About the Scribes
Helen
Schucman, Ph.D., was a clinical and research psychologist, who
held the tenured position of Associate Professor of Medical Psychology
at the College of Physicians and Surgeons at the Columbia-Presbyterian
Medical Center in New York City. A Course in
Miracles was "scribed" by
Dr. Schucman between 1965 and 1972 through a process of inner
dictation. She experienced the process as one of a distinct and clear
dictation from an inner voice, which earlier had identified itself
to her as Jesus. Helen Schucman's scribing of A Course
in Miracles began with
these words: "This is a course in miracles, please take notes."
William Thetford, Ph.D., was a tenured Professor of Medical Psychology
at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons, and Director
of the Psychology Department at the Presbyterian Hospital in New York
City for whom Dr. Schucman worked. As her trusted friend and colleague
also, Dr. Thetford assisted and supported Dr. Schucman throughout
the Course's scribing, including the events that led up to it. A vital
participant, Dr. Thetford acted as transcriber throughout the entire
process by typing the material from the scribed notes that Dr. Schucman
had taken down and would dictate to him almost daily.
Listen to Judy Whitson Describe
What She Learned from the Scribes
In this four-part talk, Judy Skutch Whitson talks candidly about how she met Helen Schucman and Bill Thetford and how she came to be chosen to publish The Course.
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Part 1 |
Part 2 |
Part 3 |
Part 4 |
Background
Helen
Schucman and Bill Thetford were an unlikely team in scribing A
Course in Miracles. As career-oriented psychologists
working closely together at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical
Center, they were attempting to develop and strengthen the Center's
Psychology Department. While their professional interests and
goals for the department were compatible with each other, their
personalities certainly were not. Helen's overtly critical and
judgmental stance was juxtaposed with Bill's quiet and more passively
aggressive personality, and they clashed constantly.
It was therefore a rather startling event when, in the Spring of 1965, Bill delivered an impassioned speech to Helen in which he said that he was fed up with the competition, aggression, and anger which permeated their professional lives, extended into their attitudes and relationships, and pervaded the department. He concluded and told her that "there must be another way" of living—in harmony rather than discord—and that he was determined to find it. Equally startling, and to their mutual surprise, Helen agreed with Bill and enthusiastically volunteered to join him in a collaborative search to find this other and better way.
It was as if Helen had waited all her life for this particular moment, which triggered a series of internal experiences for her that carried through the summer. These included heightened dream imagery, psychic episodes, visions, and an experience of an inner voice. The experiences also became increasingly religious, with the figure of Jesus appearing more and more frequently to her in both visual and auditory expressions.
This period of preparation culminated on the evening of October 21, 1965, when the now familiar voice of Jesus said to Helen: "This is a course in miracles, please take notes." Troubled, she called Bill immediately, and he reassured her that she was not going mad. He suggested she write down what was being dictated to her, and that he would look at it with her early the following morning at the office. Helen did just that, which is how the scribing of A Course in Miracles began. As Helen later described the experience:
"The Voice made no sound, but seemed to be giving me a kind of rapid, inner dictation which I took down in a shorthand notebook. The writing was never automatic. It could be interrupted at any time and later picked up again. It made obvious use of my educational background, interests and experience, but that was in matters of style rather than content. Certainly the subject matter itself was the last thing I would have expected to write about."
Helen retired from Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center in 1977, and died in New York City on February 9, 1981. Bill retired from the Center in 1978, and moved to Tiburon, California and later La Jolla. He died on July 4, 1988, during a visit to the Foundation for Inner Peace in Tiburon.
Click here to see listing of Significant Historical Dates
