The Course was written by Helen Schucman and Bill Thetford, two highly trained and successful Professors of Psychology at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York City. Helen was the scribe for the Course, writing down in shorthand the internal messages she received. Bill typed what Helen wrote. It took a total of seven years to complete A Course in Miracles, which was first published in 1976 in the United States. Helen wrote additional pamphlets. Her Song of Prayer was published in 1977 and The Gift of God in 1978.
Over the past 34 years, the popularity of A Course in Miracles has grown and spread worldwide. It has been translated into 18 different languages and more translations are in the works. Throughout the world, people gather with other like-minded students to read the Course together in order to better understand the Course's message. In this era of electronic and social media, A Course in Miracles can be obtained in e-book format, on CD, and through iPhone Apps. You can interact with other Course students on Facebook, Yahoo Groups, Twitter, and numerous other websites.
ACIM does offer some teachings about how to rid yourself of angry and negative emotions that are flooding your life with problems and creating illness and unhappiness day by day. A Course In Miracles teaches you that you are responsible for these feelings and they are only hurting you. Therefore, it is up to you to rid them from your life for your own happiness and prosperity.
A Course in Miracles is a teaching device; the course has 3 books, a 622-page text, a 478-page student workbook, and an 88-page teachers manual. The materials can be studied in the order chosen by readers. The content of A Course in Miracles addresses both the theoretical and the practical, although application of the book's material is emphasized. The text is mostly theoretical, and is a basis for the workbook's lessons, which are practical applications. The workbook has 365 lessons, one for each day of the year.
Though they don't have to be done at a pace of one lesson per day. Perhaps most like the workbooks that are familiar to the average reader from previous experience, you are asked to use the material as directed. However, in a departure from the "normal", the reader is not required to believe what is in the workbook, or even accept it. Neither the workbook nor the Course in Miracles is intended to complete the reader's learning; simply, the materials are a start un curso de milagros.
In the article on, "A Course in Miracles is Brotherhood," we discussed the key metaphysical ideas used by the ego portion of the split mind for separation. By viewing others as separate, and using the ego to replace the love of God, we end up in special love or hate relationships. Ultimately, to see another as a brother means we must give up all judgments because we now choose to see the truth about them and ourselves. You can only see who your brothers are, and by default who you are, through relinquishing what you judged and made true through error. Error hides truth. Seeing is knowing which reveals truth.
What is the IT that we are writing about here? According to the Course in Miracles, IT is truth, specifically God's truth. Why is it important to emphasize that it's God's truth? Because God's truth is not open to interpretations whereas a human's truth is. Multiple versions of human truth have lead to a myriad of religions. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia defines religion as a "system of thought, feeling, and action that is shared by a group and that gives the members an object of devotion."
Who devised the system of thought? On whose feelings are these thoughts based? Are actions really necessary? According to the Course In Miracles, God just is and our ultimate goal is to return to a perfect state of being. There is no thought or action in the state of being, you just are. What must not be forgotten is the underlying thread of all religions: God is creator, God is love and we are all perfect and infinite children of God.
