First, ACIM denies the reality of everything under the category that UB readers know as" God the Supreme." ACIM denies the validity - the positive meaning - of time, space, growth, evolution, becoming, progress, levels of understanding, or gradual ascension through the universe. These are not God's ideas. "The Holy Spirit uses time, but he does not believe in it." (p.90 text)

"Accepting the Atonement teaches you what immortality is, for by accepting your guiltlessness, you learn that the past has never been, and so the future is needless and will not be." (p.222 text)

"I have repeatedly emphasized that one level of mind [the lower, or ego level] is not understandable to another [the higher mind that the Holy Spirit speaks to]. So it is with the ego and the Holy Spirit; with time and eternity. Eternity is an idea of God, so the Holy Spirit understands it perfectly. Time is a belief of the ego, so the lower mind, which is the ego's domain, accepts it without question. The only aspect of time that is eternal is now." (p.73 text) When we enter the realm of ACIM, we are in a context in which the only barrier to our re-experience of the absolute perfection whence we came is our state of ego-delusion, which does not really exist. Our ego-delusions make time seem real; living in time or through time is not our natural or divinely ordained state. Once we rise above our ego-delusions - which it is possible to do in an instant - we will return to our eternal experience of absolute perfection. Progressive God-realization through the maturation process of time, whereby we expand our capacity to experience God as we move up the universe, is simply an egodelusion in ACIM. It has no validity. Once we leave this world, there are no other worlds of ascension. For ACIM, this world is built upon ego-delusion.

Secondly, ACIM teaches that the ego, while it is the only source of all our problems, does not exist. Therefore, our problems do not exist, and everything really is perfect, as it always was and always will be. Only the ego believes otherwise, and it does not exist. Since it does not exist, it cannot be somehow transformed or regenerated into the realm of light and truth. The ego generates the delusions of time, space, gradations, levels, growth, and evolution. It does this in order to justify itself and its lostness in its own delusions, all the while denying, of course, its own lostness and denying it holds any delusions, thereby separating itself from God and perfection. The ego "exists" only because of the mind's initial false belief in its separation from God and perfection, and it maintains the "realm" of time and space in order to maintain its own "non-existence." The ego cannot achieve salvation, and has a deathly fear of God, love, truth, and light. "God has given you everything. This one fact means that the ego does not exist, and this makes it profoundly afraid." (p. 56 text ) For the author of ACIM the question never arises of how a non-existent entity can have any characteristics or attributes at all. Because of this key absurdity, the "revelation" is an exercise in nonsense. The author continually accuses the ego of insanity, but since the ego does not exist, the author is actually describing himself as insane. If the author were as spiritually pure as he claims to be, he would not, within the terms of his own philosophy, even perceive the ego. Perceiving the ego and what it does-evil and sin- is an ego-delusion. ACIM stresses this.

Thirdly, ACIM teaches that we have no freedom to choose good or evil. "To think that you can oppose God's Will is a real delusion. The ego believes that it can, and that it can offer you its own 'will' as a gift. You do not want it. It is not a gift. It is nothing at all." (p. 1 10 text)

"Disobeying God's Will is meaningful only to the insane. In truth it is impossible. Your Self-fullness is as boundless as God's. Like His, it extends forever and in perfect peace." (p. 123 text) Yet on the next page, ACIM says: "Truth is God's Will. Share His Will and you share what He knows. Deny His Will as yours, and you are denying His Kingdom and yours." (p. 124 text) This implies choice. But it is only an ego-choice to deny God's Will, and the ego does not really exist. "The ego tries to teach you that you want to oppose God's Will. This unnatural lesson cannot be learned, and the attempt to learn it is a violation of your own freedom, making you afraid of your will because it is free." (p. 1 30 text)

"I said before that you are the Will of God. His Will is not an idle wish, and your identification with his Will is not optional, since it is what you are. Sharing His Will with me is not really open to choice, though it may seem to be. The whole separation lies in this error. The only way out of the error is to decide that you do not have to decide anything. Everything has been given you by God's decision. That is His Will, and you cannot undo it." (p. 125 text) As we know, the UB defines sin as deliberate disloyalty to Deity. The UB is very clear that this can happen.

Fourthly, ACIM denies that the physical body is real. To me, this is a test of your common sense. We also have the UB to assure us that the physical aspect of the universe is real, from our planet to the Isle of Paradise. The UB speaks constantly about the triune nature of reality, spirit/mind/matter. The scientific papers in the UB describe physical reality in great detail.

But ACIM says: "God did not make the body, because it is destructible, and therefore not of the Kingdom. The body is the symbol of what you think you are. It is clearly a separation device, and therefore does not exist." (p.97 text)

"The ego's fundamental wish is to replace God. In fact, the ego is the physical embodiment of that wish. For it is that wish that seems to surround the mind with a body, keeping it separate and alone, and unable to reach other minds except through the body that was made to imprison it." (p.122 workbook)

"Who sees a brother's body has laid a judgment on him, and sees him not. He does not really see him as sinful; he sees him not at all." (p.410 text)

"The body cannot be looked upon except through judgment. To see the body is the sign that you lack vision, and have denied the means the Holy Spirit offers you to serve His purpose." (p.411 text) Fifthly, ACIM teaches that there really is no evil or sin. Within its philosophy, this makes sense because it teaches that we really are absolutely perfect, transcending time and space, and cannot choose other than to do the will of God. "When you are tempted to believe that sin is real, remember this: If sin is real, both God and you are not. If creation is extension, the Creator must have extended himself, and it is impossible that what is part of Him is totally unlike the rest. If sin is real, God must be at war with Himself. He must be split, and torn between good and evil; partly sane and partially insane. For He must have created what wills to destroy Him, and has the power to do so. Is it not easier to believe that you have been mistaken than to believe in this? (p.377 text) This argument is based on the denial of the reality of timespace evolution. In a universe of absolutes only, good and evil cannot coexist or be in conflict. But evil and sin are possible and actual-in the relative universe where they can be limited in the extent of their temporary damage. "Sin is not real because the Father and the Son are not insane. This world is meaningless because it rests on sin." (p. 495 text) For ACIM, the perception of evil and sin are entirely due to ego-delusion; "the world" that ACIM describes so darkly depends on the ego for its seeming existence. "The Atonement itself radiates nothing but truth. It therefore epitomizes harmlessness and sheds only blessing. It could not do this if it arose from anything but perfect innocence. Innocence is wisdom because it is unaware of evil, and evil does not exist." (p.33) And why is this? It is because the Atonement is the truth that the original separation, causing the ego to manifest, does not exist. "The full awareness of the Atonement, then, is the recognition that the separation never occurred. The ego cannot prevail against this because it is an explicit statement that the ego never occurred." (p.90 text) Sixthly, the world we now live in-which in ACIM is never called a planet -is seen as another irredeemable egodelusion. "The real world was given you by God in loving exchange for the world you made and the world you see." (p.219 text)

"You do not want the world. The only thing of value in it is whatever part of it you took upon with love. This gives it the only reality it will ever have." (p.212 text) ACIM asserts that it is only the split mind, the mind with an ego in it, that sees a world in which death is a reality "Therefore the mind projects the split, not the reality. Everything you perceive as the outside world is merely your attempt to maintain your ego identification." (p.206 text)

"God does love the real world, and those who perceive its reality cannot see the world of death. For death is not of the real world, in which everything reflects the eternal.

"The world you made is therefore totally chaotic, governed by arbitrary and senseless 'laws,' and without meaning of any kind." (p.207 text) Contrast this with a brief paragraph from the UB: "The problem of sin is not self-existent in the finite world. The fact of finiteness is not evil or sinful. The finite world was made by infinite Creator-it is the handiwork of his divine Sons-and therefore it must be good. It is the misuse, distortion, and perversion of the finite that gives origin to evil and sin." (UB: 1222) To be fair, it should be noted that the UB recognizes that man, being what he is as the lowest and most ignorant of will creatures, will inevitably create evil and will probably create sin. The Creator and his Sons know this and allow for it. It is the price to paid for raising children in a time-space environment. "The endowment of imperfect beings with freedom entails inevitable tragedy, and it is the nature of the perfect ancestral Deity to universally and affectionately share these sufferings in loving companionship." (UB: 1203) In ACIM, we never know where we are in a physical sense. There is no clarity of place, of geography, or of cosmology. The atmosphere is relentlessly metaphysical, nebulous, and eerie. In this unnatural setting, a disembodied mind discourses on the non-existence of the problem that it is obsessed with.

Forced to take a stand

If you disagree with ACIM - and I disagree with it fundamentally - or even if you disagree with it partially, then you are forced, by the terms of the book itself, to decide whether you or the author is insane. That is the challenge that ACIM hurls at you. Can a conscious son of God disagree with ACIM? ACIM makes this is absolutely impossible. I declare that I am a conscious son of God, and I say that ACIM is entirely rubbish. Since the author of ACIM must respond by declaring me to be insane, I have to reply by declaring that the author of ACIM is the one who is insane. There can be no compromise.

Anyone who experiences the truths of The Urantia Book in his own life must perceive that all the premises, all the basic assumptions, of ACIM are false. On all the main philosophic issues-what is the universe, how does it work, what is our role in it-The Urantia Book and ACIM are totally incompatible. Whatever good insights ACIM has, they are placed in a universe that does not exist, and thereby those insights are rendered invalid. Because of its false context and false intent, nothing that ACIM says is true. ACIM never describes what it considers to be the universe except to say that it is One and limitless, i.e., beyond "perception." ACIM claims to be teaching only the plain truth about reality, but as a conscious son of God I declare that ACIM teaches fundamental unreality, and that the purpose of ACIM is to mislead its readers with profound falsehood.

The Suspect and his Motive

As a result, I must conclude that the author of ACIM is a raving lunatic, someone who cannot be trusted to make a true statement about anything. I must conclude that this person cannot be Jesus. I see that he is an impostor posing as Jesus, trying to make me believe he is Jesus so that he can guide me in his course in mind training, ACIM, to make me follow him. He wants me to practice the exercises in the Workbook to make my mind receptive to his. He wants me to learn to always listen to a certain Voice. "The Holy Spirit is in you in a very literal sense. His is the Voice That calls you back to where you were before and will be again. It is possible even in this world to hear only that Voice and no other. It takes effort and great willingness to learn. It is the final lesson that I learned, and God's Sons are as equal as learners as they are as sons." (p. 69 text) I ask myself, who would want to use such a Voice in such a deception? The likeliest superhuman suspect, in the mind of a UB student, is Caligastia. A student of the Bible would call him Satan or the Devil. I find that what ACIM is teaching is exactly what Caligastia would want to teach if he sought to escape his condemnation: that there is no sin or guilt, that we are all equally blameless, pure, and innocent, that we cannot choose to do evil, that everyone is inherently forgiven because no evil ever occurred, ever will occur, or ever could occur. The belief that anyone could choose to do evil or sin, or that any suffering or harm ever occurred because of evil and sin, is only an egodelusion, according to ACIM. When I assume that Caligastia is indeed the author of ACIM, all the pieces of the puzzle fall into place. Everything fits neatly. Therefore I am convinced that he wrote ACIM.

First of all, what is his motive? It makes sense that Caligastia wants to be welcomed back, and ACIM can be best understood as his attempt to explain why he should be. All his former superhuman companions now shun him, so he must seek association with humans. He wants desperately to be accepted, and to do this he finds it necessary to assert that evil and sin do not exist. In his view, the only way to reconciliation between the sons of God is to deny that they can ever do evil. This is a vitally important clue to the true identity of the author. He writes copiously about how no brother should ever be condemned or attacked for any reason-without ever trying to make the distinction between the sinner and the sin. For him the sin is an ego-delusion and therefore there can be no sinner. In a section of Chapter 29 called "The Anti-Christ" he begins by asking what an idol is. The Anti-Christ himself writes about the AntiChrist, posing as Christ. Can you believe it? "An idol is a false impression, or a false belief; some form of anti-Christ, that constitutes a gap between the Christ and what you see ... (p.575 text)

"This world of idols is a veil across the face of Christ, because its purpose is to separate your brother from yourself .... (p.576 text) But he points out that such idols are not real. Note well what he says: "Christ's enemy is nowhere. He can take no form in which he ever will be real.

"What is an idol? Nothing! ...

"An idol is established by belief, and when it is withdrawn the idol 'dies.' This is the anti-Christ. ...

"Where is an idol? Nowhere!" (p. 576 text) Caligastia is saying that because there can be no AntiChrist, he certainly isn't one either. He continues to justify this position by asserting, as he has at several points earlier in his book, that: "Complexity is not of God. How could it be, when all He knows is one. He knows of one creation, one reality, one truth, and but one Son. How, then, could there be complexity in Him?" (p.508 text)

"God has not many sons, but only one. Who can have more, and who be given less? It is for him the Holy Spirit speaks, and tells you idols have no purpose here." (p.577 text)

"Why does he declare such an absurd doctrine? It is simple: if there is really only one Son of God, then individual responsibility cannot be assigned to particular sons. If there is really only one Son of God, living in eternity, infinity, and wholeness, then this one Son is perfect, complete, and absolute. There is no room for individual sons to make choices that might be good or bad, leading to individual judgment about their worthiness. The belief in the existence of individual sons of God is one of the consequences of ego-delusion. This is why we must forgive, accept, and embrace our brothers no matter what evil they seem to have done and no matter how unrepentant they may be: in doing so we participate in re-integrating the One Son of God from out of the shattered pieces of the Sonship caused by the fall into ego-delusion. If there really is only one Son of God, then no supposedly individual son can be found guilty of crime.

"The Holy Spirit's function is to take the broken picture of the Son of God and put the pieces into place again. This holy picture, healed entirely, does He hold out to every separate piece that thinks it is a picture in itself. To each he offers his Identity, Which the whole picture represents, instead of just a little, broken bit that he insisted was himself. And when he sees this picture he will recognize himself. If you share not your brother's evil dream, this is the picture that the miracle will place within the little gap, left clean of all the seeds of sickness and of sin. And here the Father will receive his Son, because His Son was gracious to himself (p.557 text) Because there really is no sin or evil, no one must be judged. In ACIM, the neutral word "judgment" is almost always taken as "condemnation." No son of God is to be judged. The very cause of the original fall into the ego-state was a dream of judgment. "A dream of judgment came into the mind that God created perfect as Himself. And in that dream was Heaven changed to hell, and God made enemy unto his Son. How can God's Son awaken from the dream? It is a dream of judgment. So he must judge not, and he will awaken." (p. 577 text)

"Judgment is an injustice to God's Son, and it is justice that who judges him will not escape the penalty he laid upon himself within the dream he made. God knows of justice, not of penalty." (p.578 text) But of course in God's justice, no one is ever found guilty of anything. Caligastia continues his appeal by asserting his inherent right to be pardoned: "Anger is never justified. Attack has no foundation. "Pardon is always justified. It has a sure foundation. (p 593 text) Why is this? Same old reason. Evildoing doesn't exist. Your own sick mind is the only source of evil.

"God's Son is perfect, or he cannot be God's Son. Nor will you know him, if you think he does not merit the escape from guilt in all its consequences and its forms. There is no way to think of him but this, if you would know the truth about yourself. (p.595 text)

"No one deserves to lose. And what would be unjust to him cannot occur. Healing must be for everyone, because he does not merit an attack of any kind." (p. 502 text) Sure, Cal. ACIM is Caligastia's State of Mind. ACIM is very much like an appeal written by a convicted murderer on death row who is trying to show why his appointment with the electric chair should be canceled. Caligastia is using ACIM as the justification for his contention that he should not be annihilated as an archrebel: crime does not exist, evil, sin, and guilt do not exist, no one can do wrong, we are all perfect, and only the ego-which does not exist- believes otherwise. ACIM is Caligastia's own description of his state of mind, and it is he whose mind is continually flipping back and forth between his knowledge of the absolute realms and his own lurid egodelusions about the crucifixion, the body, sin, guilt, hell, punishment, judgment, attack, and insanity. I dare say no human being ever had the weird sort of perspective on Christ that he describes: " Behold your Friend, the Christ Who stands beside you! How holy and beautiful He is! You thought he sinned because you cast the veil of sin upon Him to hide his loveliness. Yet He still holds forgiveness out to you, to share His holiness. This ,enemy,' this 'stranger' still offers you salvation as His Friend." (p.394 text) What Christian or follower of Jesus ever thought that Christ sinned or ever tried to deny his spiritual loveliness? For that matter, what atheist ever thought that Christ sinned? Caligastia here is actually talking about himself and the way he is perceived by his fellows, and he does it posing as Christ. That is why this passage is so grotesque. A few pages later, Caligastia lets it all slip out. He forgets to stay in his Christ-pose, or Holy Spirit-pose, and speaks for himself: "Forget not that it is your savior to whom the gift [of forgiveness] is offered. Offer him thorns and you are crucified. Offer him lilies and it is your self you free.

"I have great need for lilies, for the Son of God has not forgiven me. And can I offer him forgiveness when he offers thorns to me? For he who offers thorns to anyone is against me still, and who is whole without him? Be you his friend for me, that I may be forgiven and you may look upon the Son of God as whole." (p.397 text) If he had said, "your ego has not forgiven me," he would have been staying in character and in consonance with his doctrines. But he said the Son of God has not forgiven him. The Son of God is not entrapped in an ego-state; the Son of God knows the truth. And the Son of God has not forgiven him, meaning that he remains under condemnation for his rebellion, which we know from the UB.

In ACIM, all apparent evil or sin is set up by the mind's belief that it is separate from God. Since this belief is the cause of the ego and all its delusions, all apparent evil disappears when this false belief disappears. This means that evil does not and can not actually occur; it is only a delusion; it is never real. On absolute levels of reality, this is true, but on relative ones, it is not. Since ACIM denies the reality of relative levels of time and space, it denies that persons can actually do evil in the illusory non-absolute realm.

Why ACIM is written to no one