LESSON 136, Sickness is a defense against the truth.

LESSON 136, Sickness is a defense against the truth.

From A Course in Miracles Experience by Rev. Devan Jesse Byrne

June 5, 2026 · 11 min · Season 1 · Episode 136

About this episode

This episode discusses how sickness serves as a defense against the truth and the implications for healing.

LESSON 136 Sickness is a defense against the truth. No one can heal unless he understands what purpose sickness seems to serve. For then he understands as well its purpose has no meaning. Being causeless and without a meaningful intent of any kind, it cannot be at all. When this is seen, healing is automatic. It dispels this meaningless illusion by the same approach that carries all of them to truth, and merely leaves them there to disappear. Sickness is not an accident. Like all defenses, it is an insane device for self-deception. And like all the rest, its purpose is to hide reality, attack it, change it, render it inept, distort it, twist it, or reduce it to a little pile of unassembled parts. The aim of all defenses is to keep the truth from being whole. The parts are seen as if each one were whole within itself. Defenses are not unintentional, nor are they made without awareness. They are secret, magic wands you wave when truth appears to threaten what you would believe. They seem to be unconscious but because of the rapidity with which you choose to use them. In that second, even less, in which the choice is made, you recognize exactly what you would attempt to do, and then…

People in this episode

Host: Rev. Devan Jesse Byrne

Topics covered

  • sickness
  • truth
  • healing
  • self-deception
  • defense mechanisms

Keywords

  • sickness
  • truth
  • healing
  • self-deception
  • defense mechanisms
  • A Course in Miracles

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