Communication Beat

Creativity can be defined as problem identification and idea generation whilst innovation can be defined as idea selection, development and commercialisation.

There are other useful definitions in this field, for example, creativity can be defined as consisting of a number of ideas, a number of diverse ideas and a number of novel ideas.

There are distinct processes that enhance problem identification and idea generation and, similarly, distinct processes that enhance idea selection, development and commercialisation. Whilst there is no sure fire route to commercial success, these processes improve the probability that good ideas will be generated and selected and that investment in developing and commercialising those ideas will not be wasted.

Artists and Creativity

There is a common perception that being creative and being an artist are one and the same. That if you are one, then you are also the other. This is bad thinking:

a) What people are referring to is their perception of a creative type. In fact it is highly contentious that there is a creative type at all. Whilst some theorists argue that there are creativity traits such as tolerance for ambiguity and intolerance for conformity, others counter that these traits are hard to identify and are situation dependent. Further, motivation is more important than traits.

b) If creativity is problem identification and idea generation then we all have this ability. Further, we can all produce large numbers of ideas, numbers of diverse ideas and numbers of novel ideas. This is related to task competency.

c) Creativity is a cognitive ability. People may look “creative,” but this is a bad guide to their actual cognitive performance.

d) There are many types of “artists.” Poets and painters are two very different types. Bunching all “artists” together compounds confusion. The ability of painter, for example, is related to at least two factors. First, there is his or her cognitive activity – what he or she finds aesthetically pleasing etc. Second, there is the mechanical capability of being able to translate those images onto a physical canvas with paint. This second ability is related to the hard wiring of the painter – motor neurons etc.

These and other topics are covered in depth in the MBA dissertation on Managing Creativity & Innovation, which can be purchased (along with a Creativity and Innovation DIY Audit, Good Idea Generator Software and Power Point Presentation) from http://www.managing-creativity.com/

You can also receive a regular, free newsletter by entering your email address at this site.

You are free to reproduce this article as long as no changes are made and the author’s name and site URL are retained.

Kal Bishop MBA, is a management consultant based in London, UK. He has consulted in the visual media and software industries and for clients such as Toshiba and Transport for London. He has led Improv, creativity and innovation workshops, exhibited artwork in San Francisco, Los Angeles and London and written a number of screenplays. He is a passionate traveller. He can be reached on http://www.managing-creativity.com/

As an entrepreneur, writing letters are just one of the many tasks you do every day. Taking the time to write a good cover letter can pay off in the long run, especially when you’re trying to interest an investor in funding your business or project.

What can a cover letter do? A good cover letter introduces your business or product, makes a sales pitch and provides a call to action. It arouses interest or curiosity and entices the recipient to read through the rest of your material.

Here are some tips that will help you to write effective cover letters, quickly and easily.

1. Always address your letter to a specific person, and include their job title. Make sure you’ve spelled their name right.

2. Use a “block” letter format, with text justified to the left and double spaced paragraphs. Have someone proofread your letter and watch for spelling and grammatical errors.

3. Keep your letter short — no more than one page. The longer the letter, the less effective it is.

4. Keep your paragraphs short and to the point. Your cover letter needs to have a beginning, a middle and an end. Most cover letters will be between four and six paragraphs long.

5. In your first paragraph, let the reader know why you are writing. (This is called the opening).

6. In your second paragraph, ask for what you want. If you’re asking for money, make sure you clearly state how much you need and what you plan to do with it. Keep your letter factual and don’t use obvious flattery.

7. In your third paragraph, explain your “why”. This paragraph is your sales pitch, so make it count. Focus on what makes you different from the competition, or why the reader should say yes.

8. Your fourth paragraph is your “call to action.” This paragraph needs to be more than just thanking the reader for taking the time to read your letter. What specifically do you want them to do next?

9. Your promise. This can be included in the fourth paragraph, or depending on the type of cover letter you’re writing, you can make it your P.S. This is how you will keep the lines of communication open. It tells your reader what you will do next. Are you going to call him? Will you be meeting again? Whatever you are going to do, make it specific and time oriented, so that the reader knows he has to do whatever you’ve asked him to do within a certain amount of time. (Make sure that you follow up exactly how and when you say you will).

10. Make it easy for the reader to get in touch with you if you have questions. Include your phone number and/or email address in the last sentence, and let them know that they should call you if they have any questions.

If you manage others, delegating is a critical skill. There are many excuses why people don’t delegate, but there is one important rule of thumb. If you want to develop others and free yourself up for higher level tasks, you should consider delegating anything that someone else can do 70% as well as you.

The fact is that it is highly unlikely that your staff will be able to complete a particular task or project as well as you at first. You probably have more expertise and experience; isn’t that why you’re the boss? If you want to grow your staff and your organization, however, you will need to develop additional skills and competencies in your people. Here are the seven steps to mastering delegation:

1. Develop a climate for delegation – By placing value in the feedback and work of others, your staff will feel appreciated and work harder. They will want to contribute in new and different ways to the success of the organization.

2. Determine your objectives – Before you get started, you need to ask yourself, “What do I want to get accomplished?” With that in mind, “What tasks can be done by others?” When you are mapping out the action steps to a goal, always consider who can handle the different tasks involved.

3. Know your workers – Who would be the best person to complete a particular task? If you understand and know your employees’ strengths/weaknesses and likes/dislikes, you can match up assignments more appropriately.

4. Develop a plan – You should have an overall work plan or goal planning summary that spells out responsibilities and deadlines. This plan can be done in conjunction with the employees being held responsible for the various tasks.

5. Communicate your expectations – Your employees must have clear directions and a full understanding of the deadlines and expectations. Make sure that they understand what you’re communicating. The use of clarifying and confirming questions can ensure proper understanding. If you are unsure if the employee “gets it,” you can also ask them to repeat their understanding of the situation back to you.

6. Monitor progress – Make sure that you monitor and assess the employee’s performance on a particular assignment and give appropriate feedback. This is particularly critical when a new assignment or responsibility is being handled by an employee.

7. Evaluate results and assign new work – At the completion of the project, review the results to make sure your objectives were met. If you outlined your expectations and the results desired on the front-end, this should be easy to measure. If the job was completed in a satisfactory manner, congratulate and praise your employee. You can also look for additional opportunities to assign new work. If the desired results were not achieved, use this as a teaching and learning opportunity. Continue to assign new work and monitor performance.

Will Turner is the Founder and President of Dancing Elephants Achievement Group, a sales training and consulting company. Will has over 20 years of sales and sales management experience and is the author of over 150 sales-related articles and programs as well as the co-author of the book, Six Secrets of Sales Magnets. Will can be reached at Will@dancingelephants.net.

If you are a writer you could use your third eye knowledge a lot. Consciously open before you begin writing and then if you’re working on a subject that you don’t know fully, say, silently to yourself, “What do you want me to say on this?” Most times, you will become intensely connected, but your sight will become a little vague. Keep looking into the page, until the words start to materialize on the page. But the experience may feel as if the page is very deep and you looking into the very back of this three dimensional space.

Very shortly the words may come into focus and you will begin to see the sentence forming on the page. Sometimes, you may not even be aware fully of what you wrote and it is feels very profound when you read it back. Other times, you can use the same technique when you’re looking for a story idea or a script idea. The idea and then the characters begin to form.

If you have a similar experience like me you may begin to hear the characters having a conversation, and just transcribe what you’re hearing. There are times when the dialogue starts in your head and you don’t know where it is leading, or in what context the dialogue is being spoken, or in what space the characters are. Just follow along, until you catch up with the action. Many times, a character visits with you, and you may find yourself engaged in conversations with him or her, or observing the character through all types or situations, having lunch, attending a friends wedding, researching something, collecting a payment, planning a murder, or escape, or when they get caught in an unexpected situation and how they spontaneously react.

Another way to use the third eye insight is when engaging in another creative activity such as painting. If this applies to you, think about the idea and then start to defocus your eyes until your third eye opens and then ask painter to come in.

For me, Whoever was helping had infinite knowledge of perspective, landscapes, color detail, shadowing, and was showing me an exact place, where he or she had been, but more than that, moved the brush in just the right way, to accomplish the sketch and painting just the way it was intended.

When you are consciously aware and using the third eye knowledge in this way, you can accomplish masterful projects in a relatively short time.

Yoga Kat–aka Katheryn Hoban is a yoga teacher and Reiki Master Teacher with twelve years experience. She teaches children’s yoga ages 3-6, and 7-12 and Adults privately in NJ. She is the author the book DAUGHTER BELOVED which will come out next year. She has created a children’s affirmation CD (ages 3-6) and an affirmation CD for adults. Yoga Kat is available for speaking or writing and can be reached at katscoolcorner@yahoo.com or 201 970-9340

COMING SOON http://www.thecircleofpeace.com

And a dreadful thing from the cliff did spring,
and its wild bark thrill’d around,
His eyes had the glow of the fires below,
’twas the form of the spectre hound

One of the most chilling omens of death in English folklore is the large, spectral demon dog called Black Shuck. A death omen comes to collect souls and if you have the misfortune to see Black Shuck – expect death to come within a year.

Ghostly Black Dogs are distinguished from normal flesh and blood black dogs by their large yellow or red glowing eyes (sometimes only one), and their ability to appear out of thin air, or into and out of the ground. The demon dog is about the size of a calf and sometimes even appears headless !

When the Black Shuck comes to claim his victims his bone-chilling howls can be heard rising above the wind. His feet make no sound, but people can feel his hot breath on their necks.

A common place to see the Black Dog is at a boundary. He lurks where people move from one locality to another, roads, footpaths, old trackways, bridges, crossroads, gates, doors, stairs and corridors. He can be seen near graveyards and barrows, along Leylines, and running down Corpse Ways or Spirit Paths. Folklore tells us that these ancient paths used to run to churches and spirits would travel along them from graveyard to graveyard.

In the 1890s, a teenage boy rescued from the North Sea told how he had been forced to swim further and further from the shore by a huge dog that chased him through the waters, its teeth gnashing at his neck and shoulders. In the 1920s and 30s, fishermen off Sheringham told of hearing the hound’s howling on stormy nights. And as recently as the 1970s, he was seen pounding over the beach at Yarmouth.

Black Shuck is not confined to Norfolk. Another location is along the Sussex Downs with its old burial mounds, once the principal means of travel before the weald was cleared of its inpenetrable forest. And once, on a summer afternoon in 1577, he made a fateful trip across the border into Suffolk and attacked the congregation of St Mary’s Church in Bungay. As the dreadful dog flew from the church, sated with blood, he is said to have left deep scorch marks on the door.

In 1933 the door was cleaned and burn marks were there for all to see. They remain there to this day.

There are many names for this terrifying visitor. Galleytrot, Shug Monkey, the Hateful Thing, Hell beast, Skeff or Moddey Dhoo and in the south of England you will hear names like Yeth or Wish Hounds. In Yorkshire he is known as The Barguest.

The name Shuck seems to go back to Old English (at least pre-1000 BCE). The Old English epic poem Beowulf describes the monster Grendel and his mother. Grendel is called a Scucca (demon)- and Scucc would have been pronounced pretty much then as it is today. The poem also says of Grendel that him of eagum stod ligge gelicost leoht unfaeger , ‘a fire-like, baleful light shone from his eyes’, Sounds like the Black Shuck to me.

The origins of the Black Dog have been lost in the mists of time but most likely originated from the Vikings who feared the hound of their god Odin All-Father, and brought their tales and lore to England. The word Barguest comes from the German ‘Bargeist’ meaning ’spirit of the (funeral) bier’.

In the folklore of old Europe, the dog is seen as both the guardian and consumer of dead spirits, as in the ‘Wild Hunt’ where a pack of dogs with a master of the hunt flies through the sky looking for lost souls. He also turns up in Egypt, Siberia, and North America. According to the Vedic mythology of ancient India, the dead must pass by the four-eyed dogs of Yama, king of the dead, and Greek mythology tells of the dog Cerberos, popularly endowed with three heads, who watches the entrance to Hades and there is the Egyptian Anubis, with the head of a dog. The Celts have their legends also, of white, red-eared hounds. But the concept of the underworld watchdog reached its fullest and most complex expression among the Germanic peoples.

Whatever the origin of the Black Dog, beware of him, he is still to be found in the wild lonely places of North England today.

About the Author

Susanna Duffy is a Civil Celebrant, folklorist and storyteller who creates rites and ceremonies for the milestones of life www.funeral.yarralink.com

Vitamins, minerals and other nutrients are essential to the development and performance of the human reproductive system. Nutrition also plays a role in the development and maturation of the reproductive system through childhood and adolescence, and can affect the endocrine system, which regulates the hormones that rule the functions of the reproductive system. Nutrition can affect fertility and fetal development, as well. Striving each day to consume the standard recommended daily intake levels of the vitamins, minerals and other nutrients that the body needs is an important part of the good health and proper functioning of the reproductive system.

The nutrients that a child consumes while growing up can affect the developing reproductive system. Zinc, for example, is essential to the development of the reproductive organs themselves. A deficiency in zinc can result in significantly delayed sexual maturation. Zinc also serves in the regulation of male hormones and has a role in prostate functions and sperm production. Iodine helps to regulate thyroid function, which in turn helps to regulate growth and body weight. Body weight has to do with the onset of puberty, which will not begin until the appropriate threshold of body weight and fat has been crossed.

The endocrine glands secrete hormones, and hormones are essential to the functioning of the reproductive system. Thus, endocrine gland health is a precursor to mature reproductive functioning and health. While several nutrients are directly associated with the production of hormones, like manganese, which serves to maintain the production of sex hormones, many others act as cofactors to a variety of complicated chemical reactions that carry out the tasks of the reproductive system.

Proper nutrition is essential in fetal development, as well. Folic acid, for example, can serve to prevent serious birth defects by reducing the incidence of neural tube defects, such as the type that cause spinal bifida. However, this defect occurs so early in fetal development that at the point at which it occurs, the woman has yet to find out that she is pregnant. Therefore, it is best for any woman of childbearing age to be especially careful to get enough folic acid each day.

The vitamins that make up the Vitamin B complex have a primary role in red blood cell production. The developing fetus gets all nourishment and oxygen via the mother’s blood stream. Therefore, making sure to keep red blood cell production up to par is important to the reproductive system, particularly during pregnancy. The nutrients received by the developing fetus will affect every aspect of his or her being.

Proper nutrition is essential to each part and every stage of the reproductive system, from development to maturation to the creation and nurturing of new life. It can be difficult, particularly at the rapid pace of life today, to get the full amount of each and every vitamin, mineral and other nutrient that serves to support the reproductive system. However, nutritional supplements can offer a safe and reliable way to achieve your dietary goals, when used with care and attention to standard dosage amounts. It is important to remember that too much can be as damaging as too little.

As a young consultant I really thought I had it all together. I was getting great ratings, great raises, and wonderful accolades from clients. Because I (in my own mind) thought I was such hot stuff, I was not active in seeking out advice from more experienced colleagues. After all, what could they teach me?

As I matured from an inexperienced hot-shot to an experienced manager, I developed a much stronger appreciation for the wisdom my more experienced colleagues could impart. This appreciation didn’t happen naturally; I had to get my butt chewed off a bunch of times to realize that a wiser and more experienced colleague could help me get through the tough times and learn from my mistakes. I also needed a wiser colleague to hold a mirror up to my face to help me see my weaknesses. I needed (and still need) a mentor to help me be more effective as a leader.

Whether for personal or professional reasons, having a mentor to turn to for advice and counsel is a very effective means of transforming knowledge into wisdom. Before I go any further, let’s get a definition of wisdom in place:

Knowledge + Experience = Wisdom

In a mentoring relationship, a mentoree, or person being mentored, typically brings a lot of knowledge to the table. The mentoree has learned the fundamentals of how to do his or her job and can probably do the basics well. The mentor, or the person doing the mentoring, provides experience. The mentor provides perspective on what to do when things aren’t optimal or when difficult situations crop up. When the experience from the mentor is transferred to the mentoree, it accelerates the wisdom building process because the mentoree now doesn’t have to learn solely through his or her own mistakes. The mentoree is able to learn from a combination of his own mistakes and the mentor’s advice.

For mentoring relationships to work well, I’ve found several items to be very important:

The mentor should not have a direct reporting relationship with the mentoree. The mentoree can feel free to speak about issues which may be plaguing him without fear of retribution from a boss.

The mentor must want to be a mentor. Mentoring is an incredibly important responsibility that is likely over and above any other existing responsibilities. If the leader doesn’t want to be a mentor, she is going to view the time spent mentoring as a nuisance.

The mentoree should have a desire for a mentor. The mentoree needs to see the value in the relationship and have a desire to benefit from the relationship, otherwise both parties will just go through the motions until their time is over.

Be a best-in-class mentor by zeroing in on these five attributes:

1. Be available for your mentoree – You need to define how much time you are able to spend in a mentoring relationship and commit the time to do it. If you’re just too busy to mentor, don’t do it.

2. Make listening a priority – A mentor who listens will understand the struggles and issues a mentoree experiences and can better help him with a solution. The best listening mentor assumes little when talking with the mentoree; she lets the mentoree communicate his struggles and issues, then targets what is most important. Just as important, a listening mentor builds trust with the mentoree.

3. Keep confidences – Any particulars about the mentoring relationship are between the mentor and the mentoree, period. As a mentor, assume that everything about the relationship is off limits for others and ensure that if anything about the relationship is found out it is because the mentoree has divulged it, not you as the mentor.
4. Tell it straight – Mentoring relationships where the mentor and mentoree can have direct and constructive discussions are highly beneficial to the mentoree’s growth. Telling it straight means discussions are constructive, respectful, and specific. Just remember to build trust in the relationship first by being a good listener and keeping confidences.

5. Have the courage to stop if the relationship isn’t working – If you’re having a difficult time connecting on common interests, if meetings with the mentoree feel like more of an obligation versus something you look forward to, or if mentorees don’t pursue meeting, it may be time to call it quits. Some relationships just aren’t meant to be, so accept it and move on. Do look at the reasons the relationship didn’t work out and look for patterns you as a mentor should address that maybe you can work on with your mentor.

Put these five attributes into action to help you be a best-in-class mentor. Do this well and you give something priceless to your mentoree: wisdom.

Lonnie Pacelli has over 20 years’ experience with Accenture and Microsoft and is currently president of Leading on the Edge International. Lonnie’s books include “The Project Management Advisor: 18 Major Project Screw-Ups and How to Cut Them Off at the Pass” and “The Truth About Getting Your Point Across”. Get the books, leadership products, other articles, MP3 seminars and a free email mini seminar at http://www.leadingonedge.com

Visual Basic is the best software programming language for developing technical applications, and it is the easiest one to learn. Sure, you can also use it to design fancy Internet sites, business applications, the most advanced database systems, and distributed transactions. For industrial and technical applications, however, Visual Basic is better than anything else. In this article I will try presenting few of the reasons behind my affirmations.

First of all, Visual Basic comes with an exceptional graphic interface, which is definitely the easiest one to work with. For those who know how to do it, Visual Basic does everything Visual C++ does, only ten to twenty times faster and easier. It takes just few minutes to insert a label or a red line to display the dynamic value of a technical parameter. Of course, some graphic controls are very complex, but you do not necessarily need them. The most important controls in technical applications are: labels, text-boxes, buttons, MSFlexGrid, then lines, rectangles and circles. This is all! You do not need fancy graphics. Using only the few basic controls I summarized you can design the most powerful technical applications today, in the entire World.

When we control hardware the most important is to process data as bytes and bits. In C and C++ we use pointers to break integers into bytes, or to concatenate bytes into integers and doubles. In Visual Basic we use mathematical operations on bytes, and results are exactly the same. In order to process individual bits we use “masks” and bit-shifting in C and C++. In visual Basic we also use masks, and we replace bit-shifting with mathematical operations. Few are aware Visual Basic has incredibly rich libraries of mathematical functions, and they are optimized for very fast calculations. You can easily discover logic and statistical functions, “sine”, “log”, “exp”, and all other mathematical goodies that bring happiness and sunshine in our lives.

Now, many readers will object saying Visual Basic is limited to Windows PC OS (Operating System). No doubts about that, but we are talking here about 80% of the World market! What more would you expect? The next step in PC development is what we name today “Tablet PC”, and Windows has a good grip on that one with Windows Mobile OS. Even on the PDA market (Peripheral Device Adaptors) Windows CE is one of the best OS available. Besides, all software applications are written for Windows PC first of all, and before everything else.

Right! Now, let’s detail a little this issue of controlling hardware using Visual Basic. The first thing to do is, design your intelligent hardware module using, say dsPIC30F3011 or even dsPIC30F4011. If you have no idea how to do it, this is perfect, and you do not have to worry about it. Once you have your nice little piece of hardware working, you will have to write an intelligent firmware program to give it “life”. Again, I suspect you do not know how to write firmware in C for Microchip dsPIC microcontrollers, but this is just fine–trust me with this one. I can guarantee you will become an expert in hardware and firmware in about 60 days–this is, considering you want to, and you do invest little, minimal efforts for this.

Next, it should take you a couple of weeks to learn how to write a Visual Basic application to “talk” to your hardware module. Hardware and firmware working together collect field data from peripherals, and they send it to your Visual Basic application. Wow! Your intelligent Visual Basic application is going to display analog field data dynamically, on a Graph Trace control–and you will know how to design this one–just like on an oscilloscope screen. You can store your processed data in binary files on PC; you can send commands to and from your hardware module; and you process field data as bits and bytes, mathematically, the way it pleases you most! To end, you can send the entire binary file to hardware and back, or even to an Internet site.

You are asking, probably, how you are going to do all those wonders. This is truly easy! Just visit my home website, and discover there a tutorial book about learning hardware, firmware, and software design. This is no joke, and the book I refer to is the best one you can find in the entire World today. It is just beyond belief! Find and read Table of Contents and the introductory chapters, and you will learn everything you want to know about it. Next, it is up to you, but my advice is, do not toss away precious, useful information, because you are going to need it one day. Knowledge it is never sufficient or too much.

O G POPA is Professional Engineer in BC, Canada. His home site is Corollary Theorems at http://www.corollarytheorems.com

Before you can call yourself a pro article ghostwriter, you must learn exactly what that phrase entails. Here it is, in a nutshell: you must offer your clients speed, efficiency, riveting copy and short articles that you crank out on Article Autopilot. Here are seven steps to meet that goal.

1. Research the subjectmatter.

Go straight to Google and start printing out information. If you’re writing for a credit card merchant site, go directly to a credit card offer from, say, Mastercard and print out the Terms and Conditions. Collect your documentation and read it all in an evening.

2. Get your keywords up front.

Some clients are really particular about keywords, and others more laid back. Find out what you need to do before you start typing. It’ll save you time and redrafting in the end.

3. Prepare a list of hot topics to cover.

Illustrate exactly how you plan to go about firing off the articles. Each one should be engaging and original, so what will you include in your article arsenal? Present the finished list to the client and wait for feedback. Adjust accordingly.

4. Get in that “salesy” frame of mind.

Remember you client’s objective. If you’re not sure what that is, ask him again. How will these articles be used to convert the reader to a paying customer? Accentuate the positive, drive your customer to take action.

5. Create the skeleton of an article.

Type out 5 or 7 main features to cover in the article and leave space between each one. Go back and form 2 to 3 supporting sentences to illustrate each point. Don’t forget the hooker of a headline and opening paragraph. Add a conclusion and wrap it up.

6. Work out the kinks.

Plump up those power headings with keywords and copy that positively sings. Tighten your draft, omit drivel and repeated thoughts. Grab that Thesaurus and buff and shine her up.

7. Wash, rinse, repeat.

You should submit your first article to see how the client reacts. Once you get his input and make changes, proceed with the rest of your articles in the same fashion.

Remember, articles are not rocket science. All you’re doing is getting prospects interested in clicking that URL at the bottom. So, step lively now, and start writing those articles.

Copyright 2005 Dina Giolitto. All rights reserved.

Dina Giolitto is a copywriting consultant and ghostwriter with 10 years of experience writing corporate print materials and web content. Trust her with your next e-book, article series or web project, and make a lasting impression on your audience of information-hungry prospects. Visit http://www.wordfeeder.com for more information.

The inevitability of Jesus’ return is a subject not often touched upon in sophisticated circles. Until recently, it was a subject only for the theologically inclined or those intoxicated by recent religious conversion. Since September 11th, however, the theme of salvation suddenly has a topical relevance. In light of the personal devastation we have all shared, many are asking how there possibly could be an All-Powerful, All-Loving God. A few, on the other hand, citing an obscure blue and gold book are asking an even more disturbing question, if there is an All-Powerful, All-Loving God, how can the world we see be real?” These in ever increasing numbers are saying that A Course In Miracles, and the personal transformation activated therein is evidence enough to herald the Second Coming.

In 1965, a Voice claiming to be Jesus of Nazareth began speaking to Columbia University psychology professor, Helen Schucman. With gentle authority, the Voice insisted, “This is a Course In Miracles. Please take notes.” For seven years, Helen Schucman scribed the material known today as A Course In Miracles. A number of best-selling authors and new age gurus including Jerry Jampolsky and Marianne Williamson owe their fame to the principles of love and forgiveness contained in A Course In Miracles. But despite its phenomenal beginnings, A Course In Miracles today is relegated to the bottom shelf of most bookstores, forgotten in others, and has lost its appeal on the television talk show circuit. That is, until a small band of activists took up the Course as their cause.

Before I go any further with this story of my personal encounter with the Course, I’d like to tantalize the reader with the same mind-boggling experiment given to me by these miracle teachers as they called themselves. They asked me to suppose for a moment that as is claimed by the Voice in the book, Jesus really did author A Course In Miracles. “If that were true,” they inquired, “and I knew it, how would I view it?” I considered the question. “Well, I’m not a practicing Christian,” I mused. “But if Jesus really authored the Course, I would have to be impressed. Clearly, it would be a miracle. I’d run out, buy it and ingest every word.” “It would be the greatest story in the history of mankind.” I paused. “Well, second, I guess, to the story of the resurrection, which I might just have to re-consider as fact.” “But who could believe such a story. It’s akin to ouija boards. Come on, Jesus as a ghostwriter. That’s funny!”

“Well, if you won’t believe the Messenger, how about just looking at the Message?” They had me, these miracle teachers. They had demonstrated to me in my own mind the potential magnitude of this event, if, in truth, Jesus was the author of the Course. I had to proceed further, out of sheer curiosity. “Just take a look at the introduction,” they requested. “It’s just a few lines.” So, I looked.

This is a course in miracles. It is a required course. Only the time you take it is voluntary. Free will does not mean that you can establish the curriculum. It means only that you can elect what you want to take at a given time. The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence, which is your natural inheritance. The opposite of love is fear, but what is All-Encompassing can have no opposite.

This course can therefore be summed up very simply in this way:
Nothing real can be threatened.
Nothing unreal exists.
Herein lies the peace of God.

My mind hiccupped. The opposite of love is fear, but what is All-Encompassing can have no opposite. My brain felt like it had been put into a blender and put on “liquefy”. It was whirling. How could my reality be so contradicted by Truth? And, yet this Voice, speaking so simply was obviously expressing the clarity of vision of a mind unencumbered by threat. Clearly, if there is an “All-Encompassing”, any reality I justified as intimidating could not be so. I was being asked to question all my premises based on fear and there seemed to be plenty of them. What about the “me” who was uncomfortable making conversation with strangers at cocktail parties? What about the “me” who was afraid nothing I ever wrote was good enough? What about the “me” who was afraid to be late, or to get sick, or to say “no” to my best friend? What about my “justifiable” fears like disasters, terrorists, pain, or murder? Nothing real can be threatened. Hmmm. When I thought about it, the only “me” I know is the one making decisions based on whether or not I feel safe or comfortable. You mean, none of me as I know myself is real?!

What is this Course In Miracles anyway?

My investigative spirit had been sparked. But more than that, a place deep within me, had been quickened, a place long scarred over by “professional skepticism” and repeated personal disappointment. It was the poignant place in me that yearns for Truth, that knows of “something else”, that is a persistent feeling, sometimes not more that a tiny throb, at other times hardly remembered, but surely returns to mind again and again. In the Course’s introduction, I had remembered an echo of my heart’s desire. I decided to check out these miracle teachers and their Course under the guise of investigative reporting.

I arrived at the Wisconsin campus of Endeavor Academy on an early spring afternoon. Driving to Lake Delton, I was bombarded by billboards trumpeting the thrills of water parks and the family fun of miniature golf. Who would have thought to locate an academy of spiritual transformation near the birthplace of the Ringling Brothers Circus and the tourist mecca of Wisconsin Dells? Then, I saw the irony. “How appropriate,” I thought. “I’ll be divested of my illusion in the heartland of illusions!” As I took my luggage to my room I could hear the eclectic cacophony of a number of languages being spoken. I could recognize German, Italian, Spanish, French, Dutch, and what sounded like Polish. And there were obviously different versions of English being spoken as well. It was clear I had walked into an international tower of babble. And, a happy one at that. Everywhere I looked there were welcoming smiles, laughter and arms raised in joy.

Later that afternoon, in an orientation of the premises, I wandered into the Academy library. Although small by college library standards, the variety and depth of material about enlightenment in all traditions was astounding. The bookshelves bulged with metaphysical treatises by Christian heretics, Eastern masters, and new age spiritualists.

My eyes were drawn to a volume entitled “The Perennial Philosophy” and I began to scan Aldous Huxley’s anthology of mystical utterances. I was struck by the universality of the metaphysical experience that resurfaces throughout all time, and that traverses a broad spectrum of cross-cultural recipients. Whether the words emanated from a Sufi saint, a Zen or Mahayana Buddhist, an Indian guru, a Taoist, a Moslem, a Hindu, or a Christian mystic, I sensed the fabric of eternity within our tapestry of time. I hear the timeless words of the mystics, and I am reminded again of the Course’s Introduction, This is a required course and of my own infant transcendental moment that brought me on this search to remember the divine Reality behind the world of things. Apparently, I am in good company.

Had a miracle had brought me here?

Later that afternoon, while filling out my registration, I had a long talk with Wolter and Nohra, two of the Admissions Office Staff. Wolter is a jovial radiant Dutchman with a chuckle like Santa Claus. Nohra, his wife, laughs with an enthusiasm born of conviction. I asked Nohra what was going to be my favorite question, “What is this place?” “Endeavor Academy is an academy for teachers of A Course In Miracles, she replied. “Its purpose is the same as that of the Course itself, to bring you enlightenment through the transformation of your mind.”

“Enlightenment, there is a big idea. What does it mean?”
She easily quoted the Course. Enlightenment is but a recognition not a change at all. “I think I’ll let Jesus explain further. He expresses it better than I do,” she said, “and certainly more beautifully. She picked up the fabled blue and gold book and began to read:
True light that makes true vision possible is not the light the body’s eyes behold. It is a state of mind that has become so unified that darkness cannot be perceived at all. And thus what is the same is seen as one, while what is not the same remains unnoticed, for it is not there.

This is the light that shows no opposites, and vision, being healed, has power to heal. This is the light that brings your peace of mind to other minds, to share it and be glad that they are one with you and with themselves. This is the light that heals because it brings single perception, based upon one frame of reference, from which one meaning comes.

As Nohra read, the revelation born of truth emanated from these words and overwhelmed me. It expressed an unworldly point of view not found in normal human correspondence. Again, I was reminded of my response to the Introduction to the Course. The throb had returned, right in the pit of my stomach and my head was reeling again. I felt like Keanu Reeves playing Neo in The Matrix. I had swallowed the red pill and there was nothing I could do about it.

Wolter looked at me brightly and explained further. “The nature of Reality is Thought. Everything is only your idea of it. The Course teaches total responsibility for what you perceive. This realization permits you to change, in an instant, perception in its entirety. Self-responsibility is thus the catalyst to the experience of transformation that is the mind-training program of A Course In Miracles. That revelation is practical, very sacred, and very emotional. It changes the entire way I see the world. The Course does not seek to change the world but through our individual acts of love and forgiveness to change the mind that perceives the world. Jesus says it simply this way: To free the world from every kind of pain is but to change your mind about yourself.

Listening to the two of them, I realized this assignment had just gotten very personal. I saw in these few minutes how my perception of my world had been edited by my own fear of fear. I saw how I had imprisoned myself and everyone around me by an elusive and unexpressed anxiety. I was beginning to feel very exposed.

That evening I sat with a group of other students over a vegetarian pasta dinner. Making conversation, I asked Philly, “What is this place?” She paused. As I watched her, something happened and I was not prepared for the depth of her answer. I felt the intimacy of a memory rise up in her. Her eyes began to water behind her glasses and she spoke with great emotion. “A while before I came here, I was lying in a hospital bed. The next day I was scheduled to have my left breast removed. I was very frightened and, perhaps for the first time, I prayed. In that moment, a miracle occurred. I knew, no matter what appeared to happen, I was going to be all right. The next day, when I woke from the anesthesia, the surgeon leaned over me and told me the news. He had found nothing. There was no tumor. He called it a mistake, an aberration, a poor diagnosis. But he never considered the possibility it had been a miracle. You ask ‘what is this place?’ This is a place where miracles are recognized. I had told no one here of my healing. Yet, the first day I was here, the Master Teacher looked at me and said, ‘here is an association who had cancer of the left breast and decided not to.’ This is a place, a new continuum of time where suffering and pain cannot exist. It is a continuum where you and I see the Truth in each other.”

Needless to say, that night I retreated to my room, my heart brimming with the infinite possibility of the miracle and my mind conflicted with the cynicism of an idea too good to be true. I curled up on my bed and began to read the masterpiece known as A Course In Miracles.

Presented as a self-study program, the format of the Course is a workbook of daily lessons, a text, and a teacher’s manual. Proclaiming to offer a primer of how enlightened mind works, the Course purports to activate our memory of our Divine Inheritance through our individual application of the psychology of self-responsibility and the art of forgiveness.

The stated purpose of the workbook is to: train your mind in a systematic way to a different perception of everyone and everything in the world… The very nature of true or enlightened perception is that it has no limits. It is the opposite of the way you see now. True perception is the means by which the world is saved from sin, for sin does not exist. And it is this that true perception sees.

This is clearly a radically different paradigm of the world. I gave up trying to understand for the moment and closed my eyes. As I drifted off to sleep my heart was flooded with a nostalgic longing, for what I did not know. Yet, in the yearning, it was fulfilled and I felt contentment from a past long unremembered.
In the morning, I prepared for session. This is the single event of the day that everyone at Endeavor Academy– teachers, students and guests, –all share. At breakfast, I met with my “guide”. James is an Irishman turned Australian, who still retains a hint of the blarney in the twinkle in his eye. I was interested in “the Master Teacher” spoken of by Philly, the night before. “Who is he?” I asked.

James turned serious and spoke with a quiet, authoritative certainty. “The Master Teacher is a teacher of awakening. He is an introduction to the dynamics of the transformative process profiled in A Course In Miracles. As a whole expression of Universal Communication, Master Teacher is a catalyst to the stimulation and acceleration of your own illumination.
Jim’s voice became low and personal. “As an awakened teacher, Master Teacher transmits the energy of Resurrected Mind. He demonstrates through your own personal experience the healing essence of Light as the transformative factor of your Mind.” Through him, I have recalled that vibratory resonance And through his expression of A Course in Miracles, I have remembered myself as the Light Jesus proclaimed me to be. My recognition of the Master Teacher has been the divine recognition of my Self and everyone around me.”

I listened, but could barely pay attention because I had become liquid Light. The whirling I had experienced earlier had coalesced into a single, indescribable blending with everything around me. I was being lifted somehow through myself and propelled into the universe. I experienced no fear, only awe and tremendous gratitude. Jim continued speaking:
“The Course and its awakened teachers are a vibratory call that resounds to the personal remembrance of your own mastership through revelation. This is a teaching of initiation, or the determination of an individual mind to come to its own whole universal self. It is the transitional passage from time to eternity, a personal adventure, and a required course for the completion of man’s inevitable metamorphosis to his natural enlightened condition.”

Our talk was interrupted by a great excitement. The Master Teacher was arriving.

I looked around the session facility. The room was filled with about 300 people of all ages, races, nationalities, and economic background. “What could attract such an all-inclusive diversity of human form,” I thought. There were resounding laughter and a spontaneous rising of arms as the Master Teacher entered the room. At that point, my focus shifted from the figure in the room to a compelling force of energy surging through me. I remembered one of the phrases Nohra had read to me the day before from the Course. “True light that makes true vision possible is not the light the body’s eyes behold.” I was swept by an imperative of integration that was physical, emotional and intellectual. I lost my reference of myself as an objective entity separate from the room and others around me. It is a state of mind that has become so unified that darkness cannot be perceived at all. And thus what is the same is seen as one, while what is not the same remains unnoticed, for it is not there. I was in love, of love, and from love.

In the background of my mind, the Master Teacher was relating the thought system unlocked by the Course with the tenets of Mind espoused by Jesus in His Sermon on the Mount. As a man thinketh so doth he perceive. The experience of eternal life demonstrated by Jesus in His Resurrection, maintained the Master Teacher, is the same truth advocated by quantum physicists in their recognition of the unreality of observed form. I saw that the Master Teacher was speaking of the very experience of integration of which I was, in that moment in joyous awareness. “There is no world,” the Master Teacher was saying emphatically. My experience confirmed this outrageous statement. I was in the world but not of it. I was sharing a vibratory pitch of energy that was so inclusive the separate nature of the world that I had known disappeared. I was One with the Universe. My kingdom is not of this world. All the Biblical phrases of the New Testament were rushing back into my agnostic mind with the reverberation of Truth.

I began to see that this tiny band of activists was right. The Second Coming was at hand. Jesus wasn’t reappearing as an objective form outside of me. He was reappearing as me in my Self-realization of the Singular Reality of God. In a single instant of revelation, Christianity’s idea of atonement reconfigured in my mind as the experience of at-One-ment I was having. In A Course In Miracles, the miracle of His Return was being played out in a remarkable story of individual transformation to Wholeness–my story.

At that moment, a hand touched my shoulder and I was aware that the Master Teacher was speaking through me. I was being lifted beyond all thought and conceptual articulation. As I “left”, I heard the invocation of my baptism in Light. “Glad is the hand of the Father extending His Love to His Son” and I was Glad.

Glad is a Teacher of A Course In Miracles. The Miracle Times : http://www.themiracletimes.com