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exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity

A Course In Miracles

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Wisdom literature might warrant us assuming that a term “specialness” would convey meaning of human value or some such. But, as usual, the Course will not flow in predictable currents. "Specialness" herein is something else entirely; moreover, one of the most fundamental and important precepts offered by the Course.

To learn this course requires willingness to question every value that you hold. Not one can be kept hidden and obscure but it will jeopardize your learning. No belief is neutral. Every one has the power to dictate each decision you make. For a decision is a conclusion based on everything you believe.

Beliefs will never openly attack each other because conflicting outcomes are impossible [the contemplation of which is an unpleasant cognitive dissonance, and therefore few are willing to entertain this clash of ideas]. But an unrecognized belief is a decision to war in secret, where the results of conflict are kept unknown and never brought to reason, to be considered sensible or not. And many senseless outcomes have been reached, and meaningless decisions have been made and kept hidden, to become beliefs now given power of these hidden warriors to disrupt your peace. Mistake you not the power of these hidden warriors to disrupt your peace.

All that is ever cherished as a hidden belief, to be defended though unrecognized, is faith in specialness. This takes many forms, but always clashes with the reality of God’s creation and with the grandeur that He gave His Son… Only the special could have enemies, for they are different and not the same…

'better' and 'above'

But what is different … must come from someone “better,” someone incapable of being like what he condemns, “above” it, sinless by comparison with it… For specialness not only sets apart, but serves as grounds from which attack on those whom seem “beneath” the special one is “natural” and “just.” The special ones feel weak and frail because of differences, for what would make them special is their enemy. Yet they protect its enmity and call it “friend.” On its behalf they fight against the universe, for nothing in the world they value more.

Specialness is the great dictator of the wrong decisions. Here is the grand illusion of what you are and what your brother is… Would it be possible for you to hate your brother if you were like him? Could you attack him if you realized you journey with him, to a goal that is the same? …

Specialness always makes comparisons… Against the littleness you see in him you stand tall and stately, clean and honest, pure and unsullied, by comparison with what you see. Nor do you understand it is yourself that you diminish thus…

You are not special. If you think you are, and would defend your specialness against the truth of what you really are, how can you know the truth? What answer that the Holy Spirit gives can reach you, when it is your specialness to which you listen… Its tiny answer, soundless in the melody that pours from God to you eternally… is all you listen to. You can defend your specialness, but never will you hear the Voice for God beside it…

It is not you [the “true self”] who are so vulnerable and open to attack that just a word, a little whisper that you do not like, a circumstance that suits you not, or an event that you did not anticipate upsets your world, and hurls it into chaos. Truth is not frail… But specialness is not the truth in you. It can be thrown off balance by anything… Always attacked and always furious, with anger always fully justified, you have pursued this goal with vigilance, [a goal] you never thought to yield, and effort that you never thought to cease. And all this grim determination was for this; you wanted specialness to be the truth…

Forgive the Holy One the specialness He could not give, and that you [the “false self,” the ego] made instead… The slaves of specialness will yet be free. Such is the Will of God and of His Son…

Forget not that the healing of God’s Son is all the world is for. That is the only purpose the Holy Spirit sees in it, and thus the only one it has. Until you see the healing of the Son as all you wish to be accomplished by the world … you will use the world for what is not its purpose, and will not escape its violence and death.

This course makes no attempt to teach what cannot easily be learned… what is yours will come to you when you are ready.

None of this is terribly difficult to understand. T.S. Eliot had it this way:

The Course desires for us to know that most of the trouble in the world is caused by people wanting to be "special."

'better' and 'above'  Editor’s note: Recently I was subjected to an online advert with a well-known movie star as spokesman for some politically-based proposition. His tone of voice, however, despite formidable acting skills, could not hide his subtle contempt for those who disagreed with him. The entire tenor of his presentation devolved to “you’re stupid, and how dare you question those of us on Mount Olympus.” He couldn’t help himself. He was “better” and “above” - and therefore it was his right, seemingly so to him, that he should tell the rest of us what to do and how to live in a moral way; morality as defined by his little egoic standards. People like this do not have a special proclivity for insanity or evil. If you’d known them in school, in earlier years, they’d have been, more or less, much like everyone else. But then they became famous by acting in a movie; or they invented, or stole, some high-tech gizmo, took their company public, and became a billionaire; or they wrote something, vacuous though it may have been, with airhead editors now, possessing a big microphone, saying it's so wonderful. In all of these flights into hubris and unreality, with so many admirers flocking, ever chanting a mantra of superiority for the godhood-novitiate, the victim of such begins to believe the propaganda. He really sees himself now as “above” and “better.” And though maybe his earlier views concerning life were aided by a certain semblance of humility, that’s all history now, with the coming of the wave of adulation. Pretty much, this could have happened to anyone. Anyone with a dysfunctional ego. This means you and me. It needed to be this way; however, some do manage to mitigate, somewhat, this creeping progression of spiritual disease. But it’s difficult, and the end result is – they now believe they’re better, with a concomitant right to rule over you and to tell you what to do. To this end, lying and cheating, bullying and oppressing, is deemed to be ok – because the end justifies the means, they tell themselves; and 'who could say we’re immoral when we’re so right, better, and above.' It’s called totalitarianism. Read about it in the four "spirituality" articles.

Kairissi. The first thing we notice as the Course introduces “specialness” is that it’s couched within preliminary discussion of personal belief systems.

Elenchus. Why do you think the Course frames the issue this way?

K. As Krishnamurti told us, people think they’re fancy free and uninfluenced, making decisions in an unfettered and objective way. But, what’s really happening is that all of our prior conditioning…

E. And this “prior conditioning” would be our belief systems, the hidden software of the computer.

K. Exactly. “Hidden software” is a good descriptor, and the Course also uses the metaphors of “hidden warriors” and “dictator” to describe the secret and silent influences. All of our hidden belief systems rise up, grab us by the lapels, and force us to sing and dance according to pre-programmed instructions.

E. Little wonder then the Course asserts that, in order to win at this game, we need a “willingness to question every value you hold.”

K. This is extremely vital to understand – because without this willingness to go within and inspect what’s really motivating us, we become slaves to base passions and ill-conceived “software sub-routines” that have been built into our minds since we were children.

E. And the head-honcho of all "pre-programming" is that of “specialness.”

K. The Course gives it the chief seat by calling it the “grand illusion.” And then it really ups the ante with panscopic terms like “all” and “always.” We’re given to know that the poison of “specialness” is behind “all that is ever cherished as a hidden belief” and “always clashes with the reality of God’s creation.”

E. This is really something. We’ve hit the mother lode of malfeasance.

K. And yet it’s “hidden” away. We've repressed it all. And that’s why it’s so hard to define, pin, and label.

E. Let’s tell our readers now what “specialness” is.

K. Well, as the author referenced T.S. Eliot – it’s eating the poisoned apple of wanting to be important. The Course dilates and says it’s thinking oneself to be “better” and “above.”

E. You know, this is very interesting. A number of years ago the author, in his three articles on “spirituality,” used these very same terms – “better” and “above” – to describe the hidden motivations of totalitarianism.

K. It’s much in line with “I thank thee Lord that I am not like other men” that we saw on the "Forgiveness" page.

E. Yes.

K. For the Course, “specialness” is not human dignity and human value – all that is well and good, but the Course puts a new and dark spin on “specialness” to mean “special as opposed to all others,” “special in the sense of I'm worthy and you're nothing.”

E. In the articles on “Evil” we learned that, when we seek to abuse others, we must first minimize their value as human beings; and one of the easiest ways of doing this is to elevate ourselves. We want to believe that truth, righteousness, and God are on our side.

K. Even the S.S. wore buckles brandishing, "Gott mit uns" -- “God is with us”…

E. (sighing) “Gott mit uns” – I am “special.” I am “better.” I am “above.” And when the dysfunctional ego gets hold of this mantra, it becomes a theme song for all the evil that’s ever happened on planet Earth – from the antics of the fifth-grade bully on the playground, to the little-old-lady gossip on the phone, to the white-collar embezzler, all the way up the food chain to the totalitarian politicians who take their wannabe-place with the greatest despots of history.

K. I’d like to also point out that the Course offers us some subtle irony.

E. What are you seeing Kriss?

K. The Course represents high level and complicated literature. It employs “mashal style” teaching to promote understanding, not just knowledge. Its didactic ways are often very subtle. And we see a good example of this sleight-of-hand in the choice of the word “specialness” to encapsulate a sense of pride and hubris. Here’s what I mean. Consider this phrase by the Course: Forgive the Holy One the specialness He could not give, and that you [the “false self,” the ego] made instead… There’s much offered between the lines. “Holy” in the Hebrew – and let’s recall that the Course so often will make allusion to the Bible – “holy,” along with related words such as “sacred,” consecrated,” and “sanctified,” in the Hebrew, etymologically issues with core meaning of “set apart” and “different.”

E. Yes, I see. “Holy” in the Hebrew scripture means “set apart for a special purpose.” If something is “consecrated” it’s “set apart for a special purpose” to God.

K. The irony becomes clear. There is a sense in which we are, in fact, altogether “holy” and “special” to God; however, the dysfunctional ego turns everything on its head by making “specialness” come out as “I’m the big cheese and you’re all scum.”

E. I think we know, when we discover something to be true, that we’ll find it connected to all other aspects of truth. We’ve already made connections with the subjects of evil, totalitarianism, spirituality, and belief systems, but a really big one that should not be left out is cultism.

K. Absolutely.

E. In the “Cultism” articles we learn that people identify with ideologies, with strong “father figures,” in order to find safety and security in an uncertain and hostile world.

K. And when they do, they invariably assume a posture of “I am better, I am above.” It's a pious mask they wear to cover up the opposite - a gnawing feeling of inferiority on the deep inside.

E. All the cultish belief systems operate this way, whether they be of the religious, political, corporate, or academic versions.

K. In each case, true-believers latch onto belief systems which seem to offer them a security and safety of believing “I have the one true doctrines, I have the right angle on what’s real, I have the right group behind me, I have the truth.”

E. (sighing) Gott mit uns.

K. Yes.

E. Before we end our discussion, let me ask you – why do you think the author wanted us to comment on this subject? We’re usually off-duty for the Course's writings.

K. Well… I can think of one possibility. This whole area of “specialness” and its special poison probably keeps true lovers apart more than any other reason.

E. (silence)

K. Remember way back in “The Wedding Song” when we talked about John Sebastian’s, “Darling Be Home Soon”? It’s about his girl who disagrees with some religious or political view of life.

E. And it keeps them apart - “but Darling be home soon.”

K. (sighing) The cultish notions of “specialness,” of “I am better and above,” are the death of love. It makes people vicious and haughty, and leads them do things which, in their right minds, they would never do; especially, to the one person they love forever.

E. The Course suggests that we cannot help or make another learn faster - “what is yours will come to you when you are ready.”

K. (softly) Unfortunately, as we found out, this is more than true. And so, let me say, Ellus, and maybe I'm the one at fault - “Darling be home soon.”