A Course in Miracles

Original Edition

This Original Edition faithfully reproduces the original transcript as dictated to Helen Schucman and edited in collaboration with Bill Thetford.

 

A Course in Miracles is the miraculous result of the joining of Helen Schucman and Bill Thetford in a Holy Relationship as described in Chapters 17-22 of the Text.

This edition of ACIM preserves the original language of those chapters, which were addressed to both of them as they collaborated to produce the manuscript. Later editing changed the focus to a solitary reader, removing the mutuality that is explicit in the original dictation and an important aspect of the Course's teachings about the power of Holy Relationships.

In 1973 Ken Wapnick, who had received a copy of this original edit of the manuscript by Helen Schucman and Bill Thetford, expressed his belief that further editing was needed. Bill Thetford withdrew from further detailed editing work, and Schucman and Wapnick resumed the editing process.

The resulting edition, published in 1975 by the Foundation For Inner Peace, became the Course with which the world would become familiar.

Below are other differences between the original edit of ACIM and The Foundation's edition:

Along with changes in paragraphing, punctuation, capitalization, and section titles, there was a great deal of line-by-line editing.

In addition about one-fifth of the material in the first five chapters was removed.

Finally, a new section, the Clarification of Terms, was added.