Mastering the Journey From Fear to Love

- Alan Cohen

When did you first come into contact with the course?

Many years ago, in 1979, I saw some posters about it and I thought, ‘Oh, miracles, that sounds like another cheap psychic trick. That sounds tacky to me.’ And then I saw an article in a magazine called Psychology Today and it showed these three golden books falling out of heaven through the sky, and that was tacky too. But I read the article, and something about it spoke to me. And at that time it was $40 US, and I wasn’t making much money, so it was a big, big investment. But the voice said, ‘Just do this.’

That was really my first experience with what the Course calls the Holy Spirit, which is basically the voice of a higher power speaking to me through my intuition. And I sent away for the books and I opened up the first page and it jumped out at me and my life was never the same.

How can we learn to discern between the voice of love and the voice of fear?

Every human emotion, every human experience, every thought is perceived either from love or from fear; there’s no in-between. And our job is to discern the voice of love and act on that and to not act on fear. So the voice of love is comforting, it’s healing, it’s soul nourishing, it’s soothing, it’s creative, it’s expansive, it’s empowering. These are all the experiences you have when you hear and listen to the voice of love.

The voice of fear is always demanding and scary and guilt ridden and obligatory and plays on lack. And so one basically lifts you and heals you; the other drags you down.