A Course in Miracles Versions

Posted by seomypassion12 on June 18th, 2023

A Course in Miracles (ACIM) is a book of spiritual wisdom. It was received through inner dictation by Helen Schucman and William Thetford, and was typed and published in 1976.

Some important material was a course in miracles edited out of the original edition. The Complete and Annotated Edition (CE) restores that lost material by going back to scribe Helen’s shorthand notebooks.
The Original Edition

During the years 1965-1972, Columbia University psychologist Helen Schucman experienced what she calls “a course in miracles.” A Voice instructed her to take notes as it gave her a series of waking and sleeping dreams. These dictations ultimately led to the three volumes of A Course in Miracles that have since sold over 3 million copies. The Course is both a spiritual classic and a practical guide for everyday living, offering forgiveness as the way out of suffering and into freedom.

The Course’s language is poetic, often written in blank verse. Its thought system is intellectually sophisticated and combines spiritual inspiration with profound psychology. It is ecumenical, embracing the core wisdom of every major world religion while teaching that the only true path to God is through love and forgiveness.

After the dictation was complete, Helen and her co-scribe Bill Thetford began a lengthy process of retyping the original material. In the process, they removed a significant amount of early material that seemed too personal to share. They also made a number of minor changes, as well as some omissions.

As a result, the three books that eventually came out—the Text, Workbook for Students, and Manual for Teachers—had a considerable amount of editing done to them. This meant that some material was lost, and many typographical errors went unnoticed.

This essentially left us with a published version of the Course that contained less of the original material and was less vibrant in its tone. One of the most obvious differences between the original and the published version was in how it spoke about the Holy Spirit. In the original, the Holy Spirit was described as a force that is innate within everyone and all things. In the edited version, the Holy Spirit was more akin to an “it” that is present in all things but not part of the self.

The purpose of this edition is to bring back the original material that was removed or edited and make it available for those who would like to read it. It is not meant to be a replacement for the Foundation for Inner Peace or any other editions of the Course, but rather to allow its deeper teachings to shine through more clearly so that we can understand and relate to the Course more fully and easily.
The Sparkle Edition

The Sparkle Edition is the result of inner guidance received by five friends and students of ACIM who wanted to bring the original edit of A Course in Miracles back into circulation. This was done after the material that is known as the urtext came to light in the late 1990’s.

The urtext is the reproduction of the scribes’ notes before there was editing to create the first versions of the book of A Course in Miracles. When compared to the first edition of the book, the urtext contains more of the original words of the Course. The Sparkle Edition restores the original text and adds a few paragraphs that were deleted during the editing process.

It was during the process of editing that Helen Schucman and Bill Thetford removed a lot of the material they felt was personal to them and not for the Course as a whole. The editors were also trying to keep the Course within a certain length of time because of printing and publishing costs. The removal of the early chapters and a number of the paragraphs that contained Jesus’ direct teaching is the main difference between the Sparkle Edition and the CIMS original edition.

In the earliest portions of the Course, there is much more dialogue between Helen and Jesus and less of a monologue as in the later sections. The flow of the thoughts is choppy in the earlier material as well, making it difficult to read for some people.

During the long process of retyping the Course, Helen and Bill made many mistakes. As a result, there are many errors and omissions in the three books of A Course in Miracles. The Sparkle Edition was proofread against the urtext and the shorthand notes of Helen to try to locate and insert any missing material as well as to correct any typographical errors that may have been inadvertently added during this process.

The Sparkle Edition is available in hardcopy and online. It is free to download and share. A small donation is welcome, but not required.
The FIP Edition

The FIP Edition, or the Blue Official Version of the Course, is based on the URTEXT manuscript and early renditions of the HLC manuscript (the final typing of the scribes' notes before further editing). This edition contains the Chapter and Paragraph numbers that were added to the URTEXT in order to make referencing easier. It also includes paragraphs and sentences that were omitted from the original publishing of A Course in Miracles, mainly because of their more personal nature.

Jesus had told Helen that she should omit such material because it did not have the "more generalizable quality" that the Course was aimed at, meaning that it could benefit others. The material that was omitted included explanations of sex, homosexuality, and relationships, as well as other more personal references.

One of the reasons the omitted material is not found in the original book is that it would have detracted from the main teaching message in ACIM, which is based on forgiveness. However, some of the material was also taken out because it seemed to contradict the Message that is in the book, and could have confused students.

It was not until the year 2000 that a much earlier version of the Course, called the Hugh Lynn Cayce Edition, and an even earlier version, the Urtext, became available on the internet. These versions showed that the Course had gone through a lot more editing than people previously believed.

Since its initial publication in 1976, A Course in Miracles has become a contemporary spiritual classic and is taught in thousands of study circles around the world as a spiritual psychotherapy self-study program. The book-set consists of the 669-page Text, the 466-page Workbook for Students, and the 92-page Manual for Teachers. Although it has no formal structure or teacher, the Course is widely interpreted as a non-dualistic thought system that teaches that the only way to true happiness is through forgiveness of your ego's mistakes. This forgiveness substitutes for learning that could have taken thousands of years to accomplish, and leads directly into the Time of Christ -- a time of direct experience in union and relationship with God.
The Pocket Edition

A Course in Miracles is one of the most profound spiritual teachings of the modern era. It is intellectually sophisticated and poetic, combining spiritual inspiration with profound psychological understanding of concepts like beliefs and defense systems, perception and identity. Its thought system challenges students to question every value they hold as true and to see the world differently-through the eyes of God. Its three separate volumes-the Text, Workbook for Students, and Manual for Teachers-are studied in thousands of ACIM groups around the world. This Combined Edition of the ACIM Pocket Edition includes the unabridged Text and the revised version of the Workbook and Manual. It contains all the changes that Helen and Bill Thetford made to their original manuscript, with the exception of three paragraphs which were removed from the first chapter because they seemed not to be relating to the Course's theory of miracles.