Gloom from the past

Sometimes change and improvement can be noticed only be comparing now with then. Here is a piece I wrote nearly eight years ago during the height, or the depth, of the ACIM copyright wars.

I'm glad that my attitude has changed for the better since then.












Subterranean Holy War Blues
Tom Fox - Louisville, Kentucky
July 10, 2000

What do you do with a holy book, a book that looks like a bible and which is revered by thousands as such, when you suddenly discover it might not be holy at all? Burn it or just forget it?

For twenty-five years the book "A Course In Miracles" has been promoted as being the miraculously communicated words of Jesus Christ. According to the widely published story of its origin, it was claimed the lengthy three-part work had been "dictated" by the "voice" of Jesus Christ "speaking" to Helen Schucman, who merely "scribed" the "inner dictation" in collaboration with her professional colleague, William Thetford, and the dictated words were published "virtually unchanged." Helen Schucman died in 1981 and during her lifetime she steadfastly denied any claim to authorship of "A Course In Miracles" and refused to have her name associated with the book.

When faced with legal challenges to the validity of the copyright on the Course due to the representations of divine origin, the story has been shifted. In court, Helen Schucman has now been proclaimed as the real author of "A Course In Miracles." The Foundation for A Course In Miracles, a New York corporation which presently claims ownership maintains in court papers that the book is merely a self-study course in psychological mind training and not a religious document at all. The renewal of a multi-million dollar book contract likely depends upon the validity of the copyright. The Course has sold over 1.3 million copies and its commercial value has resulted in a U.S. trademark registration on the name, a residential teaching center in the Catskills in New York and a teaching branch in California. "A Course In Miracles" has been translated into a half-dozen foreign languages.

Helen Schucman was a research psychologist at Columbia University in New York City working as an assistant to William Thetford, Ph.D. Declassified documents made available through the Freedom of Information Act show that Dr. Thetford worked at Columbia on part of the CIA's now infamous MK Ultra project on mind control, or the so-called "Manchurian Candidate" project. Much of the work on "A Course In Miracles" occurred in their University offices and at University, or perhaps CIA, expense.

Although Thetford and Schucman may have possessed the combined intelligence and sophistication to concoct "A Course In Miracles" as a hoax, or as a mind control experiment, all available evidence indicates that that Thetford and Schucman themselves genuinely believed the words of "A Course In Miracles" to have come from some outside intelligence, and that it was not their own creation.

A Catholic priest who was also a Ph.D. psychologist, Benedict J. Groeschel, was a very close friend of Helen Schucman. He gave a eulogy at her funeral in 1981. Father Groeschel wrote in his book, "A Still, Small Voice, A Practical Guide On Reported Revelations," Ignatius Press 1993, "This woman who had written so eloquently that suffering really did not exist spent the last two years of her life in the blackest psychotic depression I have ever witnessed."

During an October 1994 lecture on "Discernment" given at Holy Cross Church, Rumson, N.J., Father Groeschel also stated his belief that Helen Schucman's experience with the channeled "spirit" was possibly a true diabolic manifestation. As a psychologist and having served as an exorcist for the Catholic Church, Father Groeschel is professionally qualified to speak to both the psychological and spiritual aspects of the phenomenon.

To make matters more complicated, an earlier version of "A Course In Miracles" was recently discovered in the Edgar Cayce Foundation Library, named after the famous Kentucky psychic, at the Association for Research and Enlightenment (A.R.E.) in Virginia Beach, Va. It is obvious this earlier typed manuscript was extensively modified to produce the 1975 published version, in contradiction to the public claim that the version of "A Course In Miracles" available in bookstores is substantially the same as the original "dictation" from Jesus. A copy of this pre-1975 version of ACIM was obtained by unidentified individuals, digitized, and freely distributed on the Internet, prompting a storm of controversy and threats of litigation.

The instructional and promotional materials produced by those claiming ownership of "A Course In Miracles" uniformly misrepresent the true extent of the pre-1975 editing to the original "dictated" words of "Jesus." Large portions were deleted and terms were modified. As one example, the term "spiritual eye" in the pre-1975 version was changed to "Holy Spirit" in the bookstore edition. Many long-term students of the Course are shocked when they first discover the true extent of the modification. In the world of academic scholarship, uncovering this distortion of "history" surrounding the origin of "A Course In Miracles" might well be considered a major scandal. In the world where the name of Jesus Christ is used to sell books and build fortunes, it might be expected.

The repeated claims in print and on video of Jesus' authorship, and the first-person style of "A Course In Miracles" itself, have convinced many of the 1.3 million purchasers of the book to believe what it says and to act upon its teachings. This includes the formation of church organizations based upon "A Course In Miracles" and individuals who are willing to risk litigation to follow their faith in the Course's teaching. Many believe the mandate expressed in "A Course In Miracles" is to freely give away what are considered to be the actual words of a living Jesus Christ.

Ironically, those claiming copyright and trademark ownership have pursued a strategy of suing the Course's strongest supporters and adherents. Kenneth Wapnick, president of the Foundation for a Course In Miracles, denies that Jesus was an actual historical person. Some have suggested a personal vendetta by Dr. Wapnick against those who accept the literal truth of Jesus' life, crucifixion and resurrection. The legal attacks may also be explained as an attempt to placate the Penguin publishing group and to preserve a multi-million dollar empire.

Penguin/Viking is the current publisher of ACIM under a five-year contract that is timed to expire early next year.

A recently formed non-profit corporation, Course In Miracles Society, was organized to print and distribute the pre-1975 version of ACIM, as being the "more authentic words of Jesus." The members of Course In Miracles Society believe that the copyright on the Course is invalid or unenforceable for a number of reasons and they are willing to contend with Wapnick's Foundation in court.

On the other hand, some of the more technically inclined fans of "A Course In Miracles" have resolved to use the latest Internet technology, including the anonymous distributed data storage and retrieval protocol known as "the Gnutella network", to make the digital version of the pre-1975 manuscript freely available on the Internet and immune from legal threats under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. This is the same technology used to make life miserable for music publishers.

The efforts of Wapnick's Foundation to prevent this Internet distribution has been largely unsuccessful. The digital version of the pre-1975 manuscript is still easily located for free download on the Internet, and an informal international network of computer savvy volunteers, mostly well hidden and beyond the jurisdiction of U.S. courts, has grown in response to the threats of legal action.

In April, the pre-1975 manuscript was published by Course In Miracles Society in book form with the title "Jesus' Course In Miracles." Within a few days of first distributing the book the Society was sued for copyright infringement by Wapnick's Foundation, and the Society was temporarily restrained from further activity. One of the possible remedies for a copyright infringement, if the Foundation prevails in court, is the destruction of all copies of the offending book.

What do you do with a holy book, a book that looks like a bible and which is revered by thousands as such, when you suddenly discover it may not be holy?

Maybe a Federal Judge will decide to burn it, but it is unlikely it will go away or be forgotten.


Subterranean Holy War Blues

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