The
Early Days: from “a Better way” to “Please Take Notes”
The events leading
up to Bills impassioned speech and Helen's willingness to join him in finding
the “better way” are recorded in Dr.
Kenneth Wapnick's biographical and historical account: Absence from
Felicity: The Story of Helen Schucman and Her Scribing of A Course in Miracles.1
This account of Wapnick's is important for understanding the origin, nature
and purpose of the Course, as well as the background of its editing and
publication. Therefore, I am reproducing below some excerpts from it. Also,
in the Preface to the Course Text readers may find a brief account
written by Helen Schucman and entitled “How
It Came.”
“There Must Be Another Way”
As Helen recorded it in her autobiography,
a most unexpected change came in June of 1965.
What happened next is particularly
hard to describe, because I had reached a state of mind in which a positive
response to it on my part was singularly unlikely. Nevertheless I made
one, and from that time on a great. change began.
Some time earlier, Helen and Bill
had become consultants to an interdisciplinary research project at the
Cornell University Medical Center, Bill's former employer. Their responsibilities
included an hour-long meeting every week which grew to epitomize all that
was wrong in their personal and professional lives. The meetings were characterized
by the same back-biting if not savage competitiveness and anger they were
accustomed to in their own Medical Center, not to mention in their own
relationship. Helen and Bill hated going, feeling both uncomfortable and
angry, yet believing that professionally they had no choice.
And so this June afternoon they
once again prepared to go, stopping off first at Bill's east side apartment.
This time, however, their perennial negative discussion took a different.
turn.
Bill had something on his mind,
but he seemed to be quite embarrassed and found it hard to talk about.
In fact., he tried unsuccessfully several times to begin. Finally he took
a deep breath, grew slightly red-faced, and delivered a speech. It was
hard for him, he told me later, because the words sounded trite and sentimental
even as he said them. Nor was he anticipating a particularly favorable
response from me. Nevertheless, he said what he felt he had to say. He
had been thinking things over and had concluded we were using the wrong
approach. "There must," he said, "be another way." Our attitudes had become
so negative that we could not work anything out. He had therefore decided
to try to look at things differently.
Bill proposed, quite specifically,
to try out the new approach that day at the research meeting. He was not
going to get angry and was determined not to attack. He was going to look
for a constructive side in what the people there said and did, and was
not going to focus on mistakes and point up errors. He was going to cooperate
rather than compete. We had obviously been headed the wrong way and it
was time to take a new direction. It was a long speech for Bill, and he
spoke with unaccustomed emphasis. There was no doubt that he meant what
he said. When it was over he waited for my response in obvious discomfort.
Whatever reaction he may have expected, it was certainly not the one he
got. I jumped up, told Bill with genuine conviction that he was perfectly
right, and said I would join in the new approach with him.
One can truly say that the birth
of A Course in Miracles occurred that June afternoon in Bill's apartment.
In Helen and Bill's joining together to find that other way, an example
of what the Course would later call a "holy instant," one finds a shining
example of a miracle: "The holiest of all the spots on earth is where an
ancient. hatred has become a present love" (ACIM Text-26.IX.6:1). The results
were not immediately apparent, but nonetheless certain changes, internal
and external, did begin to manifest….
Concurrent with the changes that
Helen and Bill consciously strove to apply to their relationships, a purely
internal set of experiences began for Helen as well. It was almost as if
Helen had waited all of her life for Bill to make his "There must he another
way" speech. This seemed to act as a stimulus that triggered off a long
series of inner experiences that can he categorized variously as visions,
dreams, heightened imagery, and the psychic.2
So began the unusual
series of mental experiences that finally led to Helen hearing a by then
familiar “inner voice” on October 21, 1965 urging: “This is a course in
miracles, please take notes.” In the Course Preface, she says of this:
“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 very surprised when
I wrote, ‘This is a course in miracles.’”
One can imagine
Helen's reactions to these unusual experiences which culminated in her
scribing of the Course. Although throughout her life prior to Bills speech
and the coming of the Course she had some religious and spiritual interests
and experiences, and was drawn to certain religious people and settings,
she had come to regard herself as a serious professional psychologist and
member of an intellectual community where atheism was the rational choice.
These new experiences and her developing role as a channel for words inspired
by Jesus were initially quite disorienting, embarrassing and upsetting
for her. She questioned her sanity and relied heavily upon Bill for support
during these strange and anxious times. It is important to understand this,
because Helen's disorientation and distress played a part in the nature
of the early scribing, as did the confusion and personal confrontations
that the Course material represented for both her and Bill. In his book,
Dr. Wapnick comments about this:
In Helen's and my editing
of her autobiography years later, the issue of writing about Jesus made
her so anxious that she chose to omit…references to the authorship. Thus,
she left it to me…to describe her relationship with the "Voice."
Jesus began the dictation of the
Course this way:
This is a course in miracles,
please take notes.
Helen continued for about a page
of notes before calling Bill in a fright. She explained to him what was
happening, and her feeling that the Voice "seems to want to go on....I'm
sure there's more." Bill wisely suggested that Helen continue as best she
could, and that they would meet at the office early in the morning to discuss
this startling turn of inner events. For a while longer Helen continued.
Before presenting what she scribed, an explanation need be given about
the obvious differences between the material Helen originally took down
and the published Course.
During the first month or so of
the dictation, Helen's anxiety level was so high that the form (not the
content) of the dictation was affected in the sense of the writing being
ungraceful and sometimes overly terse. Several times Jesus would correct
a mistaken word or phrase a day or two after it had been written, when
Helen's mind was open to receive the correction. An analogy might be made
to an unused faucet, which when it is first turned on runs rusty water.
As the water runs for a while, the rust clears out and the water returns
to its clear nature. The "rust" of interference, which would seem to result
from a long period of not being used, was really due to Helen's fear of
the power of her mind, and more specifically, her fear of the love of Jesus…
Even more to the point of the
difference between the original and published early pages, however, was
that Helen's initial experience was of Jesus being with her as an elder
brother to his sister, gently and lovingly speaking to her. At about what
is now Chapter Five of the text, the tone of the writing begins to change
and become increasingly flowing and more objective, reading more like a
lecture than a dialogue. In the beginning, therefore, the actual teaching
(what is essentially found in the published books) was interspersed with
personal material designed to help Helen and Bill with their own relationship,
other relationships in their lives, and with their own personal problems.
In addition, there were comments given on certain professional issues to
aid Helen and Bill bridge the gap between their understanding of psychology
and that of the Course. On instructions from Jesus, Helen and Bill removed
these passages that were outside the Course's specific teachings, as they
were not meant for the general readership. I shall return to the original
manuscript and to its subsequent editing in later chapters, where I shall
present some of this deleted material by way of illustrating the intensely
personal nature of Helen's contact with Jesus, and his loving concern for
her and Bill. [The interested reader may find this material in chapters
8, 9 and 10 of Absence from Felicity.]3
So, the initial scribing
was uneven and prone to some error, as well as being quite personal, containing
some material addressing certain intimate details of Helen's and Bills
lives. The early chapters of the Text, therefore, required more
aggressive editing than the later chapters. This was done under instructions
from Jesus, and with his approval. The Workbook for Students, Manual
for Teachers and Clarification of Terms required virtually no
editing since Helen had become more comfortable with her role as a channel
and been able to dissociate her ego from the scribing process. Thus, in
the later scribing, Jesus’ message flowed through her as naturally and
spontaneously as the elegant music composed by Mozart when in one single
summer he produced three major symphonies, obviously doing so as a channel
rather than as a labored, intentional composer.
Editing Considerations
At first Helen and
Bill had no thought of editing the material for publication. Only later,
when they realized the Course material was to be shared with the public,
did they become concerned about editing. And then it was only for the material
found in the first four or five chapters of the 31-chapter Text
that judgments had to be made about what material to include and how to
fit it together after the personal material had been deleted. Again, this
was done with Jesus’ guidance. In fact, the Course as officially published
by the Foundation for Inner Peace, represents the work which Jesus
intended for the interested public. It would have been unthinkable to Helen
and Bill that it be otherwise.
The question of
editing was brought up in an interview
with Bill which was published in the October, 1984 issue of New Realities
magazine:
New
Realities: There has been some speculation that you and Helen
edited the Course. Did you?
Thetford:
No. Bear in mind that at the beginning we didn't know exactly what
was happening. So we asked questions of a personal nature and recorded
the answers that Helen would receive. I would type these answers
as part of the continuous process, no distinguishing them from the inner
dictation that Helen was recording in her shorthand notebook. Later,
when we realized that this material was obviously not a part of the Course
itself, we did, indeed, delete it. It is true there has been editing of
capitalization, punctuation, paragraphing and section titles in the Text.
However, these changes were minor and the Workbook and the Manual for Teachers
also appear exactly as they were taken down by Helen.
New
Realities: Could you give an example of the personal material
you deleted?
Thetford:
Oh, there were questions like, “Is there anything that we should be doing
that would increase our ability to meditate better?” There was also
some commentary on psychological theories that got introduced as an intellectual
digression at the beginning, which had nothing to do with the Course itself.
New
Realities: What's been the reaction to all of this among
your old friends and colleagues? Sympathetic, supportive, dissociative,
concerned?
Thetford:
I haven't been in contact with many of them, although the few I have been
in touch with are sympathetic to the material. I have no idea what
the general reaction among my former colleagues would be, nor have I tried
to find out.
However, I'm sure most of them
would have thought Helen and me crazy at the time if they had known what
we were doing. Bear in mind though, that it all began in 1965, and
this is now 1984, when I think there's a great deal more receptivity to
spiritual concepts than there was nineteen years ago. So perhaps
it's really not quite fair to speculate on this now.
New
Realities: At the same time you and Helen didn't show it
to anyone then, you kept it hidden and your activities completely secret.
Thetford:
Yes. And I certainly would not have shown it to them. I had more sense
than that. My assignment as I saw it was to learn the material myself and
not confuse my responsibilities at the Medical Center with our transcription
of the Course.
But as I've said, this is another,
much brighter day.
New
Realities: What do you now think about all of this, the fact
that you were a special integral part of what some prominent people have
referred to A Course In Miracles as one of the most important documents
of the century?
Thetford:
Quite frankly, Helen and I had no intention of publishing the Course when
we were transcribing it. Quite the contrary. The material seemed specifically
for our spiritual education. We regarded it as our “guilty secret,”
something we were committed to doing, but at that time there was no indication
we were supposed to share it with others.
When we did agree to have it published
anonymously, I thought very few people would be interested in changing
their perceptions through the methods suggested by the Course—I thought
it was too difficult. Certainly in my lifetime, I never expected that thousands
of people would regard the Course as their map home.4
When Helen and
Bill undertook the initial editing of the Course for publication, in addition
to deleting personal material in the early scribing, they went through
the Text to designate chapters and section headings. The original
scribing, now called the urtext,
lacked the kind of organization that would make the material more accessible
to a general reader. The material had been taken down with Helen using
a system of shorthand and Bill typing up the material as she read it to
him. There were no chapter or section designations. Even the paragraphing
was not well done, reflecting an arbitrary procedure Helen used at first.
So they organized the material to make it easier for someone else to read
and understand. This initial effort produced what has come to be called
the "Hugh Lynn Cayce Version"
(HLV or HLC).
Beginning in September
of 1965, Helen and Bill were in occasional contact with Hugh Lynn Cayce,
son of the renowned psychic Edgar Cayce, and President of the Association
for Research and Enlightenment (A.R.E.) in Virginia Beach. This was
because when Helen began to have the unusual experiences leading up to
the scribing, Bill took an interest in the Cayce material along with many
other metaphysical and spiritual writings. It was at his suggestion that
they first visited Hugh Lynn and the A.R.E., but only after some considerable
skepticism and resistance on Helen's part to what she regarded as “spooky”
and “magical,” no doubt reflecting discomfort with her own developing experiences.
Eventually Helen's
anxiety subsided and she came to respect Hugh Lynn and the Cayce body of
work. So, after the scribing had begun, in October, 1965 Helen and Bill
returned to Virginia Beach in order to obtain Hugh Lynn's opinion and suggestions,
which Helen now appreciated. For his part, Hugh Lynn had become warmly
supportive and encouraging of Helen and her new-found role as scribe.
In 1972, as an expression
of their gratitude to Hugh Lynn, and for purposes of further review, Helen
and Bill gave him a copy of their edited work which included Helen's second
re-typing of the Text manuscript. This is what has been called the
"Hugh Lynn Version," also referred to as the “HLC” or "HLV." (In recent
years a version of this manuscript has been given the acronym "JCIM" and
even erroneously referred to as the "Thetford Edition." See further discussion
below.) It was made clear to Hugh Lynn that Helen and Bill were providing
this material in appreciation for his help and for his personal review
and comments. The manuscript was not to be shared with others except for
his son, Charles Thomas. Hugh Lynn died in 1983, but Charles Thomas Cayce,
current President of the A.R.E., recalls conversations in which this point—so
central to Helen's concern for privacy—was understood by all parties involved.
Eventually, after Hugh Lynn's death, the Text volume of the HLC
came to be stored in a locked archival room at the library of the Association
for Research and Enlightenment, while the other two volumes were apparently
misplaced or lost. Persons associated with both the Foundation
for Inner Peace (FIP) and the Foundation
for A Course in Miracles (FACIM) were aware of the existence of
this volume in the A.R.E. library archives but decided not to ask that
it be removed, respecting the gift of appreciation which Helen and Bill
had given to Hugh Lynn, as well as feeling that it was secure and might
have some usefulness in the future for historical purposes, or for reference
and research.
Concerning the
Hugh Lynn Cayce (HLC) Version: More about Editing
I will return later
to a discussion of the copyright for A Course in Miracles and the
litigation about it, but suffice it to say at this point that in 1999 certain
parties associated with the defendant in that litigation visited the A.R.E.
for the express purpose of obtaining an illicit copy of the HLC text volume.
They managed to sneak the original out of the library and copy it, and
then returned the original to the archive shelf. Immediately upon their
arriving back home, the HLC was copied and distributed on the Internet
and elsewhere. It has since become known not only as the HLC, but as the
“JCIM” (“Jesus’ Course in Miracles”) and the “Thetford Edition” of A
Course in Miracles. The later designation is based on some people's
misunderstanding of remarks found in Helen's original notes—the urtext—where
Jesus urged Helen to stay focused on the scribing and unconcerned with
editorial details. She had a tendency to use matters of form as a way of
procrastinating her scribal task. Bill was to take care of the editorial
details. This in no way meant that Bill was to become the chief editor
of the Course, a task which ill suited him and which he disdained in any
case, being notoriously impatient with matters of detail. Bill was supportive
of Helen and helped out by typing and proofing what he typed, but Helen
always was the editor-in-chief. It was primarily Helen who did the editing
for the HLC. Bill had a good sense of humor and would no doubt be quite
amused to find that someone came up with the idea of a “Thetford Edition”
of the Course!
The designation
“JCIM” is supposed to suggest that the HLC is actually the more authentic
version of the Course that Jesus preferred. Helen would undoubtedly find
that interesting, but probably not at all amusing. She and Bill had no
question that the officially published Course is the version that Jesus
endorsed.
Before further discussing
the urtext and the editing of the HLC for official publication,
I would point out that Absence from Felicity was first published
in 1991. This was eight years before the HLC was dishonestly obtained and
distributed, and nine years before a similar fate befell the urtext.
Kenneth Wapnick had been given permission by Helen to write her biography
after her death. He was entrusted with the urtext as well as her
personal papers and the original short-hand scribal notes. "Absence" contains
quite a lot of selected material from that collection as well as from Helen's
and Bills correspondence. In addition, in "Absence" Dr. Wapnick discussed
the HLC and the process of editing for publication in which he participated
as Helen's assistant. In other words, interested students of the Course
and the general public were provided with a considerable amount of information
from and about the urtext and HLC long before those manuscripts
were taken and distributed without permission.
The HLC and urtext
themselves were not officially published by FIP precisely because that
was not Jesus’ wish. So, of course such publication was not authorized
by Helen and Bill. Both of them were quite satisfied with the official,
edited version and after the first publication in 1976 they both lived
on for many years, Helen dying in 1981 and Bill in 1988. During that time
they withdrew from public involvement with the Course, feeling that they
had fulfilled their part, and not wanting a teaching role which Helen,
especially, assigned to Kenneth Wapnick. However, if either of them had
expressed any dissatisfaction with the publication, or suggested that the
HLC and urtext should be published, then FIP certainly would have
complied with their wishes, especially since Helen would only make such
a request in compliance with instructions from Jesus. And again, the selected
material that Kenneth Wapnick published from the urtext was made
available to the public with Helen's permission for a posthumous biography,
trusting Kenneth's discretion.
Now, to return to
matters of editing, copyright and publication: first, the raw urtext
was a private, personal document. The need for editing the early scribing
(what is now roughly the first four or five chapters of the Text)
arose both from its personal nature as well as from Helen's considerable
difficulty in those early months, as discussed above. Thus, the urtext
lends itself to misinterpretation and misunderstanding. Further, because
of the wide ranging discussion of ancillary topics, there was a lack of
focus upon the central message. Jesus directed the editing in order to
make the published material as faithful as possible to his intent. Even
so, he was limited to words for communication. There are inherent difficulties
in communicating his message of non-separation with word symbols, which
are themselves the symbolical tools of the separated ego mind, designed
to communicate in terms of separation or metaphysical dualism. A profoundly
important statement in the Manual for Teachers is directed to this
point:
Words can be helpful,
particularly for the beginner, in helping concentration and facilitating
the exclusion, or at least the control, of extraneous thoughts. Let us
not forget, however, that words are but symbols of symbols. They are thus
twice removed from reality (ACIM Manual-21.1:8-10).
Word symbols simply
cannot communicate fully the non-dualistic truth of God's Oneness, although
they can suggest it or point to it. An equally important statement in the
Workbook
addresses this:
Oneness is simply the
idea God is. And in His Being, He encompasses all things. No mind holds
anything but Him. We say "God is," and then we cease to speak, for in that
knowledge words are meaningless (ACIM Workbook-pI.169.5:1-4).
So, words themselves
are problematic in communicating Truth, which is completely abstract, formless,
and unable to be accurately symbolized. But Jesus was confined to the use
of words in order to reach us in the darkness of our mindless, dreaming
state. Further, in the Course Jesus often attempts to communicate at our
rudimentary level of understanding by using words rather loosely with respect
to their definitions, as well as employing metaphor. For instance, in so
doing he sometimes speaks as though God knows of us and hears our prayers,
but when the Course is understood in its entirety, as a complete and logical
thought system, it is clear that this is not the case. Oneness does not
know of separation or about the details of our dream of separation.
In the early channeling,
matters of language became even more problematic as Jesus attempted to
reassure Helen, as well as instruct both Helen and Bill in a radically
new thought system; one that flew in the face of their professional training
and every common sense assumption they had made about life and reality.
For that reason, as well as others I have mentioned, the early chapters
of the Course required a more careful editorial eye, but of course under
Jesus' supervision and with his guidance.
Further, the Course
is about mind, "The activating agent of spirit" (ACIM Clarification
of Terms-1.1:1), not about the body and its behavior. Mind is the agent
of cause while the illusory body and its behavior are the effect
of thoughts in the mind. Thus, the Course is about changing cause, which
is what its "miracle" is about: changing the thought system in the mind
from that of the ego to that of Jesus and the Holy Spirit; changing from
thoughts of guilt, fear, judgment and attack to thoughts of forgiveness.
It is thought (or the content
of the mind) that causes form,
or what seems to happen in our dream of separation where bodies
and the material universe seem real. So, the Course is about content, not
form and it is about cause, not effect. For instance, sexual behavior is
the result of thought and is not important in and of itself. Rather,
it is the thought content behind the feelings and behavior that is important.
However, early in the scribing Jesus joined Helen and Bill at their level
of concern and understanding by talking with them about matters of form,
such as sexual orientation and behavior. This is the kind of material that
was removed in the editing not only because it was personal in nature,
but because it seems to suggest that matters of form are important to the
exclusion of addressing the content, or cause, behind the form. So, the
early scribing found in the urtext lends itself to the confusion
of content and form -- cause and effect -- and may even seem to suggest
that the body and world are real when in fact it is a basic teaching of
the Course that the only reality is spirit and mind while all form
is illusory. Obviously this kind of discussion easily leads to confusion
about the teachings of the Course on the part of new students and even
for more experienced students. Therefore, material found in the urtext,
and even in the HLC, must be understood in the context of both the overall
non-dualistic thought system of the Course as well as the history of its
scribing and editing. This is a fundamental reason why the urtext
and HLC were not intended for publication and why it is unfortunate that
those manuscripts are now available.
Additionally, the
Course is a work of art -- a literary masterpiece in addition to being
a towering intellectual document. Even so, the early chapters of the officially
published Text which required the most editing are not up to the
artistic standard of the remainder of the Course. And certainly the early
chapters of the urtext and HLC lack the artistic and intellectual
sophistication of the officially published work, which was intended to
sing to the heart as music and poetry, as well as to engage the intellect.
A fundamental point
in all of this is simply that the editing for publication was done for
good reason, with integrity and under Jesus’ guidance so as to give to
the world the most authentic, pure and lovely version of his message. The
editing was done in service to Jesus and his students, hardly in an attempt
to withhold secret spiritual truths or to deceive anyone as some have suggested.
All of that said,
if one is inclined to obtain one of the manuscripts not intended by Jesus
to be published, they are now available, though not as officially published
by the Foundation for Inner Peace. The same non-dualistic message
of the Atonement can be found in them by any intelligent, discerning reader.
And it will be evident as one goes along that the differences between the
published Course, the HLC and the urtext with respect to the content
of the message are inconsequential, especially after one arrives at Chapter
6 in the Text. The Workbook and Manual for Teachers
are virtually identical in all versions having required little or no editing,
while the "Clarification of Terms" came after the initial "Crisswell Edition,"
was not part of the urtext and HLC, and required no significant
editing.
An interesting and
instructive method of comparing versions, if one cares to do so, is to
begin reading at the end of the Text rather than at the beginning.
There, in those last chapters especially, as Helen's scribing was flowing
smoothly, one finds hardly any differences at all between the published
Course and the HLC, not even in the chapter and section titles. In the
HLC Helen frequently used capitalization for emphasis, whereas italics
are used in the published Course, and the only important difference between
the urtext and the official publication in the last chapters is
that in the published Course there are chapter and section designations
with titles. With the exception of some very minor differences, the words
are the same. And, as I have said, there are no significant differences
between versions of the Workbook and Manual for Teachers.
To sum up this discussion
of matters pertaining to editing, below I'll again present some material
excerpted from Kenneth Wapnick's Absence from Felicity. For those
who have an interest but do not care to purchase this book, there are several
excerpts from "Absence" published on the World Wide Web in the Miracle
Studies collection. In particular, the entire chapter 12 from Absence entitled,
“The Editing (1973-1976)” is available to be read at: www.miraclestudies.net/Absence_12.html.
Other excerpts are linked from a Web site dedicated to Helen: “The
Scribe."
I completed my first
reading of A Course in Miracles during the ten weeks I spent back
in the States in 1973. I read a copy of Helen's second retyping (at least
of the text) which was presented to Hugh Lynn Cayce, and thus it was named
by us, as mentioned earlier, the "Hugh Lynn Version." The text, incidentally,
was divided at that time into four volumes, corresponding to the four thesis
binders Bill had bought to house the manuscript. I read the text, workbook,
and manual straight through, and then began the text again when I
returned to Israel. Helen, Bill, and I agreed to do the workbook together,
but only on Helen's condition that we start with Lesson 51, the beginning
of the review for the first fifty lessons. Helen never liked the
first fifty lessons...I completed my second reading of the three books,
which I did much more slowly, sometime after our return to New York. Shortly
afterwards I began again, partially in preparation for a glossary-index
for the Course, something I thought would be useful. As it turned out,
however, I did not seriously begin work on that book until 1977, when we
were all in England, and even then it was not to be completed for another
five years.
At any rate, I was reading the
text again, and very carefully at this point. I commented to Helen and
Bill that I thought the manuscript needed some additional editing. Some
of the personal and professional material still remained, and seemed inappropriate
for a published edition. The first four chapters did not read well at all,
in large part because the deleted personal material left gaps in the remaining
text, and thus required minor word additions to smooth the transition.
Also, some of the divisions in the material appeared arbitrary to me, and
many of the section and chapter titles did not really coincide with the
material. (I later learned that Helen's usual methodology was to draw the
section title from its opening lines, even if the subsequent material went
in a different direction.) Finally, the paragraphing, punctuation, and
capitalization were not only idiosyncratic, but notoriously inconsistent.
Helen and Bill agreed that it
did need a final run-through. As Bill lacked the patience and attention
to detail that was needed for such a task, we decided that Helen and I
should go through it together. And so we did, never realizing just how
long it would take us to complete the editing. I earlier quoted Helen's
statement that she had come to think of A Course in Miracles as
her life's work, and she approached the editing project with a real dedication.
She and I meticulously went over every word to be sure that the final manuscript
was right.
Helen was a compulsive editor,
and an excellent one at that. She would not really edit a manuscript, however;
she attacked it. While Helen had a pronounced writer's block…no such block
existed when it came to editing something previously written…It was therefore
all the more remarkable that she was able to resist the great temptation,
not to mention compulsive need, to edit the Course and "improve it." To
be sure, some amount of editing was needed in the early chapters, and Helen
felt that Jesus was helping her to do just that. But otherwise, she was
basically able to leave the manuscript alone….
A major focus of our work was
the early chapters of the text. We went through at least two complete edits
of these, and many, many partial ones. As I indicated in Part II, the first
weeks of the dictation were characterized not only by Helen's extreme anxiety
and fear, but by the informality of Jesus' dictation to her. The conversational
tone of these sessions, coupled with the personal material that was interwoven
with the actual teaching, made the editing very difficult. As briefly mentioned
above, stylistic gaps were left when the personal material was taken out.
Incidentally, the miracle principles that properly begin the text did not
come point by point, but were interspersed with considerable other material,
as is apparent in the excerpts cited in Chapter 8 [of "Absence."].
I remember half-jokingly asking
Helen at one point to suggest to Jesus that perhaps he might re-dictate
the early chapters, but it was clear that this was not going to be done
[because of Helen's resistance]. We thus did the best we could in reorganizing
this material into coherent sections and chapters that would fit in with
the text as a whole. A discerning reader can sense the difference in tone
and style as the text continues. Roughly the current fifth chapter of the
text marks one such dividing line, after which the text was dictated pretty
much as it is found now. Personal material that came afterwards did not
present the same editing problem, as I commented above, for it was not
so interwoven with the material of the text itself.
Our basic procedure was that early
in the morning I would read through the material we would cover later that
day, or review our previous day's work. I would pencil in those corrections
and changes I thought were necessary. Helen and I would then go over these
together, after which I would go back over what we had done, and re-present
this to Helen. This procedure went back and forth in these early chapters,
until we felt it was the way Jesus wanted it. We both felt his presence
guiding us in this work, and it was clear for the most part that our personal
preferences and concerns played no important role in these decisions. I
added the qualifying phrase "for the most part," as Helen did feel that
Jesus allowed her the license to make minor changes in the form, as long
as the content itself was not affected. This license only extended itself
to questions of punctuation, paragraphing, capitalization, and minor word
changes (such as switching "that" for "which," and vice versa; see more
below), but never to the inclusion or exclusion of important material.
Several times during our editing
Helen would recognize a word that she had changed from the original dictation,
and that she and Bill had not caught in their initial editing. And so we
changed these words back to the original ones. I was impressed throughout
by the integrity with which Helen went about the editing. I have already
remarked on the ferocity of her editing when it came to professional writings,
and yet she was able to resist such compulsivity during the editing of
the Course. Any changes we made in the order of material (I've indicated
earlier how certain paragraphs were moved around) we showed Bill, who likewise
shared Helen's attitude of absolute integrity and fidelity to the original
dictation.
Bill usually was most uninterested
in form, but I remember two strong exceptions. Helen had told me how insistent
he was that the final inspiring paragraph of the text -- "And now we say
'Amen,"' -- not be broken up, and that the full paragraph be on one page.
He continued his insistence with the published edition, although it naturally
fell that way in the typesetting. Second, Bill insisted that there be fifty
miracle principles, even though in the original dictation there were only
43, later changed to 53 in the two re-typings by Helen. Again, this kind
of insistence was unlike Bill. In these numbering changes, incidentally,
no text was added or deleted; the material was simply rearranged….
The paragraphing, punctuation,
and capitalization, which rarely had any bearing on the teaching itself,
nonetheless became a major focus of our work, one obvious reason being
the distraction value they held for Helen. During her two re-typings of
the text, Helen imposed on the manuscript her peculiar idiosyncrasy of
having most paragraphs be nine lines, almost always regardless of the content
of the material. Helen thankfully did not object to our correcting these.
More than one reader has commented on the Course's use of semicolons, which
often were used in place of the more proper colon. This too was Helen's
preference. And as we began to go through the text, I discovered that Helen
had two comma philosophies: excessive and minimal. I cannot recall (denial
sometimes serves a merciful purpose) how often—when Helen would suddenly
decide on a comma-philosophy change well on into the editing—I would have
to go back to the beginning of the manuscript to change the commas. In
the end, we arrived at a decision to over-comma, in the hope that this
would be of more help to a reader already having to struggle with the difficulty
of the Course's concepts, not to mention its often complicated sentence
structure. I am not sure to this day how consistent we were (there are
still some changes I would be tempted to make, as I am sure many students
feel should be made as well); however, the content of the Course was never
jeopardized as a result of our editing.
Helen often had fits about the
use of sentence splices or incomplete sentences, but knew that these were
an important part of the Course's presentation, serving the stylistic purpose
of added emphasis. We kept all these, despite Helen's "better" judgment,
although at the urging of a friend who was a professor of linguistics,
we did change in later editions some of the more glaring dangling participles.
Finally, there was the capitalization.
One can see an "evolution" in Helen's style as one traces the Course from
its original dictation in the notebooks, through Bill's first typing and
Helen's subsequent re-typings. The process culminated in Helen's feeling
that every word even remotely (a slight, but only slight, exaggeration
on my part) associated with God should be capitalized, including pronouns
and relative pronouns. I should mention that while here again Jesus left
Helen with the freedom to do as she wished, he did make some exceptions.
Under his specific instruction, all pronouns referring to him were to be
lower case (in the earlier manuscripts Helen always capitalized them…),
to reflect his unity with us (more below). Jesus instructed Helen always
to capitalize the term "Son of God," to emphasize the inclusion of all
of us as part of God's one Son, in contradistinction to traditional Christianity's
exclusion of all but Jesus from God's special Sonship. Pronouns referring
to the Son, however, were to be lower case, to emphasize our separated
state. The exception, of course, would be when "Son of God" refers to our
true Identity as Christ, where the pronouns would be capitalized. Also,
Jesus asked Helen to capitalize all pronouns referring to the Trinity—God,
Christ, and the Holy Spirit—otherwise the reader might not always know
for whom (or Whom) the referent was meant.
In the "Hugh Lynn Version," the
one we were editing, Helen's capitalization was quite inconsistent. While
I did originally try to talk her out of what I believed to be the excessive
stylistic emphasis on God's divinity, I soon abandoned this fruitless enterprise
and ended by saying to Helen that I would capitalize the Course words any
way she chose to have them be, but that the capitalization should be consistent.
This clearly appealed to her sense of logic, and so we set out in writing
the rules of capitalization we would follow, and kept to these as best
we could….
I have already briefly mentioned
that when Helen was writing down Jesus' words, she underlined all those
that seemed to carry greater emphasis. In the typed manuscripts these words
were all put in caps for ease of typing, but were obviously excessive in
their number. Thus another part of our work was to leave only those words
or phrases that seemed to require added emphasis. These are the italicized
words in the published books.
The workbook and manual required
very little editing work, other than our reading through them together
to be sure that all was correct. Only punctuation, paragraphing, and the
perennial capitalization were corrected, not to mention the "that's" and
"which's."5
Finally, before
leaving the subject of editing, there is the Second Edition of the Course
to consider. That edition was published in 1992 and is distinguished by
its addition of a notational system for ease of reference and citation.
The Errata Pamphlet6
for the Second Edition begins with a summary of what was involved in this
editing. That summary can be found on this site at: www.miraclestudies.net/Errata.html.
Much of it is quoted below, but it would be sufficient to say that the
editing for the Second Edition was painstaking! A thoroughgoing effort
to find and correct all the errors from the beginning of Helen's re-typings
was conducted. There were no errors of real significance, but there were
many errors in the First Edition, primarily because Bill refused to participate
in the detailed proof reading that is customary for manuscripts, where
one person reads out loud while another reads silently. (Note that the
Third Edition retains all of the changes from the second and is only different
on account of the fact that it includes the two supplementary pamphlets
which previously were published separately.}
We begin by presenting
the sequence in which A Course in Miracles evolved into its present
form, originating with Dr. Helen Schucman's shorthand notes begun in 1965.
Helen took down her internal dictation in notebooks, and regularly dictated
these to her colleague and collaborator, Dr. William Thetford, who typed
out her words. This original typing of the three books came to be called
the “urtext,” a word denoting an original manuscript.
After each of these typing sessions,
Bill read back to Helen what he typed to ensure that no mistakes were made.
Thus, the urtext can be considered to have been carefully checked, and
to be an accurate copy of Helen's original notes. Helen later retyped the
manuscript of the Text twice and the Workbook and Manual once, and none
of these re-typings was ever proofread.
It should be mentioned that minor
alterations were intentionally made in these re-typings of the manuscript
from the urtext. Personal material that Helen and Bill received was omitted,
since they were instructed that it did not belong in the public edition.
Other changes had to do with form—paragraphs, punctuation and capitalization—and
minor word changes to smooth over the gaps left by the removal of the personal
material. Chapter and section titles were also added in the Text.
Helen's second typing of the Text
and retyping of the Workbook and Manual were edited, one final time, in
preparation for the First Printing in 1976. This editing was carried out
along the same lines noted above. After the editing was completed, the
entire Text was again retyped; but this too was not adequately proofread.
The relatively few changes made in the Workbook and Manual did not call
for their retyping. Finally, the manuscript of the three books was given
to the printer and again retyped before being typeset, and this was also
not adequately proofread.
As a result of this long process
of re-typings, some material was inadvertently omitted. Furthermore, a
fair amount of typographical errors went unnoticed. Thus, when a Second
Edition of A Course in Miracles was undertaken to incorporate a
system of paragraph and sentence numbering, requiring an entirely new computerized
typesetting, it seemed to be an appropriate time to insert the deleted
material and correct all prior mistakes. To ensure that this Second Edition
be as free as possible from errors, the three books of the First Edition
of A Course in Miracles were proofread against the urtext that Bill had
originally typed from Helen's notes. All re-typings, as well as Helen's
original shorthand notebooks, were consulted to trace the errors and omissions
that were found.
The errata fall into several categories.
Aside from Helen's omissions and mistakes, and those of the typist and
typesetter, there were inconsistencies in capitalizations that, it is hoped,
have been corrected. Also, since A Course in Miracles came specifically
to Helen and Bill as a way of helping them heal their relationship, the
"you" in the Course was often originally plural in form, addressing both
of them. Frequently, the phrase "you and each other" was used. In editing
the manuscript for the First Printing, this phrase was changed to "you
and your brother," as the Course was ultimately meant for individuals who
would be working on forgiving their specific special relationships. Some
of these, as well as other plural references were missed, however, and
so they have been corrected here. It should be noted that changes related
only to the form of the printing—page headings, spacing, etc.—have not
been included in this pamphlet.6
Copyrighting
and Publishing
At the end of "Absence"
Chapter 12, which discusses the editing of the Course for publication,
Dr. Wapnick concludes: “Finally, in the early spring of 1975 we had a completed
manuscript of A Course in Miracles that awaited we knew not what
(or whom). We found out the “who” on May 29, when we met Judith Skutch…”7
In his book Journey
Without Distance: the Story Behind A Course in Miracles,8
Robert Skutch describes this meeting. I will paraphrase
his account here.
In 1975, Judy and
Robert Skutch had an apartment in New York City as well as a second home
in the San Francisco Bay area. They had established the Foundation for
Parasensory Investigation with its offices in New York and were quite
busy with a number of projects. Judy's friend Douglas Dean had been invited
to lunch with a psychology professor at the Columbia University Medical
Center and invited Judy to accompany him. Judy hoped to discuss the subject
of holistic healing, which she wanted to introduce in some way to the conventional
medical community. As it turned out, the professor was Dr. William Thetford,
and accompanying him to this luncheon meeting was Dr. Helen Schucman. Judy
was not able to elicit much interest or discussion about holistic healing
at lunch, but she sensed that Dr. Schucman had something on her mind that
she was not talking about. While they were eating desert, Judy surprised
herself and Dr. Schucman when she heard herself say to Helen, “You hear
an inner voice, don't you?” This comment led to Bills moving the conversation
to the privacy of the office he shared with Helen where Judy then met Dr.
Kenneth Wapnick and was introduced to A Course in Miracles. Judy
immediately felt very deeply connected to Helen, Bill and Ken, and the
upshot of this meeting was a life-long alliance which resulted in the Skutch’s
foundation changing its name to The Foundation for Inner Peace and
eventually undertaking to publish the Course.
Initially, Helen,
Bill, Judy and Bob thought that their job was to find a publisher for the
Course, but they soon came to realize that no company was going to publish
the Course without wanting to change it somehow. They would have to publish
the Course themselves. A remarkable series of events followed, making publication
affordable and resulting in an initial distribution of 300 photo-offset
copies which are now referred to as the “Criswell Edition.” Before this,
Helen had surprised everyone by announcing that the Course had to be copyrighted.
Relative to this, Judy Skutch Whitson gave the following account9
in an early statement about the fiduciary responsibilities of the Foundation
for Inner Peace:
Yet the question is often
asked: "Why was A Course in Miracles copyrighted by the Foundation
for Inner Peace, given that it is a spiritual writing and teaching?"
Specifically, in 1975 when Helen
Schucman turned A Course in Miracles over to the Foundation for
Inner Peace, she also explicitly instructed the Foundation to have the
Course copyrighted. When Judith Skutch at the time asked why A Course
in Miracles—a spiritual document—had to be copyrighted, Helen replied:
"Because he says so." "He," meant Jesus, whom Helen earlier had identified
as the inner voice that dictated A Course in Miracles to her.
Yet there are some who still feel
that true spiritual works such as A Course in Miracles hardly need
the mundane protection of copyright. The answer to this seeming dilemma
is reflected in the Course's "Clarification of Terms" in the passage: "This
course remains within the ego framework, where it is needed." (C-IN 3:1).
Thus the Foundation—with regard to the fiduciary responsibility given to
it—trusts in the fact that when Jesus directed Helen to perfect the copyright
in A Course in Miracles, he intended that the Course be "protected"
by copyright limitations within the ego framework. In effect, this ensures
that the Course will remain intact and exactly as it was given, so that
it will never be diluted, distorted, or changed.
Clearly, the purpose
of the copyright had nothing to do with commercialism or profit. The official,
authorized Course has been made available, but never commercially advertised
and both the
Foundation for Inner Peace and its sister Foundation
for A Course in Miracles are non-profit organizations. Over the years
FIP has given away over 20,000 copies of the Course to those who could
not afford to purchase them. Rather than financial protection, the copyright
was intended to protect the integrity of the Course's radical non-dualistic
thought system; a thought system which terrifies our ego identity and which
can be assumed to have led to Jesus’ crucifixion when he was in a body
2000 years ago. His teachings were then distorted over the centuries into
an ego-compatible framework which was metaphysically dualistic. This resulted
in teaching a form of forgiveness that was the exact opposite of the forgiveness
based on our essential sinlessness which Jesus intended to teach. His teachings,
especially as presented in the lovely, appealing language of the Course
and having been delivered in the unusual manner of Helen's scribing, drive
the already insane ego even more crazy. Our fearful, insane ego tries to
dilute and distort the Course's message so that it becomes some form of
dualism, usually that compatible with Christianity; or it goes crazy with
specialness in an attempt to co-opt the Course for purposes of self aggrandizement.
Those responsible for the Course have had to learn this the hard way as
they have seen both the copyright and the integrity of the Course attacked.
In the early years,
the publishers of the Course were naive in assuming that the Course's beautiful
message of love would inspire respect and cooperation. They did not anticipate
that people would publish books quoting and paraphrasing the Course without
permission and proper acknowledgment, let alone attempt to integrate its
thought system into that of the Bible with no indication of how that massive
incompatibility could be accomplished without compromising the Course.
They could hardly have anticipated angry public assaults upon the character
of those responsible for publishing and teaching the Course, let alone
that both of the unpublished manuscripts would essentially be stolen and
then widely distributed on the Internet with no regard for the wishes of
Jesus; and with no understanding of the concern for avoiding confusion
which inspired the loving, painstaking work of editing prior to publication.
We who are dedicated
to the path of the Course all have our classrooms in forgiveness. It is
for those who have responsibility for publishing the Course to see the
brotherhood beyond the furor that surrounded the copyright litigation lasting
from June, 1996 until April, 2004. In every heart there is the longing
for love. And in almost every heart there is the fear of love which our
ego identity fosters. Yet that fear is itself a call for love, and those
who take the Course's teaching seriously have to learn how to hear that
call, regardless of the form it takes. We have to learn how to shoulder
our worldly responsibilities effectively while remembering that our only
true function is forgiveness, which requires that we give up judgment no
matter how tempting the provocations.
As it now stands,
copyright in the First Edition of the Course was set aside by the court
so that what is known as the “Criswell Edition” is in the public domain.
However, copyright in all of the changes introduced in the Second Edition
remains intact, as does the copyright for the Text Preface, "Clarification
of Terms" found at the end of the Manual for Teachers, and the two
supplementary pamphlets (Psychotherapy
and Song
of Prayer, both now included in the Third Edition of the Course)
along with Helen's book of poetry, The
Gifts of God. FIP stated at the conclusion of an announcement about
the copyright:
Because we have, for
many years now, published the version of A Course in Miracles
that contains the "Clarification of Terms" and the Text Preface,
we want to make sure that people understand that this version of the Course
has not been placed into the public domain as a result of the lawsuit—and,
particularly, that certain portions of that version of the work remain
protected by copyright. It is, therefore, not accurate to indicate that
the "Course" (as it has been known for the last 29 years) can now be freely
published by anyone who wishes to do so. A Course in Miracles as
published by the Foundation for Inner Peace represents the form of publication
approved by both Helen Schucman and William Thetford, both of whom lived
for many years after the initial publication of the Course, and both of
whom, we believe, would have approved of the improvements represented by
the Second Edition.9
Conclusion
I hope that this
account has given interested students of the Course a helpful, historical
overview with some explanations about the copyright and why the Course
was published in the particular form that it takes, as well as why the
urtext
and HLC have not been officially published. I suggest that if the Course
resonates with you, you regard it as having been published for only one
person. Your concern, then, is to decide whether you are that person and
if so, whether you will practice the forgiveness that the Course teaches.
The voice that spoke to Helen and whose words we read in the pages of A
Course in Miracles resides in your own mind, a mind you share with
all other seemingly separated Sons of God. It is the Purpose of the Course
to help you find that voice—that “Inner Teacher” of love—no matter what
particular form it takes for you, or what name you might give it. The Course
is really very simple, but it requires of us a willingness and vigilance
that may not come easily: vigilance against our ego; willingness to set
aside our separate self-identity in favor of accepting shared interests
and a common purpose with all our brothers.
This is not a course
in philosophical speculation, nor is it concerned with precise terminology.
It is concerned only with Atonement, or the correction of perception. The
means of the Atonement is forgiveness.…
All terms are potentially controversial,
and those who seek controversy will find it. Yet those who seek clarification
will find it as well. They must, however, be willing to overlook controversy,
recognizing that it is a defense against truth in the form of a delaying
maneuver. Theological considerations as such are necessarily controversial,
since they depend on belief and can therefore be accepted or rejected.
A universal theology is impossible, but a universal experience is not only
possible but necessary. It is this experience toward which the course is
directed. Here alone consistency becomes possible because here alone uncertainty
ends (ACIM Clarification of Terms-IN 1:1-3; 2).
____________________________________________________
1Absence
from Felicity: The Story of Helen Schucman and Her Scribing of A Course
in Miracles, by Kenneth Wapnick, Ph.D., © 1991, 1999, Foundation
for A Course in Miracles,
Temecula, CA, 92590.
2ibid,
pp. 83-85
3ibid,
pp. 179-181
4“An
Exclusive, Candid Conversation with William Thetford, Ph.D.,” by James
Bolen in New Realities, October, 1984, © James Bolen, Larkspur,
CA, 94939. (Note: New Realities
magazine is no longer
in publication, however Mr. Bolen retains copyright in this article.)
5Absence
from Felicity, op. cit., pp. 347ff.
6 Published concurrently
with the second edition; some copies still available from the Foundation
for Inner Peace as well as on the Web, as noted.
7Absence from Felicity,
op. cit., p. 355
8Journey
Without Distance: the Story Behind A Course in Miracles, p. 105ff.
by Robert Skutch © 1984, Celestial Arts (Revised Edition, © 2001,
Ten Speed Press, Berkeley, CA.)
9No
longer available in print, but retrieved from the author's personal files.
