The Miracles Course
The Miracles Course as an Ordination Program
The Miracles Course defines "ministry" as a path of positive contribution. Everyone has such a path. The more we commit to living a miraculous life, the more we find that we quite naturally take others with us. Without even trying, our innate capacity to lead, to heal and to assist powerfully emerges. Though we may never have thought of ourselves as having a "ministry," that is what our life becomes. This path of ordination is ideal for anyone drawn to the service, outreach, and calling of ministry yet not to traditional religion.To meet the requirement for ordination you need to give some attention to every lesson and submit a response to it. These are not graded or evaluated in any way. They simply let us know that you've given attention to the lessons. Students accomplished this in a variety of ways from postings on the forums, to private emails to a faculty member, to hand-written responses sent by mail; even through drawings of each lesson.
The second requirement for ordination is to create and lead four events where you bring people together in an intentional, guided, sacred way. Students receive as much help as they need with these and those who've had a lot of fear around this assignment have often found creative ways to accomplish it in a way that is comfortable and well-suited to their personal style. Again, there's no time pressure around this course and you may complete these ordination requirements at your own pace, graduating in a year, in fifteen months, or in several years. These assignments are recommended for all students as they'll help you receive the most benefit from the lessons, but they're not required except to qualify for ordination.
Miracles Course ordination students receive legally recognized ordination through Miracles of the Spirit. Miracles of the Spirit (www.miraclesofthespirit.org), founded by Rev. Lynn Woodland, is an independent church dedicated to inclusive, nonreligious spirituality and the experience of miracles. Its mission is to foster inclusive spiritual growth, healing and community in a wide range of online and in-person settings. See or more.
Start your own Study Group Using the Miracles Course
Along with each lesson comes a revised version, adapted for group work. This additional material includes hand-outs, exercises not included in the regular lessons, guided meditations revised for group work, and facilitation tips. Expanding the traditional concept of "ministry," these group sessions encourage spiritual community and provide an easy vehicle for professional counselors, teachers and lay-people to present the material to groups. It's well-suited for a wide range of spiritual study, therapy, self-help and recovery groups that emphasize personal growth and/or nonreligious spirituality.Details on Being a Miracles Course Student
Weekly Lessons, Student Interaction, Faculty Supervision and Recorded Meditations
Working with a unique circular format inspired by the seasons, students receive a lesson a week for a year. Entry dates for new students fall near the beginning of each season: March 1, June 1, September 1, and December 1. There is no starting point to the course just as there is no beginning or end to a circle. The seasons offer a template for wholeness and the lessons aren't meant to be a linear route to an end so much as catalysts for synchronicities, awakenings, manifestations and miracles that can happen anywhere along the way. Consequently, all students work with the same lesson material regardless of when they start and the exercises can be done again and again without losing their relevance.Students have access on recorded meditations as part of the course and there are online forums for student discussion, networking and spiritual work. This "group work" online is built in to the curriculum to make use of the synergy and wisdom available in a group setting. A faculty member also participates in the online forum offering assistance and supervision.
What is the content like?
The Miracles Course is a transformational program rather than an academic one. It's designed to change you, improve your quality of life, and help you manifest your highest purpose. It works on a number of levels simultaneously. Specifically, the content includes:
- Information, methodologies and exercises for applying spiritual principles in a wide variety of practical life contexts ranging from the mundane (such as how to break an unproductive habit or handle money), to the interpersonal (such as how to attract the right people and relate effectively), to the metaphysical (such as spiritual healing, manifesting through intention, and claiming spiritual power).
- Questions and exercises to enhance personal insight and self-awareness.
- Spiritual work: the group energy established through the guided meditations creates a powerful virtual group for spiritual work that allows shifts and growth of all sorts to happen at a highly accelerated rate.
- An archetypal journey: the totality of the course touches upon many archetypal experiences of wholeness, evoking subconscious participation in a hero's journey of transfiguration. So, even when you don't give full attention to every exercise, your subconscious mind is drawn, nonetheless, into a growth process. You're likely to see the events of your life reflecting this in significant changes, opportunities, and healing that evolve serendipitously and echo the themes of your course work.
We have provided a sample of the materials below for you to review.
"God, Light and the Zero Point Field" (A sample lesson)
Meditation on Light (A sample meditation)
"God, Light and the Zero Point Field" (Teacher notes for the sample lesson)
"The Internet- Our New Path to God?" (A must read for the technologically timid)
How much time does it take?
The course is packed with material and exercises. Ultimately, it will take whatever time you give it. Truly, it's more of a course for life than a year-long program and the sooner you begin, even devoting a small amount of time, the sooner you'll start to see its transformational benefits. Few students will be able to digest every bit of every lesson in one year and it's not necessary to do so. What's more, while every lesson is different, there are themes that repeat. A concept you rush through in one season due to a busy life, you'll encounter again in a whole different way in another season. Graduates of the program who want to stay enrolled after completing a full year may do so. The nature of the curriculum makes it an excellent ongoing structure for personal growth and spiritual community.Technical Support
We offer extensive technical support to help even the most techno-phobic students master the easy to use features of this online program. If you have access to a computer and the internet, you have all you need to participate.How freely may enrolled students share their lessons with
others?
Each lesson has special content designed to be shared and we encourage students to do so. These adapted-for-group lessons even include hand-outs that can be mass produced to aid group discussion. We request that our students not share forum access or materials other than those designed specifically for group work. If you have questions about what's an appropriate or inappropriate use of the Miracle Course materials, ask us.Enroll Early
New semesters begin on the first Mondays of March, June, September and December. Students are encouraged not to wait until the week before a semester starts to enroll. You may enroll at any time for the upcoming semester and as soon as you do, you'll gain access to a mid-semester website with a lesson posted from the current season, the introductory materials for the course, and a forum for posting comments and interacting with other new students and faculty. Give yourself plenty of time to read the introductory materials and become familiar with the technology by enrolling as far in advance of the next quarter as possible.Fill out our enrollment form and click on "Submit Registration" to send it to us.
Lynn's Background and the Spiritual Roots of the Miracles
Course
It's difficult to name the spiritual roots I drew upon in creating the Miracle Course without saying a little about my own spiritual roots. As the descendant of two generations of agnostics or nonpracticing Christians on both sides of my family, I was raised with no spiritual traditions or teachings whatsoever. Not even a mention of God. As a child, what little I grasped of religion struck me as superstitious and unbelievable. It wasn't until I was in my mid-teens and happened upon Carl Jung's writings on the collective unconscious, archetypes and synchronicity, that spirituality started making sense to me and I was able to embrace "God" in my own way.While still a teenager I devoured spiritual studies with a metaphysical bent and spent 4 years living in an eclectic spiritual community that hosted an esoteric study center. Here I was exposed to a wide range of teachings and world-famous teachers from Eastern religions, Western mystical and metaphysical traditions, and the more modern voices of transpersonal psychology and new science. During these years of living in community, I worked for a Waldorf School which introduced me to the visionary, yet highly practical, spiritual teachings of Rudolf Steiner and Anthroposophy.
My next career consisted of twelve years working with a spiritually-based counseling center, which took me on a deep dive into the worlds of transpersonal psychology and the human potential movement. Later, a self-designed masters degree program that I never quite finished and my years directing a Center for Attitudinal Healing modeled after Gerald Jampolsky's organization, gave me a tremendous education in mind-body psychology as well as an exposure to A Course in Miracles, upon which the philosophy of Attitudinal Healing is based. More than thirty years of my own experimentation with psychology, motivation, metaphysics and group dynamics have helped me master some of the practical nuts and bolts of spiritual manifestation, spontaneous healing and miracle-making, which are my own personal areas of fascination.
My work and studies have led me in many directions, yet I have never joined or ascribed to a specific religion, spiritual path or tradition, nor have I ever been part of any spiritual group that wasn't highly eclectic. So, while you may find hints of many spiritual and metaphysical traditions in this course, the approach here is less about pulling together a diversity of traditions than it is about discerning the spiritual laws that can be found by looking deeply enough into any sacred tradition, or into science, or nature, or even by simply looking deeply into oneself. The nature of the teachings put forth here doesn't ask students to "believe" in them so much as to simply experiment and see if they work.
The Miracles Course Tuition Policy
Tuition for the Miracles Course is $300 per quarter to be paid in advance as part of registration. For those preferring a monthly payment plan, you may pay $105 every month, with payments starting three months prior to the quarter that's being paid for so that you will have paid in full before beginning a new quarter. For example, with the monthly payment option, to participate in the spring quarter, starting March 1, your payments would begin in December so that the full tuition will be paid by March 1. If you planned to continue into the summer quarter, you would make monthly payments throughout the spring toward the summer session.
Refund Policy
If you are on a monthly payment plan and decide not to participate in the quarter of course work you're paying toward, or have paid in full for an upcoming quarter and decide not to attend, we will refund half of what you have paid or defer your participation for up to one year. To receive this refund, you must notify us before the close of registration for the quarter (the 15th of the month). After this, no refunds are given.