The Laws of Chaos

Chapter 23 – 3. The Laws of Chaos

The “laws” of chaos can be brought to light, though never understood.
 
Chaotic laws are hardly meaningful, and therefore out of reason’s sphere.
Yet they appear to be an obstacle to reason and to truth. Let us, then, look
upon them calmly, that we may look beyond them, understanding what they
are, not what they would maintain. It is essential it be understood what they
are for, because it is their purpose to make meaningless, and to attack the
truth. Here are the laws that rule the world you made. And yet they govern
nothing, and need not be broken; merely looked upon and gone beyond.
 
The first chaotic law is that the truth is different for everyone. Like all these
principles, this one maintains that each is separate and has a different set of
thoughts that set him off from others. This principle evolves from the belief
there is a hierarchy of illusions; some are more valuable and therefore true.
 
Each one establishes this for himself, and makes it true by his attack on
what another values. And this is justified because the values differ, and
those who hold them seem to be unlike, and therefore enemies.
 
Think how this seems to interfere with the first principle of miracles. For
this establishes degrees of truth among illusions, making it seem that some
of them are harder to overcome than others. If it were realized that they are
all the same and equally untrue, it would be easy, then, to understand that
miracles apply to all of them. Errors of any kind can be corrected because
they are untrue. When brought to truth instead of to each other, they merely
disappear. No part of nothing can be more resistant to the truth than can
another.
 
The second law of chaos, dear indeed to every worshipper of sin, is that
each one must sin, and therefore deserves attack and death. This principle,
closely related to the first, is the demand that errors call for punishment and
not correction. For the destruction of the one who makes the error places
him beyond correction and beyond forgiveness. What he has done is thus
interpreted as an irrevocable sentence upon himself, which God Himself is
powerless to overcome. Sin cannot be remitted, being the belief the Son of
 
God can make mistakes for which his own destruction becomes inevitable.
 
Think what this seems to do to the relationship between the Father and the
Son. Now it appears that They can never be One again. For One must
always be condemned, and by the Other. Now are They different, and
enemies. And Their relationship is one of opposition, just as the separate
aspects of the Son meet only to conflict but not to join. One becomes weak,
the other strong by his defeat. And fear of God and of each other now
appears as sensible, made real by what the Son of God has done both to
himself and his Creator.
 
The arrogance on which the laws of chaos stand could not be more apparent
than emerges here. Here is a principle that would define what the Creator of
reality must be; what He must think and what He must believe; and how He
must respond, believing it. It is not seen as even necessary that He be asked
about the truth of what has been established for His belief. His Son can tell
 
Him this, and He has but the choice whether to take his word for it or be
mistaken. This leads directly to the third preposterous belief that seems to
make chaos eternal. For if God cannot be mistaken, He must accept His
Son’s belief in what he is, and hate him for it.
 
See how the fear of God is reinforced by this third principle. Now it
becomes impossible to turn to Him for help in misery. For now He has
become the “enemy” Who caused it, to Whom appeal is useless. Nor can
salvation lie within the Son, whose every aspect seems to be at war with
Him, and justified in its attack. And now is conflict made inevitable, beyond
the help of God. For now salvation must remain impossible, because the
 
Savior has become the enemy.
 
There can be no release and no escape. Atonement thus becomes a myth,
and vengeance, not forgiveness, is the Will of God. From where all this
begins, there is no sight of help that can succeed. Only destruction can be
the outcome. And God Himself seems to be siding with it, to overcome His
Son. Think not the ego will enable you to find escape from what it wants.
 
That is the function of this course, which does not value what the ego
cherishes.
 
The ego values only what it takes. This leads to the fourth law of chaos,
which, if the others are accepted, must be true. This seeming law is the
belief you have what you have taken. By this, another’s loss becomes your
gain, and thus it fails to recognize that you can never take away save from
yourself. Yet all the other laws must lead to this. For enemies do not give
willingly to one another, nor would they seek to share the things they value.
 
And what your enemies would keep from you must be worth having,
because they keep it hidden from your sight.
 
All of the mechanisms of madness are seen emerging here: the “enemy”
made strong by keeping hidden the valuable inheritance that should be
yours; your justified position and attack for what has been withheld; and the
inevitable loss the enemy must suffer to save yourself. Thus do the guilty
ones protest their “innocence. “Were they not forced into this foul attack by
the unscrupulous behavior of the enemy, they would respond with only
kindness. But in a savage world the kind cannot survive, so they must take
or else be taken from.
 
And now there is a vague unanswered question, not yet “explained. “What
is this precious thing, this priceless pearl, this hidden secret treasure, to be
wrested in righteous wrath from this most treacherous and cunning enemy?
 
It must be what you want but never found. And now you “understand” the
reason why you found it not. For it was taken from you by this enemy, and
hidden where you would not think to look. He hid it in his body, making it
the cover for his guilt, the hiding place for what belongs to you. Now must
his body be destroyed and sacrificed, that you may have that which belongs
to you. His treachery demands his death, that you may live. And you attack
only in self-defense.
 
But what is it you want that needs his death? Can you be sure your
murderous attack is justified unless you know what it is for? And here a
final principle of chaos comes to the “rescue. “It holds there is a substitute
for love. This is the magic that will cure all of your pain; the missing factor
in your madness that makes it “sane. “This is the reason why you must
attack. Here is what makes your vengeance justified. Behold, unveiled, the
ego’s secret gift, torn from your brother’s body, hidden there in malice and
in hatred for the one to whom the gift belongs. He would deprive you of the
secret ingredient that would give meaning to your life. The substitute for
love, born of your enmity to your brother, must be salvation. It has no
substitute, and there is only one. And all your relationships have but the
purpose of seizing it and making it your own.
 
Never is your possession made complete. And never will your brother cease
his attack on you for what you stole. Nor will God end His vengeance upon
both, for in His madness He must have this substitute for love, and kill you
both. You who believe you walk in sanity with feet on solid ground, and
through a world where meaning can be found, consider this: These are the
laws on which your “sanity” appears to rest. These are the principles which
make the ground beneath your feet seem solid. And it is here you look for
meaning. These are the laws you made for your salvation. They hold in
place the substitute for Heaven which you prefer. This is their purpose; they
were made for this. There is no point in asking what they mean. That is
apparent. The means of madness must be insane. Are you as certain that you
realize the goal is madness?
 
No one wants madness, nor does anyone cling to his madness if he sees that
this is what it is. What protects madness is the belief that it is true. It is the
function of insanity to take the place of truth. It must be seen as truth to be
believed. And if it is the truth, then must its opposite, which was the truth
before, be madness now. Such a reversal, completely turned around, with
madness sanity, illusions true, attack a kindness, hatred love, and murder
benediction, is the goal the laws of chaos serve. These are the means by
which the laws of God appear to be reversed. Here do the laws of sin appear
to hold love captive, and let sin go free.
 
These do not seem to be the goals of chaos, for by the great reversal they
appear to be the laws of order. How could it not be so? Chaos is
lawlessness, and has no laws. To be believed, its seeming laws must be
perceived as real. Their goal of madness must be seen as sanity. And fear,
with ashen lips and sightless eyes, blinded and terrible to look upon, is lifted
to the throne of love, its dying conqueror, its substitute, the savior from
salvation. How lovely do the laws of fear make death appear. Give thanks
unto the hero on love’s throne, who saved the Son of God for fear and
death!
 
And yet, how can it be that laws like these can be believed? There is a
strange device that makes it possible. Nor is it unfamiliar; we have seen
how it appears to function many times before. In truth it does not function,
yet in dreams, where only shadows play the major roles, it seems most
powerful. No law of chaos could compel belief but for the emphasis on
form and disregard of content. No one who thinks that one of these laws is
true sees what it says. Some forms it takes seem to have meaning, and that
is all.
 
How can some forms of murder not mean death? Can an attack in any form
be love? What form of condemnation is a blessing? Who makes his savior
powerless and finds salvation? Let not the form of the attack on him deceive
you. You cannot seek to harm him and be saved. Who can find safety from
attack by turning on himself? How can it matter what the form this madness
takes? It is a judgment that defeats itself, condemning what it says it wants
to save. Be not deceived when madness takes a form you think is lovely.
 
What is intent on your destruction is not your friend.
 
You would maintain, and think it true, that you do not believe these
senseless laws, nor act upon them. And when you look at what they say,
they cannot be believed. Brother, you do believe them. For how else could
you perceive the form they take, with content such as this? Can any form of
this be tenable? Yet you believe them for the form they take, and do not
recognize the content. It never changes. Can you paint rosy lips upon a
skeleton, dress it in loveliness, pet it and pamper it, and make it live? And
can you be content with an illusion that you are living?
 
There is no life outside of Heaven. Where God created life, there life must
be. In any state apart from Heaven life is illusion. At best it seems like life;
at worst, like death. Yet both are judgments on what is not life, equal in
their inaccuracy and lack of meaning. Life not in Heaven is impossible, and
what is not in Heaven is not anywhere. Outside of Heaven, only the conflict
of illusion stands; senseless, impossible and beyond all reason, and yet
perceived as an eternal barrier to Heaven. Illusions are but forms. Their
content is never true.
 
The laws of chaos govern all illusions. Their forms conflict, making it seem
quite possible to value some above the others. Yet each one rests as surely
on the belief the laws of chaos are the laws of order as do the others. Each
one upholds these laws completely, offering a certain witness that these
laws are true. The seeming gentler forms of the attack are no less certain in
their witnessing, or their results. Certain it is illusions will bring fear
because of the beliefs that they imply, not for their form. And lack of faith
in love, in any form, attests to chaos as reality.
 
From the belief in sin, the faith in chaos must follow. It is because it follows
that it seems to be a logical conclusion; a valid step in ordered thought. The
steps to chaos do follow neatly from their starting point. Each is a different
form in the progression of truth’s reversal, leading still deeper into terror
and away from truth. Think not one step is smaller than another, nor that
return from one is easier. The whole descent from Heaven lies in each one.
 
And where your thinking starts, there must it end.
 
Brother, take not one step in the descent to hell. For having taken one, you
will not recognize the rest for what they are. And they will follow. Attack in
any form has placed your foot upon the twisted stairway that leads from
Heaven. Yet any instant it is possible to have all this undone. How can you
know whether you chose the stairs to Heaven or the way to hell? Quite
easily. How do you feel? Is peace in your awareness? Are you certain which
way you go? And are you sure the goal of Heaven can be reached? If not,
you walk alone. Ask, then, your Friend to join with you, and give you
certainty of where you go.