A Course in Miracles is a couple of self-study materials published by the Foundation for Inner Peace. The book’s content is metaphysical, and explains forgiveness as applied to daily life. Curiously, nowhere does the book have an author (and it’s so listed lacking any author’s name by the U.S. Library of Congress). However, the text was written by Helen Schucman (deceased) and William Thetford; Schucman has related that the book’s material is dependant on communications to her from an “inner voice” she claimed was Jesus. The initial version of the book was published in 1976, with a revised edition published in 1996. The main content is a training manual, and students workbook. Since the initial edition, the book has sold several million copies, with translations into nearly two-dozen languages.

The book’s origins may be traced back again to the first 1970s; Helen Schucman first experiences with the “inner voice” led to her then supervisor, William Thetford, to get hold of Hugh Cayce at the Association for Research and Enlightenment. Consequently, an introduction to Kenneth Wapnick (later the book’s editor) occurred. During the time of the introduction, Wapnick was clinical psychologist. After meeting, Schucman and Wapnik spent over per year editing and revising the material. Another introduction, this time of Schucman, Wapnik, and Thetford to Robert Skutch and Judith Skutch Whitson, of the Foundation for Inner Peace. The initial printings of the book for distribution were in 1975. Since that time, copyright litigation by the Foundation for Inner Peace, and Penguin Books, has established that the information of the initial edition is in the general public domain.

A Course in Miracles is a training device; the course has 3 books, a 622-page text, a 478-page student workbook, and an 88-page teachers manual. The materials may be studied in the order chosen by readers. This content of A Course in Miracles addresses both theoretical and the practical, although application of the book’s material is emphasized. The text is mainly theoretical, and is a cause for the workbook’s lessons, which are practical applications. The workbook has 365 lessons, one for every day of the year, though they don’t need to be done at a pace of just one lesson per day. Perhaps most such as the workbooks which can be familiar to the common reader from previous experience, you are asked to utilize the material as directed. acim podcast However, in a departure from the “normal”, the reader is not required to think what is in the workbook, as well as accept it. Neither the workbook nor the Course in Miracles is intended to complete the reader’s learning; simply, the materials are a start.

A Course in Miracles distinguishes between knowledge and perception; the fact is unalterable and eternal, while perception is the world of time, change, and interpretation. The planet of perception reinforces the dominant ideas in our minds, and keeps us separate from the facts, and separate from God. Perception is bound by the body’s limitations in the physical world, thus limiting awareness. Much of the experience of the world reinforces the ego, and the individual’s separation from God. But, by accepting the vision of Christ, and the voice of the Holy Spirit, one learns forgiveness, both for oneself and others.

Thus, A Course in Miracles helps the reader find a way to God through undoing guilt, by both forgiving oneself and others. So, healing occurs, and happiness and peace are found.