A Course in Miracles is some self-study materials published by the Foundation for Inner Peace. The book's content is metaphysical, and explains forgiveness as put on daily life. Curiously, nowhere does the book have an author (and it's so listed lacking any author's name by the U.S. Library of Congress). However, the text was published by Helen Schucman (deceased) and William Thetford; Schucman has related that the book's material is founded on communications to her from an "inner voice" she claimed was Jesus
quantum forgiveness . The initial version of the book was published in 1976, with a revised edition published in 1996. Part of the content is a training manual, and students workbook. Since the initial edition, the book has sold several million copies, with translations into nearly two-dozen languages.
The book's origins could be traced back once again to the first 1970s; Helen Schucman first experiences with the "inner voice" led to her then supervisor, William Thetford, to get hold of Hugh Cayce at the Association for Research and Enlightenment. Consequently, an introduction to Kenneth Wapnick (later the book's editor) occurred. At the time of the introduction, Wapnick was clinical psychologist. After meeting, Schucman and Wapnik spent over a year editing and revising the material. Another introduction, now of Schucman, Wapnik, and Thetford to Robert Skutch and Judith Skutch Whitson, of the Foundation for Inner Peace. The initial printings of the book for distribution were in 1975. Ever since then, copyright litigation by the Foundation for Inner Peace, and Penguin Books, has established that the information of the initial edition is in people domain.
A Course in Miracles is a training device; the course has 3 books, a 622-page text, a 478-page student workbook, and an 88-page teachers manual. The materials could be studied in the order chosen by readers. The information of A Course in Miracles addresses both the theoretical and the practical, although application of the book's material is emphasized. The writing is certainly caused by theoretical, and is a cause for the workbook's lessons, which are practical applications. The workbook has 365 lessons, one for every day of the year, though they don't need to be done at a rate of one lesson per day. Perhaps most like the workbooks that are familiar to the typical reader from previous experience, you're asked to utilize the material as directed. However, in a departure from the "normal", the reader isn't required to believe what's in the workbook, as well as accept it. Neither the workbook nor the Course in Miracles is meant to complete the reader's learning; simply, the materials are a start.
A Course in Miracles distinguishes between knowledge and perception; the fact is unalterable and eternal, while perception is the entire world of time, change, and interpretation. The planet of perception reinforces the dominant ideas in our minds, and keeps us separate from the reality, and separate from God. Perception is bound by the body's limitations in the physical world, thus limiting awareness. Much of the experience of the entire world reinforces the ego, and the individual's separation from God. But, by accepting the vision of Christ, and the voice of the Holy Spirit, one learns forgiveness, both for oneself and others.