A Course in Miracles–the Voice Speaks

Part Two in a series on A Course in Miracles

by Dana Taylor

My intention in this series is to merely introduce ACIM to people who have only vaguely heard about it. I don’t consider myself an ACIM guru. While I have read and studied the course, I feel I have achieved only the most rudimentary understanding of the wisdom imparted. Yet, it has enriched my life and so, I am passing on something I consider to be a good thing.

Who wrote A Course in Miracles?

ACIM is “channeled” material. In other words, the person who physically wrote the book feels that she was a scribe for thoughts and ideas that came from a spiritual entity. Nowadays, there is a lot of channeled material floating around the Internet. Much of it is fascinating, but disjointed. Various personalities claim responsibility for the information they impart through a human translator. The most well known is probably Esther Hicks and her channeling the group called Abraham the Law of Attraction (Ask and It is Given) material in the past twenty years.

The preface written in 1977 to ACIM came from Helen Schucman as she briefly describes how the book came into existence. She and William Thetford were Professors of Medical Psychology at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City. In her words

Psychologist, educator, conservative in theory and atheistic in belief, I was working in a prestigious and highly academic setting. And then something happened that triggered a chain of events I could never have predicted. The head of my department unexpectedly announced that he was tired of the angry and aggressive feelings our attitudes reflected, and concluded that “there must be another way.” As if on cue, I agreed to help him find it. Apparently, this Course is the other way….

Three startling months preceded the actual writing, during which time Bill suggested that I write down the highly symbolic dreams and descriptions of the strange images that were coming to me. Although I had grown more accustomed to the unexpected by that time, I was still surprised when I wrote, “This is a course in miracles.” That was my introduction to the Voice.

That began a seven year period of Helen Schucman taking down the words of The Voice in short hand and William Thetford typing them up. The material has been minimally edited and is mostly intact from the first transcriptions. There is no officially credited author. As the material unfolds, it appears to be dictated by the “Christ Mind.”

2015 marks the 50th anniversary of the Course. The Foundation for Inner Peace has been offering highlights about the original people involved with its conception. Here is a slide show of historical photos

Bill and Helen 1967

The vocabulary blends psychological terms, such as “ego,” with Biblical references to Christ, Jesus, the Holy Spirit, God, and sin. The goal is to impart inner peace.

For those of you still reading, I don’t recommend just jumping into ACIM. It may seem fairly incomprehensible at first glance. In the next blog, I’ll introduce a couple of ACIM pre-reading recommendations. If the thought of channeled material seems strange, the premise of The Disappearance of the Universe by Gary Renard will really raise your eyebrows. Until next time!