Special Relationships

To be special is to be different, and in this sense, everything is special in the material world. It is also apparent that some relationships are more ‘special’ to us than others.

A Course in Miracles refers to two types of special relationships the ego employs to lessen feelings of guilt and incompleteness: ‘special love’, and ‘special hate’. Special love is where we feel our need for approval and recognition is met by a particular person. Special hate is what we feel towards someone who is a suitable screen onto which we can project our guilt: their ‘sin’ provides a symbolic reflection of our own (unconscious) self-accusation. These are the figures we ‘love to hate’.

Looking to special relationships to relieve us of feelings of unworthiness is a major ego strategy for focusing our mind on the world as both the source of our distress and of possible solutions. In effect, special relationships are substitutes for developing a relationship to our Inner Teacher, with God and our spiritual Self — the true remedy for our sense of vulnerability.

With this in mind, it might seem curious that A Course in Miracles doesn’t ask us to avoid special relationships, or to leave the ones we have already established. Indeed, this video explores how the Course uses our special relationships to lead us Home. As the Course says of the body, in words applicable to special relationships, “The body was not made by love. Yet love does not condemn it and can use it lovingly, respecting what the Son of God has made and using it to save him from illusions” (T-18.VI.4: 7-8).

https://youtu.be/YkgD8XocjQs?si=8rQASc7W4QwGtb2s

Image: Paolo and Francesca, by Mosè Bianchi (1840–1904), via Wikimedia Commons