Sickness in an age of internalized capitalism

 Welcome to Daily Miracles, a running commentary on the 365 lessons of A Course in Miracles, an influential spiritual text from the 1970s. I am James Leroy Wilson and I invite you to join me as I go through this material for the first time.

When I am healed I am not healed alone. (ACIM, W-137)

I’ve heard Jessa Reed among others express the idea of “internalized capitalism.” As I understand it, internalized capitalism allows the expectations and ethics of one’s employer to affect one’s own conscience and sense of self-worth.

I wonder how much the idea of “sickness” is part of this “capitalist” consciousness. Sickness is one of the few acceptable excuses for not showing up at work or school. “Oh, you’re checking out of the healthy world and will go in the sick world for a bit. Don’t stay there long!”

But when one doesn’t really want to go back to work, the illness gets worse and lingers until the allotted “sick days” or “paid time off” runs out. Sickness can be a symptom of a dissatisfied life. The isolation can be comfortable because the “connections” one has made in the broader world don’t feel right either.

Many feel trapped in the illusions and errors of the 3-D world. The bodily illness is unhealthy (by definition), and the worldly conditions as you see them aren’t healthy for your mind. They’re not conducive to happiness. That’s why this lesson says:

Healing might thus be called a counter-dream, which cancels out the dream of sickness in the name of truth, but not in truth itself. ²Just as forgiveness overlooks all sins that never were accomplished, healing but removes illusions that have not occurred. ³Just as the real world will arise to take the place of what has never been at all, healing but offers restitution for imagined states and false ideas which dreams embroider into pictures of the truth. (ACIM, W-137.5:1–3)

Neville Goddard spoke about how we live in a multidimensional world (see for example Five Lessons: a Master Class). The three-dimensional world of our sense-perceptions is not the place from which we can see the world for what it is. We cannot heal by the rules of this world.

We can only heal with our self-knowledge as eternal beings of love, as children of God who were never really sick at all.

James Leroy Wilson writes Daily Miracles, The Daily Bible Chapter, JL Cells, and The MVP Chase. Thanks for your subscriptions and support!

(Photo credit: Ivoronwik)