A Course in Miracles Edit History

A Course in Miracles

Original Edition

This is the 1973 first edit of ACIM as originally dictated to Helen Schucman and edited in collaboration with Bill Thetford.

A Course in Miracles Edit History

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

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

Editing Differences:

About 1/5 of the originally dictated material is removed from the first 5 chapters of the Foundation For Inner Peace's (FIP) version.
In addition to differences in paragraphing, punctuation, capitilization, and section titles, there are a great deal of line by line editing differences in the FIP version (see comparison).
A new section called the Clarification of Terms was added to the FIP version.

Download Free Copy of ACIM Original Text including a line by line comparison with FIP's edit of ACIM

My Experience:

I've read all the edits of A Course in Miracles and find this Original Edition easier to read and understand than the Foundation for Inner Peace's (FIP) version, especially the first five chapters. In the FIP edition of ACIM, 1/5 of the material dictated to Helen Schucman was edited out, which makes these early chapters very choppy to read with several large sections of material missing. I spent years trying to make sense of these early chapters until I finally got a copy of this Original Edition of ACIM.

A Course in Miracles Original Edition also preserves the original dictation to Helen on the Holy Relationship which was addressed to both Helen and Bill. Later editing changed the focus to a soliatry reader, removing the mutuality that is explicit in the original dictation and an important element of the course's teachings on the power of Holy Relationships.