A Course in Miracles
I chose A Course in Miracles as a major focus of my metaphysical ministry. I taught 6 consecutive year-long series to classes at Center for Spiritual Awakening in Pacific Grove, CA. Students who completed the yearlong curriculum were granted credits toward degree status (equivalent in level to ministerial training) from Emerson Institute. I was given my first set of books in 1978 shortly after publication. I have been a student of this course from that time through the present.
The Course is arranged throughout as a teaching device. It consists of three books:
the Text
the Workbook for Students
the Manual for Teachers
How Does the Course Work?
The order in which students choose to use the books, and the ways in which they study them, depend on their particular needs and preferences. There is no one right way to study. It is up to individual students to follow their own Guidance.
Check out the free introduction to A Course In Miracles below.
The curriculum the Course proposes is carefully conceived and is explained, step by step, at both the theoretical and practical levels. It emphasizes application rather than theory, and experience rather than theology. It specifically states that “a universal theology is impossible, but a universal experience is not only possible but necessary.” Although based on the teachings of Jesus, the Course deals with universal spiritual themes. It emphasizes that it is but one version of the universal curriculum. There are many others, this one differing from them only in form. They all lead to God in the end.
The series of weekly Text and daily Lessons takes one year to complete. When offered as an online training, any student who has access to the 3 volume series may enter at any time and may be at any level. The commitment to the teacher is one month at a time through prepayment vs. class by class donation.
“A teacher of God is anyone who chooses to be one. Her qualifications consist solely of this: somehow, somewhere she has made a deliberate choice in which she did not see her interests as apart from someone else’s. A light has entered the darkness. She has become a bringer of salvation. The Course’s central theme is always: “The (children) of God are guiltless, and in (their) innocence is (their) salvation.” ACIM Manual for Teachers p. 3
Graduating class of 2011 at Pacific Coast Church
The Course
The Text
The Text is largely theoretical, and sets forth the concepts on which the Course’s thought system is based. Its ideas contain the foundation for the Workbook’s lessons. Without the practical application the Workbook provides, the Text would remain largely a series of abstractions which would hardly suffice to bring about the thought reversal at which the Course aims.
The Workbook
The Workbook includes 365 lessons, one for each day of the year. It is not necessary, however, to do the lessons at that tempo, and one might want to remain with a particularly appealing lesson for more than one day. The instructions urge only that not more than one lesson a day should be attempted. The practical nature of the Workbook is underscored by the introduction to its lessons, which emphasizes experience through application rather than a prior commitment to a spiritual goal.