Recently, many Course in Miracles students have been reading Joel and enjoying the Infinite Way. We welcome you and hope to explain how we are not The Course in Miracles.
Joel teaches that IW teachers should not compare and contrast religions with The Infinite Way. We are not even to teach Christian history (see books of Barbara Muhl). The students should do this themselves.
Some students seem to feel that The Infinite Way is similar to, or the same teaching as, A Course in Miracles. (Perhaps because new editions of Joel's books have quotes from major celebrity metaphysicians like Marianne Williamson, Wayne Dwyer, etc.) Also, the Course uses Christian Science vocabulary learned in childhood by both the founder and the scribe of the course, who were psychologists (see more below).
(The Infinite Way never condemns or criticizes other religions or spiritual teachings, for we each must find our home and many of us are very happy in other religions.)
Comments here are to help students with a confusion caused by those following ACIM and also saying they are IW teachers and/or students. Joel stresses that a student on The Infinite Way path must be solely focused on Infinite Way principles.
Eventually, the student comes to understand the difference between a mental teaching and The Infinite Way, and realizes that the mental, material realm is not the same as the spiritual realm.
If you are interested in The Infinite Way, please take some time to study it by itself, without trying to combine it with other teachings.
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Keep in mind that we, in the Infinite Way, do not subscribe to channeled messages, nor do we support Psychology, Psychotherapy or mental materia medica. Learn more by investigating what others have discovered about ACIM. Incidentally, Wikipedia has removed the background information which described Thetford's links to CIA and MKULTRA. You may find some of that material below.
Dr. Helen Schucman
Helen Schucman, the psychologist and channel who received the material later incorporated into A Course in Miracles (ACIM), the most successful channelled work of the late twentieth century, was born Helen Cohn, the daughter of Sigmund Cohn, a chemist. Her mother had dabbled both in Theosophy and Christian Science, but Helen had not been interested in either. She was influenced by a Roman Catholic governess and throughout her life she periodically attended mass and possessed a number of rosaries she had collected over the years. During her teens, she was attended by an African-American maid who saw to her baptism as a Baptist. However, through most of her life, she was a professing atheist who was quite aware of the dominant secularism of her professional colleagues.
She attended New York University, aiming for a career as a writer or possibly an English teacher, but following her graduation suffered a traumatic experience from complications following a gall bladder operation. In 1933 she married Louis Schucman, the owner of an antiquarian bookstore, and settled down to life as a housewife and sometime assistant to her husband. In 1952, however, she decided to return to school and entered the psychology program at her alma mater. She specialized in clinical psychology and concentrated upon the problems of mental retardation in children.
Following her graduation with a Ph.D., in 1958 she accepted a position at Colombia-Presbyterian Medical Center. Here she met William N. Tetford, the new head of the hospital's Psychology Department. The pair was temperamentally very different, and the next seven years they had an often stormy relationship. Then in 1965, Tetford, who had been dabbling in metaphysical literature, suggested that they attempt to change their relationship and shortly thereafter, at Tetford's suggestion, they began to practice meditation. Schucman began to have vivid visual experiences. Tetford suggested that she record her experiences, but and on October 21, 1965, she heard an inner voice that told her, "This is a course in miracles. Please take notes." Again Tetford suggested that she do what the voice told her.
Use Google to research the origins of the Course (particularly the background of the founders) and read the following quotes from the third volume of A Course in Miracles, Manual for Teachers and determine the truth for yourself:
God's Curriculum
(God has no curriculum)
God's Thought
(God does not think, God KNOWS)
Holy Spirit's lessons
God's Teacher
Face of Christ
Let us bless and end with Joel's words:
"Remember: You are the keeper of your brother, but you not the keeper of your brother's religious convictions." - Joel, Hawaiian Hotel Talk Sept. 21, 1963