Evolution of the ACIM Text

Origin of A Course in Miracles Text

Starting in October, 1965, Dr. Helen Schucman wrote her inner dictation in stenographer's notebooks, which then were typed by Dr. William Thetford. This first typed version has been referred to as the urtext, a scholarly word simply meaning the first manuscript.

The dictation and original typing for the Text portion of ACIM was completed in October, 1968. Dr. Schucman's inner dictation did not resume until May, 1969, for the ACIM Workbook. During this interim period or later, and it isn't entirely clear, Dr. Schucman and Dr. Thetford edited the original manuscript of the Text by dividing it into chapters and sections, and omitting certain parts. This first editing process did not involve making any significant changes to the Text, other than the deletions. The sequence of the words was not altered. Nothing was re-arranged or re-written.

1972 Edition

Although it is unclear when this editing was started and when it ended, it is clear that it was completed no later than 1972, when a copy of the ACIM Text was given to Hugh Lynn Cayce, son of clairvoyant Edgar Cayce. AT that time Hugh Lynn Cayce was head of the Association for Research and Enlightenment in Virginia Beach, VA. Dr's. Thetford and Schucman were not only seeking Cayce's opinion and advice regarding A Course in Miracles, they were also looking for a publisher. This version of the ACIM Text has been called the Hugh Lynn Cayce, or HLC, version. More recently it has been published by the Course in Miracles Society as Jesus' Course in Miracles, or JCIM in short form.

We refer to this version as the 1972 edition, and it is now included on this site as printable PDF files.

Criswell Edition - 1975

Beginning in late 1973, Dr. Kenneth Wapnick and Dr. Helen Schucman undertook additional editing of the ACIM Text. This additional editing was completed in early 1975. The significance of this second editing process has been a source of some controversy and disagreement.

This re-edited version of the ACIM Text was first published in four paperback volumes as a short run of 300 sets in 1975. This version was published by the California publishing company, Freeperson Press. It is often called the Criswell edition, after Eleanor Criswell, the owner of Freeperson Press.

First Blue Book Edition

The familiar Blue Books were not published until the following year, in 1976. We know of some minor changes between the 1975 Criswell edition and the 1976 1st edition, but we have not identified and documented those changes.

Second Blue Book Edition

In 1992 the 2nd edition of ACIM was published. This 2nd edition introduced a numbering system for making citations down to the sentence level. The 2nd edition also introduced some changes to the wording of each of the three volumes.

Penguin-Viking Edition

In 1996, the Penguin-Viking edition of ACIM was published. To the best of our knowledge, no-one has taken the time to compare the Penguin edition to prior versions.

Millennium Editions

In the years since 2000, several different editions of A Course in Miracles have been published by various organizations, but we shall not attempt to enumerate them here.