In the 1970’s a book came out about a woman named Sybil with 16 different personalities. It spawned a mini television series and a movie and “multiple personality disorder” became an officially recognized psychiatric condition. Fifty years later we learned Sybil’s story was fabricated, but recognition of “dissociative identity disorder” remains. That’s not news for ACIM students. We’ve been told: “Dissociation is a distorted process of thinking whereby two systems of belief which cannot coexist are both maintained. If they are brought together, their joint acceptance becomes impossible. But if one is kept in darkness from the other, their separation seems to keep them both alive and equal in their reality.” FIP-T-14,VII,4:3-5 So, aren’t we all Sybil? If we are “here“ it’s a pretty good bet that we haven’t “got it yet.“ And that can only mean that we have dissociated ourselves from who we really are and are keeping our two selves in darkness from each other. But the Holy Spirit can use everything we have made here as a means to help us learn the Truth. And so it is that our “multiple personalities“ can help us wake up.
Because the separation came from our desire to be in charge and one of our biggest fears is of losing our autonomy. This fear can interfere with our willingness to let Love be in charge. But if we are Sybil are we really giving up any autonomy? We can simply decide to let another personality, the one with a direct pipeline to Love and Truth, lead the way. That personality is still us. We are still in “in control.“ We can just decide to let Personality Number Two take over because that Personality Number One is a little trouble-maker.