committed what
I call “reincarnation identity theft.”
The first context for
the article is plagiarism itself. Some of the email responses suggest that it is not important if Renard plagiarized or not,
but it is somehow the bare “content” of what he said which is important.
It would seem to me that, even taken out of context, the discovery that a major writer has plagiarized a major part of one of his
books from a published source is hardly a "pretty pointless accusation," as van Vlissingen says. It is important to make sure that
what is published for others to read is honest. Since evidence of plagiarism undermines the credibility of the rest of what
an author has written, it is a service to readers of that author to point out that they will have to deal with a lot of questions
about what else the writer has written and said. Do people want to waste their time reading more things from a writer who lies
to them, whoever that writer may be? And do people want to follow a spiritual teacher who steals the work of others? I,
for one, would prefer to follow someone who tells the truth.
Plagiarism is also theft. It is important to blow the whistle
on theft so that we may live in a more law abiding society. I would suspect that, if someone took a chapter from van Vlissingen's
book, published it in a magazine and made $10,000.00 from it, van Vlissingen would want to make sure he got that money, since it came
from his work. Writers make their living from their writing, and when someone steals their work and profits from the theft,
they lose part of their income as well as title to their property. Plagiarism is property theft and is a criminal act in most
countries.
Discovering that "Pursah's Gospel of Thomas" has been plagiarized from Patterson/Meyer is very important. There
is great concern in almost all academic and literary circles about the recent rash of plagiarism made possible by the internet. Plagiarism is taken very seriously everywhere it is found. Students found plagiarizing their essays fail their class. Graduate students who plagiarize theses or parts of their theses have their degrees rescinded. University professors who plagiarize
their research papers are dismissed from their jobs. It is not a "pretty pointless accusation," and I am surprised van Vlissingen
would make that kind of observation.
I can see why he might do that, however. He has published a book based entirely
on "Pursah's Gospel of Thomas" and, if it is proved that "her" work was actually stolen and that "she" is actually merely a fictitious
character, then his book and its conclusions are next to worthless. As a scholar I sympathize with him because, if this is proven
to be plagiarism, as I think I have done, he is also a victim of what
It is also very difficult when the person who has brought meaning into your life is shown to be a fraud, and I have great
sympathy for the great number of people who will be affected in this same way by what Renard has done. Van Vlissingen is an
ardent follower of Gary Renard, as is shown in some of the material quoted on Renard's website. He therefore has great vested
interest in discrediting anyone who finds evidence that the primary material on which he based his research and his life is fraud.
On his blog, in trying to defend Renard's version of the gospel, he makes the odd claim that "Along those lines, I feel that
the Meyer/Paterson translation is about the most neutral version that's out there, in other words, if you weren't consciously trying
to be unique and different, you would end up with something along the lines of that translation." He seems to be trying to defend
the fact that Renard's "translation" is identical to Patterson/Meyer by saying that, if you are trying for something neutral, you
will end up with what they have written (which is not very complimentary to the skill of Patterson/Meyer, by the way). But Pursah
does not claim this is neutral: she/Renard claims it is entirely different and Renard even exclaims after "she" has finished
reciting her "gospel," that this version "flows so much better" and is so much superior to the other translations. He is not
aiming at something neutral – he promises us something completely original.
Related to this matter, some people have asked if I have been in touch with Renard. Yes, I have. In fact Renard sent a very angry email to me and to Circle of Atonement (which has been concerned for a number of years that Renard has not been honest in his claims). After a lengthy email he concluded, "You need to be stopped. Either stop yourself or I will." He threatened to sue, but after it was pointed out that we were not the ones who had plagiarized and were not the ones who might be taken to court, our discussion became more productive.
I cannot quote all of our correspondence, but a sampling of what I wrote might make it clearer why I wrote the article and why I have continued my disagreement with Renard. I will quote from my email to him (in bold italics) with amendments which will make certain matter clearer:
You can certainly be forgiven for not understanding what is happening here. This is not just a matter
of my finding that you have plagiarized the gospel. I tried to explain that in my last email, but I guess it needs greater
clarification. In 1966 I died because of a very serious industrial accident. I fell feet first down a 37 foot piling shaft,
crushed one of my vertebrae to half size and badly fractured two others, tearing all my inner organs out of place at the same time.
A couple of days later in the hospital I died.
I went through the whole process of death (described in
the book) and then
talked in a Near Death Experience with Jesus, Elijah and Moses about a project in which we were involved. Apparently,
I was in the body as Bruce MacDonald in order to carry on my part of the project, but the accident was not expected and it put a block
in the way of what we were planning. I was given the choice whether to come back or not. Yeshua (Jesus) told me that "we can
do this another way. You do not have to go back." He warned me three times that the body was very badly smashed up, but
I still decided to return.
It took seven months in hospital to get the old machine going. I have spent the rest
of my life working on this project. I was told in the 1980's, while writing the Gospel, that I was the reincarnation of
Didymos Judas Thomas but refused to believe it then. [This was confirmed by a very important source in 2007 – this is also in the
book.] I did, however, write the Gospel of Thomas which is in the Thomas Book as well as a book on meditation
which will be
published later this year. It was Judas Thomas through whose eyes I saw while writing the gospel and it was Yeshua who dictated
the teachings for the gospel.
Then, when it came time to publish the books I, discovered that you had taken the name of
Judas Thomas as your own, and were presenting a very different version of Jesus' teachings. In fact, you had so tied up the
spiritual publishing industry with the idea that you were the reincarnation of Thomas/Didymos Judas Thomas [both at the
same time – they are actually two people, not one], that it was impossible for Judas Thomas, Yeshua and me to publish our book without
exposing your deceptions. In order to have this project come to fruition it was necessary to remove the blockage which you had
put in the way.
Of course, you did not know that Judas Thomas would actually come back to life. You
did not believe in reincarnation that much and thought you could get away with adopting his name. But Judas Thomas did come
back and wanted his name back, and with the help of several other people in Spirit, was able to prove the plagiarism and hence the
fraud in the rest of your writing. [All of this is explored in detail in The Thomas Book.] You apparently did not really think
Yeshua could speak, either, so thought you could put all sorts of words in his mouth just by writing them into your book and copying
them from Patterson and Meyer. But Yeshua is very real, I assure you, and fighting against him will not be possible, as
you will find. I have fought against writing what I must for many years, like most of the OT prophets who ran away rather than
listen to that Still Small Voice of the Divine within. I now know the power of both Yeshua and Judas Thomas.
You are not just working against me in this, then. You are actually
standing in the way of Jesus and Judas Thomas and a project
which was 2000 years in the making.
In the earlier email I had written:
Only later did I read in your books that you had
claimed to be a reincarnation of Thomas and Judas Thomas at the same time, and that you had claimed Arten was a reincarnation of Thaddaeus.
You obviously did not know that Thaddaeus was just another name for Judas Thomas, not a different person. And you did not know
that Thomas and Judas Thomas were different people. (You can read about that in The Thomas Book, as well, and you can find there
the evidence from the first century and from the New Testament, of the existence of the Twin.)
Also, I was told by my inner guides that you had been claiming a great many things as having been the teachings of Jesus, when
they were not. So the folks in spirit came up with a plan to expose you. It had to be a very subtle plan because others
had tried and failed. It had to be fail proof. That is when I was led to read Pursah's Gospel of Thomas more closely and
found that it had been plagiarized. Of course, the implication of that fraud is that all your other claims are suspect by any
thinking person.
By the way, ACIM did not come from Jesus.
It came from a very influential magician of the first century named Simon Magus. I am told that you are a reincarnation of Simon
Magus and that is why you have had so much success in teaching the philosophy which you originated in the first century and developed
while in spirit and then persuaded others to write and think came from Jesus. Whether you know it or not, you also have considerable
psychic power to influence others, which is also, I am told, a carryover from that lifetime. You can read about that on my website
if you want. It is under the title of "Simon Magus and the Trinity." You might find it interesting.
My guides assert
that ACIM is leading a lot of people into some profoundly unhealthy social and psychological habits, because they believe that the
world and human relations are an illusion, and that it is not worth trying to change anything in the world. They are becoming
entirely passive in the face of world problems which need all our efforts to solve. This is exactly the kind of philosophy the
Hitlers of the world love, because if enough people really believe this then they can get away with any lies or intimidation or injustice
and people will dismiss it as nothing but illusion. That is why my guides teach against it. The conflict in the Course
community should be enough evidence of this negative influence. You can read about that also, if you want, on the website under
the entry "Sample Chapter readings." You have to scroll down on the left side to find Chapter Four readings. You must surely
realize by now that your beliefs have led you into a great deal of trouble and that it is time to change those beliefs.
The
trouble with ACIM is that it takes a lot of the good things from the actual teachings of Jesus and combines them with a lot of the
negative things which arose in the Dosetic philosophy of Simon Magus and so twists everything around to make it ultimately destructive.
It looks like it should be good, just because of the words it uses, but it is destructive because of the underlying philosophy of
life which I outline in the two places I mentioned above.
I have also put some passages from the Gospel which Yeshua and Judas Thomas wrote through me in the right column on that same Sample
Chapter
After
some more discussion he asked if he could place a reply to my article on my website. I said I didn't have room here but might
be able to put a link to his article. I had read his response to the three earlier critics of his work and knew it was mostly
character assassination so I responded,
I would have to see what you have written before putting the link.
The last "response" you wrote was, in my opinion, mostly directed at personally attacking and discrediting the writers who criticized
you and not at answering the questions they raised. I have no desire to link to an article which is merely character abuse.
What I have written is factual. I have put charts and statistics to show that at least 85%
of Pursah's "gospel" is identical to the work of Patterson/Meyer. It is not similar in form nor is it similar in language.
It is identical in form and language. Just having omitted parts of a verse does not make the rest of the verse somehow, magically
yours. Even the parts were written by the original translators.
If you have
comments which would shed light on why this should be the case, especially when you portray Pursah as saying that her gospel will
be a completely new translation taken from the actual words of Jesus which, as I point out, would have been Aramaic, and thus would
have had completely different intonations and implications from the Greek and Coptic from which the Patterson/Meyer translation is
taken, then I would be delighted to provide a link to such an article.
Aramaic is
a very different language which does not work with exact meanings, like Greek, but which mostly works with implication and nuance
and symbolism. Any work translated from Aramaic is very different from one translated from Greek. If you want
to get a sense of how such a translation would actually appear, you might want to consult the translation of the Lord's Prayer from
Aramaic which is available online at http://www.thenazareneway.com/lords_prayer.htm .
It will be obvious that a mere word for word transposition is not possible. I am intrigued how an Ascended Master could commit
such an error in claiming we were going to see a new gospel, taken from the actual Aramaic words of Jesus, and then giving
us a repeat of a currently available translation from Greek and Coptic, word for word. That does indeed puzzle me and I
would be very interested in seeing how that could have happened.
If the article
is personal attack, like the last one, I feel no obligation to provide a link. Also, if it is merely an argument that I
have not followed the principles of ACIM I will not be interested in providing a link either, because I do not feel ACIM
is a valid basis for social or psychological action or evaluation. In fact, I think ACIM is a source of great discord and
suffering for the people who follow it and for the community which tries to put its principles into practice.
Anyway, since a number of people had asked for this kind of context and to address some of the questions which arose in their minds, I hope this account will give an idea of where things stand at the present.
One other little thing which has come from the emails:
I would like to recommend to the members of the Course community
who claim to be living out of love and forgiveness, that they should really try to act more lovingly, if in fact they have learned
about love in addition to forgiveness. Here is a typical quote from the more negative writers:
"Is it any wonder
when folk are wanting to get away
from attack, judgment, hate, controversy, anger, jealousy and a myriad of ego traits that us students
of the course are working to overcome mate. Get a fucken life jerk. . . Just do the fucken course jerk, and I'll see you on the path,
guaranteed. Hahahahaha hahahahahaha."
This is the kind of abuse anyone who criticizes Renard is subjected to over and over. One wonders what they are learning from the Course since this is the kind of thing that comes from it in so many people who follow
the Course – they seem to think that if the world is an illusion they have no responsibility for anything they do. It leads
to complete irresponsibility while at the same time leading to this kind of abuse in the name of forgiveness. It becomes almost
pathological. This is part of the reason my spiritual teachers teach against ACIM.
Gary Renard has asked that I put in a link for a response from him so I include that here:
http://www.gracetouch.com/Renard/FraudAccusations.html
It is interesting that he has not been able to address any of the issues of plagiarism, merely quoting extensively from the blog of Van Vlissingen which we have considered above.
He does, however, do exactly what he did in the last “defense” after the articles which asked for clarification of a number of matters. He attacked people. In this case, since he doesn’t know enough about me to attack me, except to try to belittle me, he turns his ire to Robert Perry and tells stories about him which turn out to be twisted and even not true so that one had to be withdrawn. But you can read about that in Robert’s reply which can be found at:
http://www.circleofa.org/articles/WhatKindOfAcimCommunity.php
I
think you can see from all of this that there are some serious issues which members of the Course community will have to address,
not the least being the Course itself and why it produces the kinds of responses it does. AS I read through Course blogs, I
am amazed at the animosity of those who claim to be “doing the Course.”
To go to the Thomas Book
Homepage click: http://www.ThomasTwin.com
To return to Circle of Atonement click here: http://www.circleofa.org
To
contact Bruce, email: TheThomasBook@gmail.com