Читать книгу The Element Encyclopedia of the Psychic World: The Ultimate A–Z of Spirits, Mysteries and the Paranormal - Theresa Cheung, Theresa Cheung - Страница 13

A complete self-study spiritual thought system that was channelled through Helen Schucman between 1965 and 1972. It consists of a Text, Manual for Teachers and Workbook for Students and teaches that all humans share a capacity for love, forgiveness, compassion and peace. Rather than trying to change the world, it teaches, you must change yourself and your view of the world. Miracles are defined as a shift in perception from fear to love. It also emphasizes that it is but one version of the universal curriculum, of which there are ‘many thousands’. Consequently, even though its language is that of traditional Christianity, the course expresses a non-sectarian, non-denominational spirituality.

A Course in Miracles was dictated by a clear inner voice to Helen Schucman, a psychologist at Presbyterian Hospital in New York and an assistant professor of psychology at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons. Schucman was born to a Jewish family in the early 1900s and was an atheist. For years she experienced mental images that came to her like photographs, and in the 1960s the images became so intense and meaningful that Schucman feared she was going mad.

In September 1965 a voice began dictating the course to Schucman with the opening words, ‘This is a course in miracles. Please take notes.’ Schucman was frightened and reluctant but felt compelled to write. She shared her experiences with her supervisor at work, William Thetford, who thought she might be having psychic visions.

In the days, weeks, months and years that followed, the voice, which never identified itself, dictated the course to Schucman, and by September 1972 the entire work was completed and arranged into chapters by Schucman and Thetford. The voice predicted that a woman would come along who would know what to do with it, and that woman turned out to be Judith Skutch, president of the Foundation for ParaSensory Investigation. Skutch and her husband, Robert, changed the name of their foundation to the Foundation of Inner Peace and dedicated it to publishing and distributing the course.

Information about the course spread quickly via word of mouth, and study groups independent of the foundation formed around the world and continue to flourish today. Schucman and Thetford chose to remain anonymous advisors to the foundation. The voice continued to speak to Schucman, who wrote down a collection of poems published by the foundation as The Gifts of God. As Schucman had wished, her identity was not revealed until after her death in 1981.

A Course in Miracles was first published in 1975. There are currently over one and a half million copies of the course in circulation worldwide.