IV. The Escape from Darkness

T-1.IV.1. The escape from darkness involves two stages: First, the recognition that darkness cannot hide. ² This step usually entails fear. ³ Second, the recognition that there is nothing you want to hide even if you could. ⁴ This step brings escape from fear. ⁵ When you have become willing to hide nothing, you will not only be willing to enter into communion but will also understand peace and joy.

T-1.IV.2. Holiness can never be really hidden in darkness, but you can deceive yourself about it. ² This deception makes you fearful because you realize in your heart it is a deception, and you exert enormous efforts to establish its reality. ³ The miracle sets reality where it belongs. ⁴ Reality belongs only to spirit, and the miracle acknowledges only truth. ⁵ It thus dispels illusions about yourself, and puts you in communion with yourself and God. ⁶ The miracle joins in the Atonement by placing the mind in the service of the Holy Spirit. ⁷ This establishes the proper function of the mind and corrects its errors, which are merely lacks of love. ⁸ Your mind can be possessed by illusions, but spirit is eternally free. ⁹ If a mind perceives without love, it perceives an empty shell and is unaware of the spirit within. ¹⁰ But the Atonement restores spirit to its proper place. ¹¹ The mind that serves spirit is invulnerable.

T-1.IV.3. Darkness is lack of light as sin is lack of love. ² It has no unique properties of its own. ³ It is an example of the "scarcity" belief, from which only error can proceed. ⁴ Truth is always abundant. ⁵ Those who perceive and acknowledge that they have everything have no needs of any kind. ⁶ The purpose of the Atonement is to restore everything to you; or rather, to restore it to your awareness. ⁷ You were given everything when you were created, just as everyone was.

T-1.IV.4. The emptiness engendered by fear must be replaced by forgiveness. ² That is what the Bible means by "There is no death," and why I could demonstrate that death does not exist. ³ I came to fulfill the law by reinterpreting it. ⁴ The law itself, if properly understood, offers only protection. ⁵ It is those who have not yet changed their minds who brought the "hell-fire" concept into it. ⁶ I assure you that I will witness for anyone who lets me, and to whatever extent he permits it. ⁷ Your witnessing demonstrates your belief, and thus strengthens it. ⁸ Those who witness for me are expressing, through their miracles, that they have abandoned the belief in deprivation in favor of the abundance they have learned belongs to them.