Tools:

NOTE: You should read this material at least once.

"Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God."

Matthew 4:1-11

“As long as you take accurate notes, every word is meaningful. But I can’t always get through. Whenever possible, I will correct retroactively. Be sure to note all later corrections. They mean that you are more receptive than you were when I tried before.”

ACIM Notes 4:67:6-15

Contradictions in MY words mean lack of understanding, or scribal failures, which I make every effort to correct. But they are still NOT crucial. The Bible has the same problem, I assure you, and it’s STILL being edited. Consider the power of MY WORD, in that it has withstood all the attacks of error, and is the Source of Truth.

ACIM Urtext T 1 B 30d and also ACIM Notes 4:122:15 - 4:123:12

There is a widespread and very understandable concern about the accuracy of reproductions of A Course in Miracles. Over the years a number of editions have appeared which claimed a degree of fidelity to the original dictation which they did not in fact achieve. This has generated enormous confusion and a good deal of controversy. Just what does the Course really say? In some cases, every version has a different reading.

I wish to make it absolutely clear that no claims for “precise fidelity to the source documents” are being made here. The claim that is made is that we did our best with the resources available, and while our best may be found to be useful by some, it falls far short of what would be possible with adequate resources. While this material reflects many thousands of hours of proofreading, I am intensely aware that we haven’t caught all the mistakes.

The only way to achieve “precise fidelity to source” is to provide copies of the original documents themselves, which we do! The various machine readable copies, because they are searchable, are useful for locating passages in those original documents, even where accuracy falls short of perfection.

A Course in Miracles began orally, as “inner dictation” from “The Voice” which Helen Schucman took down by hand in the Shorthand Notebooks. This “taking down” was not without human error. Schucman’s “hearing” was not always perfect, nor was her handwriting. While some of the errors were caught in later editing, a near total lack of proofing meant that many new “editing errors” were introduced inadvertently in the repeated retyping of the material over the course of roughly ten years. The result is that many passages differ from one version to another. Some of these “variant readings” are corrections of earlier errors and some of them are new errors introduced by mistake. When seeking to determine exactly what was said by “The Voice” and what was later human modification, one must first rule out “scribal error” as much as possible by comparing the passage in question across versions. The Scholar’s Toolbox for the primary sources contains all currently available primary source material in cross-referenced form which makes it relatively quick and straightforward to do this.

“The words on the page” of this or any other reproduction of A Course in Miracles then are not always a complete and “definitive” representation of “what The Voice said.” Even where the material is exactly the same in all versions and is accurately reproduced, as if often the case, this does not necessarily mean there is no scribal error. Where the words are different however, it is obvious that both variants cannot be “the original words of The Voice.” In these cases the student must turn to his own “inner teacher” to determine the Author’s intentions from among variants. The tools of scientific textual scholarship can also be useful, and can frequently determine with high precision which variant really is “more original.”

“The words on the page” of the print, e-text and Concordance renditions of A Course in Miracles supplied here do represent our best efforts to reproduce the manuscripts accurately but for many reasons, the reproduction is not always exact, and where an “exact” reading is desired, no reproduction is ever a substitute for the original manuscripts themselves. Quite aside from copying mistakes we may have made and failed to catch in our own work, the original manuscripts are extensively “marked up” with handwritten strike-outs and editing indications. Each then really contains two versions, one as originally written and a second as modified by the mark up. While many of the resultant variant readings are indicated in the footnotes of the print and E-text editions, for technical reasons, those footnotes are not reproduced in the Concordance. In addition, in some cases the best copies we have are not very good and there are legibility issues generating uncertainty as to what Schucman intended to put on the page. Where there are variant readings, then, the reading in the Concordance is our “best guess” as to what was originally intended and it is vital to recognize that it is no more than that! While it is an honest attempt to represent the manuscript accurately, it is also an imperfect attempt and must never be considered a substitute for the actual manuscripts themselves.

The Concordance should be viewed as an indexing and reference tool to the original manuscripts and not as a substitute or replacement for them. The vast majority of time the readings will be identical and a “lookup” in the Concordance will work, but as noted above, the Concordance is not and cannot be a precise replica or a substitute for the original manuscripts.

To be certain of the accuracy of any passage it is essential to check the manuscript facsimiles. The Concordance is really just a tool to make it easier to find passages in those original documents, it is not a replacement or substitute for them. It can also sometimes be useful to check the e-texts which include several thousand footnotes. Many of the variant readings and “problem passages” are discussed in the footnotes.

The Concordance, then, does not give you the “whole story” any more than an index to an Encyclopedia does. It is simply a reference tool to make it easier to find particular passages.

It is of course our desire to identify and correct all residual errors. Should you notice an error we’d be delighted if you inform us of it so that it can be corrected.

When I say “we” I refer to myself and the many people who have assisted in the proofreading and reproduction of this material. Our goal has always been to achieve the highest possible standards of accuracy. The bulk of the work was done by myself over the course of seven years in my “spare time.” There is no large organization and no army of proofreaders and editors to check and double check the work. As with any human undertaking, “errors” creep in. A work of this enormous size and complexity requires a high level of proofing to ensure accuracy. If I were to do that all myself, it would be another seven years before this material was released. In that sense, “the highest that is possible for us right now” is considerably short of the “highest which is ultimately possible.”

Despite the fact that I know it is imperfect, I also know it is useful and that in time the errors will be identified and corrected.

About Browsers

After many tests with many different browsers, we found that Mozilla Firefox works better with the Urtext Web Concordance than any other. All instructions are based on the Firefox Browser and some things do not work as well or at all in other browsers. Rather than continue to try to tweak the code endlessly to make it somewhat usable in other browsers, we have decided to simply STRONGLY recommend the use of Firefox, which is available as a free download HERE.