Versions

A Course in Miracles began on October 21, 1965 with Helen Schucman writing out the words “You will see miracles through your hands through Me” in her Shorthand Notebooks. Some 3,500 pages later, she was done. These notebooks were kept hidden for many years, surfacing on the net only in 2007. So, while this is the earliest form of The Course, it was the last to become available to the public.

The Shorthand Notebooks were transcribed by Helen’s colleague, William Thetford who typed them up to her oral dictation. Helen then retyped and edited this transcript many times. While she did catch and correct some earlier mistakes in each retyping, she also introduced numerous new inadvertent copying mistakes. The earliest surviving typed manuscripts are known as the Urtext Manuscripts which include seven volumes.

In 1972, chapter and section titles were added and the material was massively abridged in the early chapters. Some 38,000 words shorter than the Urtext, this version has come to be known as the Hugh Lynn Cayce Manuscript (HLC) since the only copy known to survive is the one Helen and Bill gave to Cayce.

In 1973 Kenneth Wapnick and Helen Schucman did another massive edit of the HLC removing another 10,000 words and substantially rewriting and resequencing what was left. Saul Steinberg’s first print edition of the Foundation for Inner Peace (FIP) version appeared in 1976 advertised as “virtually unchanged” from the original dictation. In fact, it is often “virtually unrecognizable”, a fact not revealed until the original manuscripts came to light.

In the year 2000 the HLC Manuscript was discovered in Virginia and rushed into print in book form. Although a reasonably accurate reflection of the HLC Manuscript, the typesetting and printing were very sub-standard. Since the acronym ACIM was trademarked at that time, this edition was called JCIM or Jesus’s Course in Miracles.

In 2002 a group in Australia corrected some of the errors in the JCIM edition of the HLC and added the Use of Terms, Workbook, and Manual volumes of the Urtext Manuscripts. Known affectionately as the Blue Sparkly, due to its unique and colourful cover, this is a handsome volume with good accuracy represented the “state of the Art” in primary source scholarship in 2002. Rumour has it that an enhanced update is in the works, to which I look forward with eagerness.

Early in 2006, after proofreading the JCIM text to correct all the inadvertent mistakes, I published the Corrected HLC. Unwilling to change anything of the scribal manuscript save for the most obvious typos, all changes are documented. Most of the “inadvertent dropouts” from copying errors are restored from the Urtext. This is a precisely accurate, scholarly rendering of the original manuscript.

In Feburary of 2007, Tom Whitmore published a highly original eclectic interpretive edition which draws from the HLC, the Urtext and the FIP version. It includes just the Text, Workbook, and Manual. Missing are the Use of Terms, Psychotherapy, Song of Prayer and Gifts of God volumes of the Urtext. In addition to historical scribal sources, Whitmore added a great deal of his own original interpretive work in changing most of the punctuation and emphasis. None of these changes are documented so the reader can never tell what words come from which source. The title Original Edition given this volume should not be misunderstood to mean there was even an intention of reproducing any particular historical scribal manuscript. Clearly there was no such intent. Like JCIM before it, it suffers from a lack of proofreading and has hundreds of typos.

In 2009, I completed the proofreading and annotation of the seven volumes of the Urtext Manuscripts which was published by Miracles in Action Press LLC. Like my earlier HLC is it an extremely accurate, thoroughly documented rendition of the historical scribal manuscript. This is the only print edition to include all seven of the volumes of the Course. Along with footnotes indicating uncertain readings, restoration of dropouts from the Notes, and complete documentation of all “corrections of errors”, this book includes about a thousand footnotes indicating the Biblical citations for quotes from and references to the Bible.

Also in 2009, I released a preliminary transcript of some volumes of the Shorthand Notebooks. Done so far are the Text, Use of Terms, Song of Prayer, and the Special Messages pages for which there was no known scribal transcript. Having learned to read Helen’s handwriting, I was able to type this out and indicate where it differs from the Urtext Manuscripts. Most of the differences between these two are minor copying mistakes although in the early chapters there are some truly fascinating segments which were not retained in any subsequent version. This is a page by page, line by line transcript of the Shorthand Notebooks pages intended to be of assistance to those reading Helen’s handwriting. When it is fully proofed this too will be made available in book form. Like all editions of all versions, this is available on this website as a PDF E-book.

In August of 2009 the Second Edition of the Corrected HLC went to press. The name was changed to the Annotated HLC. Many of the footnotes in the 2006 edition state “we need to check the Notes”. The Urtext was not always able to completely clear up all ambiguities. The Notes manuscripts were not available until 2007. After checking these uncertain readings, a small number of corrections were called for, and a large number of footnotes needed to be expanded to reflect the newly discovered information.

In late 2009 Liz Cronkhite released an e-text of her book The Message of A Course in Miracles, subtitled A translation of the Text in plain language. Addressed primarily to audiences whose English language skills are limited, Cronkhite’s book is an “interpretive rewrite” that presents her interpretation of the Course’s message in her own words.

In December 2009, the text of the Urtext was combined with the text of the Shorthand Notes, to bring the whole of the Original Dictation into a single volume. In addition to the Text, this edition includes the handwritten notes Helen wrote in the three days prior to the start of the dictation and thirty seven Special Messages.

Toward the goal of making the Course available in the most accurate, reliable, authentic and complete manner possible, in all its versions, now that the work of digitizing and reproducing the historical scribal versions is drawing to a close, it’s time to evaluate the thousands of variant readings in order to determine which is the more authentic. When all of the Scribes’ manuscripts are properly digitized and carefully compared, all variant readings between them can be evaluated for authenticity. When the variant represents a correction it will be kept, when it represents an error, it will be restored. This will result in a Critical Edition or Eclectic Version which will gather the best and most authentic material from all the historical scribal versions. This will be the most accurate representation of the Original Dictation which can be extracted from surviving physical evidence. This project is still incomplete. Please reach out if you can help.

In addition to the historically significant versions listed above, a number of other “reprint editions” have appeared. In attempt to shed some light on the unique attributes of each, a rather detailed review of each edition of which we are aware has been prepared.

Since the copyright on A Course in Miracles was tossed out by the Courts in 2002, a variety of versions and editions of The Course have appeared in print and e-text editions. Their quality varies from the sublime to the ridiculous. Since one “can’t judge a book by its cover” and many editions print entirely inaccurate and dishonest descriptions, this website has online copies and extensive descriptive reviews of each.