The body is nothing more than a framework for developing abilities. It
is therefore a means for developing POTENTIALS, which is quite apart
from what the potential is used FOR. THAT is a DECISION. The effects of
the ego’s decision in this matter are so apparent that they need no
elaboration here, but the Holy Spirit’s decision to use the body ONLY
for communication has such a direct connection with healing that it DOES
need clarification. The unhealed healer OBVIOUSLY does not understand
his own vocation.

ONLY minds communicate. Since the ego CANNOT obliterate the impulse to
communicate because it is also the impulse to create, the ego can only
teach you that the BODY can both communicate AND create, and therefore
does not NEED the mind. The ego thus tries to teach you that the body
can ACT like the mind, and is therefore self-sufficient. Yet we have
learned that behavior is NOT the level for either teaching OR learning.
This must be so, since you CAN act in accordance with what you do NOT
believe. To do this, however, will weaken you as teachers AND learners
because, as has been repeatedly emphasized, you teach what you DO
believe. An inconsistent lesson will be poorly taught AND POORLY
LEARNED. If you teach both sickness AND healing you are both a poor
teacher AND a poor learner.

Healing is the one ability which everyone can develop and MUST develop,
if he is to be healed. Healing is the Holy Spirit’s form of
communication, and the ONLY one He knows. He recognizes no other because
he does not accept the ego’s confusion of mind and body. Minds can
communicate, but they CANNOT hurt. The body in the service of the ego can
hurt other BODIES, but this cannot occur unless the body has ALREADY
been confused with the mind. This fact, too, can be used either for
healing or for magic, but you must remember that magic is ALWAYS the
belief that healing is HARMFUL. This is its totally insane premise, and
so it proceeds accordingly.

Healing only STRENGTHENS. Magic ALWAYS tries to weaken. Healing
perceives NOTHING in the healer that everyone else does not SHARE with
him. Magic ALWAYS sees something “special” in the healer, which he
believes he can offer as a gift to someone who does NOT have it. He may
believe that the gift comes FROM God to Him, but it is quite evident
that he does not understand God if he thinks he has something that
others LACK. You might well ask, then, why some healing CAN result from
this kind of thinking, and there is a reason for this:

However misguided the “magical healer” may be, he is ALSO trying to
help. He is conflicted and unstable, but AT TIMES he is offering
something to the Sonship, and the only thing the Sonship can ACCEPT is
healing. When the so-called “healing” works, then, the impulse to help
and to BE helped have coincided. This is coincidental, because the
healer may NOT be experiencing himself as truly helpful at the time, but
the belief that he IS, in the mind of another, helps HIM.

The Holy Spirit does NOT work by chance, and healing that is of Him
ALWAYS works. Unless the healer ALWAYS heals by Him, the results WILL
vary. Yet healing itself IS consistence, since ONLY consistence is
conflict-free, and only the conflict-free ARE whole. By accepting
exceptions and acknowledging that he can sometimes heal and sometimes
not, the healer is OBVIOUSLY accepting inconsistency. He is therefore IN
conflict and TEACHING conflict. Can anything of God NOT be for all and
for always?

Love is incapable of ANY exceptions. Only if there is fear does the IDEA
of exceptions seem to be meaningful. Exceptions are fearful because they
are made BY fear. The “fearful healer” is a contradiction in terms, and
is therefore a concept which ONLY a conflicted mind could possibly
perceive as meaningful. Fear does NOT gladden. Healing DOES. Fear ALWAYS
makes exceptions. Healing NEVER does. Fear produces dissociation because
it induces SEPARATION. Healing ALWAYS produces harmony because it
proceeds from integration.

Healing is predictable because it can be counted on. EVERYTHING that is
of God can be counted on, because everything
of God is wholly REAL. Healing can be counted on BECAUSE it is inspired
by His Voice, and is in accord with His laws. Yet if healing IS
consistence, it cannot be inconsistently understood. Understanding MEANS
consistence because GOD means consistence. Since that is HIS meaning, it
is also YOURS. Your meaning cannot BE out of accord with His because
your whole meaning, and your ONLY meaning, comes FROM His and is LIKE
His. God cannot be out of accord with HIMSELF, and YOU cannot be out of
accord with Him. You cannot separate your SELF from your Creator, Who
created you by sharing HIS Being WITH you.

The unhealed healer wants gratitude FROM his brothers, but he is not
grateful TO them. This is because he thinks he is GIVING something TO
them and is NOT receiving something equally desirable in return. His
TEACHING is limited because he is LEARNING so little. His healing lesson
is limited by his own ingratitude, which is a lesson in SICKNESS.
Learning is constant, and so vital in its power for change that a Son of
God can recognize his power in one instant, and change the world in the
next. That is because, by changing HIS mind, he has changed the most
powerful device that was ever created FOR change.

This in no way contradicts the changelessness of mind as GOD created it,
but you think that you HAVE changed it as long as you learn through the
ego. This DOES place you in a position of needing to learn a lesson which
seems contradictory;– you must learn to change your mind ABOUT your
mind. Only by this can you learn that it IS changeless. When you heal,
that is exactly what you ARE learning. You are recognizing the changeless
mind in your brother by realizing that he COULD not have changed his
mind. That is how you perceive the Holy Spirit in him. It is ONLY the
Holy Spirit in him that never changes His mind. He himself must think he
CAN, or he would not perceive himself as sick. He therefore does not
know what his self IS.

If YOU see only the changeless in him, you have not really changed him
at all. By changing YOUR mind about his FOR him, you help him UNDO the
change his ego thinks it has made in him. As you can hear two voices, so
you can see in two ways. One way shows you an image, or better, an idol,
which you may worship out
of fear, but which you will never love. The other shows you only truth,
which you will love because you will UNDERSTAND it. Understanding is
APPRECIATION, because what you understand you can IDENTIFY with, and by
making it part of YOU, you have accepted it with love.

That is how God Himself created YOU; in understanding, in appreciation,
and in love. The ego is totally unable to understand this because it does
NOT understand what it makes; it does NOT appreciate it, and it does NOT
love it. It incorporates to TAKE AWAY. It literally believes that every
time it deprives someone of something, IT has increased. We have spoken
often of the increase of the Kingdom by YOUR creations, which can only
be created as YOU were. The whole glory and perfect joy that IS the
Kingdom lies in you to give. Do you not WANT to give it?

You CANNOT forget the Father because I am with you, and I cannot forget
Him. To forget ME is to forget yourself and Him who created you. Our
brothers ARE forgetful. That is why they need your remembrance of me, and
Him who created me. Through this remembrance you can change their minds
about THEMSELVES, as I can change YOURS. Your minds are so powerful a
light that you can look into theirs and enlighten them, as I can
enlighten yours. I do not want to share my BODY in communion because
that is to share nothing. Yet I do want to share my MIND with you because
we ARE of one Mind, and that MIND IS ours.

See ONLY this MIND everywhere, because only this IS everywhere and in
everything. It IS everything because it encompasses all things within
ITSELF. Blessed are you who perceive only this, because you perceive
only what is true. Come therefore unto me, and learn of the truth in
YOU. The Mind we share is shared by all our brothers, and as we see them
truly, they WILL be healed. Let YOUR mind shine with mine upon their
minds, and by our gratitude to them, make them aware of the light in
THEM.

This light will shine back upon YOU and on the whole Sonship because
this is your proper gift to God. He will accept it and give it to the
Sonship because it is acceptable to Him, and therefore to His Sons. This
is the true communion of the Spirit Who sees the altar of God in
everyone, and by bringing it to YOUR appreciation, calls
upon you to love God AND His creations. You can appreciate the Sonship
ONLY as one. This is part of the law of creation, and therefore governs
ALL thought.