There are many misconceptions about "A Course In Miracles".  Imagine that!  Here's a book by an "author" who claims to have performed her life's work as nothing short of a channel for Jesus, over a seven-year period, taking down His Words for the book we now know as "A Course In Miracles".  Just say "channeled", and you'll send many folks a'scramblin'!  Just say "Jesus", and those who didn't freak out at the word "channeled" are now likely to hit the road!

So, who's left reading this thing?  Well, more and more of us, thankfully!  Word (do I dare say, "The Word"?  LOL!) is getting out that perhaps...  PERHAPS.. it's not what we think!  Relax..  It really is alright!

Quite literally everything we think and everything we see is influenced by our past.  Can you imagine being dropped upon this planet for the first time and being told that this book was channeled from Jesus?  That would be an entirely meaningless concept to you.  However, we come from our various pasts with a whole slew of baggage and contaminants, "telling" us whether or not something before us is "good" or "bad", "ugly", or "beautiful", "holy" or "blasphemous"... You get the point.  Many of us have tremendous influences in our minds, going way back to some of our earliest memories, associated with "Jesus", church, Sunday school, Easter, the crucifixion, etc.  To  hear that Jesus is still "out there" talking to us by way of the mind, through "channeled" material, leaves many feeling understandably dubious about ACIM.

It is in fact entirely normal for the ego to respond with resistance and defensiveness to ACIM, as the ego's job, as it sees it, is to defend us from truth.  Once we begin tasting truth and abandoning the idols of the world we've used as substitutes for Love, the ego begins an all-out attempt to win our affection and regain our devotion.  So, it is no wonder that ACIM is initially resisted, in general.  However, the outcome of this "duel" is certain, as truth never "battles".  What is there to "fight" when the opponent is nothing but an illusion?  As J explains in the Text on page 177:

     "Grandeur is of God, and only of Him. Therefore it is in you. Whenever you become aware of it, however dimly, you abandon the ego automatically, because in the presence of the grandeur of God the meaninglessness of the ego becomes perfectly apparent. When this occurs, even though it does not understand it, the ego believes that its "enemy" has struck, and attempts to offer gifts to induce you to return to its "protection". Self-inflation is the only offering it can make. The grandiosity of the ego is its alternative to the grandeur of God. Which will you choose?"

What It Is Not

For me to attempt to tell you what ACIM is "not" is to resort to more judgment and fragmentation from my own perception, and it also means I am attempting to guess what your ideas and misconceptions may entail.  This "problem" is precisely what ACIM IS about -- and how to escape these self-imposed limitations which have seemingly separated us, but only as illusions.  You see, all of our questions of "what" and "why" are merely shadows used by the ego to block the light of truth, and once the light is experienced and remembered through the forgiveness and miracle J teaches us in ACIM, the questions themselves become entirely meaningless.  As J says so beautfully in the Clarification of Terms (ACIM), page 82:

     "This was the ego-all the cruel hate, the need for vengeance and the cries of pain, the fear of dying and the urge to kill, the brotherless illusion and the self that seemed alone in all the universe. This terrible mistake about yourself the miracle corrects as gently as a loving mother sings her child to rest. Is not a song like this what you would hear? Would it not answer all you thought to ask, and even make the question meaningless?"

We seek to compartmentalize, as we feel comforted by the illusion of orderliness we believe our judgment brings.  However, given that we all have such varied histories, with extremely poor memory of the past to boot, what kind of "order" or consistency can we actually expect?  Truth varies not.  Truth merely is.  ACIM teaches us a new way of seeing, that is a complete course in mind training.  Many ask if ACIM is a religion, but there are absolutely no creeds or doctrines, dogma or ACIM churches.  ("All religion is the recognition that the irreconcilable cannot be reconciled."  Text, pg 187)

We are being taught to see the world differently through gentle, forgiving eyes of the Holy Spirit within us all rather than to merely recite dogma and creed in the ego's fear-based attempt to gain control over the uncontrollable.  Given that the ego tells us we are bodies, that is indeed the bleak picture painted by religion.  Sin now.  Heaven is for later...  Maybe.....  If God was listening when we said the right words..  but what if he wasn't????  OK, so God knows what's in our hearts.  But, what if God sees that "bad" thought I have just before I die, and I don't have time to get in one last "I Love Jesus!"??  

It's no wonder the world is so utterly afraid, brothers poised to strike one another.  We're scared senseless..  literally. 

 As J says in the Introduction to the Course:

 "Nothing real can be threatened.

Nothing unreal exists.

 Herein lies the peace of God."

You are now free to answer the question of "ACIM -- What it is not?" yourself, as you apply your answers against this logic proof!  ; )  As you can see, from the very first page, Jesus is teaching us, with perfect gentleness, to lower our defenses and to RELAX.. it really is alright!