This is a crucial question both for teacher and student. If this issue
is mishandled, the teacher has hurt himself, and has also attacked his
pupil. This strengthens fear and makes the magic seem quite real to both
of them. How to deal with magic thus becomes a major lesson for the
teacher of God to master. His first responsibility in this is not to
attack it. If a magic thought arouses anger in any form, God’s teacher
can be sure that he is strengthening his own belief in sin and has
condemned himself. He can be sure as well that he has asked for
depression, pain, fear and disaster to come to him. Let him remember,
then, it is not this that he would teach because it is not this that he
would learn.

There is, however, a temptation to respond to magic in a way that
reinforces it. Nor is this always obvious. It can, in fact, be easily
concealed beneath a wish to help. It is this double wish that makes the
help of little value, and must lead to undesired outcomes. Nor should it
be forgotten that the outcome that results will always come to teacher
and to pupil. How many times has it been emphasized that you give but to
yourself? And where could this be better shown than in the kinds of help
the teacher gives to those who need his aid? Here is his gift most
clearly given him. For he will give only what he has chosen for himself.
And in this gift is his judgement upon the holy Son of God.

It is easiest to let error be corrected where it is most apparent, and
errors can be recognized by their results. A lesson truly taught can
lead to nothing but release for teacher and pupil who have shared in one
intent. Attack can enter only if perception of separate goals has
entered. And this must indeed have been the case if the result is
anything but joy. The single aim of the teacher turns the divided goal
of the pupil into one direction, with the call for help becoming his one
appeal. This then is easily responded to with just one answer, and this
answer will enter the teacher’s mind unfailingly. From there it shines
into his pupil’s mind, making it one with his.

Perhaps it will be helpful to remember that no-one can be
angry at a fact. It is always an interpretation that gives rise to
negative emotions, regardless of their seeming justification by what
appears as facts. Regardless, too, of the intensity of the anger that is
aroused. It may be merely slight irritation, perhaps too mild to be even
clearly recognized. Or it may also take the form of intense rage
accompanied by thoughts of violence, fantasied or apparently acted out.
It does not matter. All of these reactions are the same. They obscure
the truth, and this can never be a matter of degree. Either truth is
apparent or it is not. It cannot be partially recognized. Who is unaware
of truth must see illusions.

Anger in response to perceived magic thoughts is the basic cause of
fear. Consider what this reaction means, and its centrality in the
world’s thought system becomes apparent. A magic thought, by its mere
presence, acknowledges a separation from God. It states, in the clearest
form possible, that the mind which thinks it believes it has a separate
will that can oppose the Will of God and succeed. That this can hardly be
a fact is obvious. Yet that it can be believed as fact is surely so. And
herein lies the birthplace of guilt. Who usurps the place of God and
takes it for himself now has a deadly “enemy.” And he must stand alone
in his protection, and make himself a shield to keep him safe from fury
that can never be abated and vengeance that can never be satisfied.

How can this unfair battle be resolved? Its ending is inevitable, for
its outcome must be death. How then can one believe in one’s defences?
Magic again must help. Forget the battle. Accept it as a fact and then
forget it. Do not remember the impossible odds against you. Do not
remember the immensity of the “enemy,” and do not think about your
frailty in comparison. Accept your separation, but do not remember how
it came about. Believe that you have won it, but do not retain the
slightest memory of Who your great “opponent” really is. Projecting your
“forgetting” onto Him, it seems to you He has forgotten too.

But what will now be your reaction to all magic thoughts? They can but
reawaken sleeping guilt, which you have hidden but have not let go. Each
one says clearly to your frightened mind, “You have usurped the place of
God. Think not He has forgotten.” Here we have the fear of God most
starkly represented. For in that thought
has guilt already raised madness to the throne of God Himself. And now
there is no hope. Except to kill. Here is salvation now. An angry Father
pursues His guilty Son. Kill or be killed, for here alone is choice.
Beyond this there is none, for what was done cannot be done without. The
stain of blood can never be removed, and anyone who bears this stain on
him must meet with death.

Into this hopeless situation God sends His teachers. They bring the
light of hope from God Himself. There is a Way in which escape is
possible. It can be learned and taught, but it requires patience and
abundant willingness. Given that, the lesson’s manifest simplicity
stands out like an intense white light against a black horizon, for such
it is. If anger comes from an interpretation and not a fact, it is never
justified. Once this is even dimly grasped, the Way is open. Now it is
possible to take the next step. The interpretation can be changed at
last. Magic thoughts need not lead to condemnation, for they do not
really have the power to give rise to guilt. And so they can be
overlooked, and thus forgotten in the truest sense.

Madness but seems terrible. In truth it has no power to make anything.
Like the magic which becomes its servant, it neither attacks nor
protects. To see it and to recognize its thought system is to look on
nothing. Can nothing give rise to anger? Hardly so. Remember then,
teacher of God, that anger recognizes a reality that is not there, yet
is the anger certain witness that you do believe in it as fact. Now is
escape impossible until you see you have responded to your own
interpretation, which you have projected on an outside world. Let this
grim sword be taken from you now. There is no death. This sword does not
exist. The fear of God is causeless. But His Love is Cause of everything
beyond all fear, and thus forever real and always true.