Kenneth Wapnick and ACIM

By anyone’s standards Kenneth Wapnick had led an interesting life.

In 1972, by just the age of 31 he had already turned his back on his Jewish roots, been baptized a Catholic, gained a PhD in psychology, married, separated and was preparing to become a Trappist monk.

He then changed direction again and devoted himself and his life to A Course in Miracles. He founded the Foundation for A Course in Miracles (FACIM) and is now considered the world’s leading expert on its teachings.

Kenneth Wapnick meets Bill Thetford and Helen Schucman

When Ken first met Helen Schucman and her boss William Thetford (a Professor of Medical Pyschology) his mind was set on becoming a monk. He had no inkling that these two people and the book they had scribed would ultimately change the course of his life forever.

In his mind Ken had his future mapped out - he was going to Israel to become a monk.

The evening passed uneventfully. Ken’s first impression of Bill and Helen Schucman (who was a psychologist at the Columbia University) was very positive, he felt that he had met two ‘Holy people.’ However at this point in his life he was set on becoming a monk in Israel.

When Bill suggested Ken might take a look at Helen’s spiritual book he declined, not doubt he was daunted by the size of it. At that time ACIM was a hefty manuscript stored in several thick ring binders.

Kenneth Wapnick goes to Israel

A few days following this meeting, Ken Wapnick went to Israel fully intending to locate a monastery to live at.

Ken was in Israel for five months and during that time he couldn’t get Helen’s book out of his head.

Although his main focus was to find a suitable location to become a monk, he found himself having two very significant dreams involving a holy book that touched him tremendously.

When he returned to America for what he thought would be the last time in the US before taking up his religious vocation, he made a particular point of meeting up with Helen Schucman and Bill Thetford.

It was at this point learnt the extraordinary story of how Bill and Helen wrote ACIM. Ken also caught his first glance of A Course in Miracles. In his book Absence from Felicity he describes the impact ACIM had on him.

“… as I began reading the text from the beginning I quickly recognized the Course as being the most perfect blend of psychology and spirituality that I had ever seen. And I am sure it did not take me long to realize that A Course in Miracles was my life’s work, Helen and Bill were my spiritual family, and I was not to become a monk but to remain in New York with them.”

Kenneth Wapnick devoured ACIM, reading it from cover to cover. He was educated and cultured, with a passion for Mozart, Beethoven and Shakespeare and A Course in Miracles struck a deep chord within him. He found a real beauty in its language and ideas.

His enthusiasm brought him close to Helen and Bill, so much so that he persuaded them both to go to Israel with him, where he had to tie up some loose ends.

It was whilst in Israel that Helen Schucman encountered a particularly uncanny incident. Three months before scribing ACIM Helen had encountered a ‘magic phase’ of psychic events and waking dreams. One sigificant dream was of her in a cave reading a holy scroll with ‘God is’ across the middle of it.

Whilst visiting Qumran, the place of the Dead Sea scrolls, Helen suddenly burst into tears. No-one could comfort or get sense out of her for several minutes.

Eventually, as her sobbing subsided she whispered, “This is it. This is the same cave where I saw the scroll with God is.”

Kenneth Wapnick Edits ACIM

When they returned to New York Kenneth Wapnick became absorbed in editing A Course in Miracles. This was a labour of love that took until 1975 to complete.

He developed an incredibly close relationship with Helen in particular and they both spent hours going through the manuscript and discussing capitalization and punctuation.

Kenneth Wapnick has always defended Helen’s spiritual credentials. It can sometimes be too easy to convey Helen as a sharp tongued, neurotic woman. However Ken saw her as the living embodiment of the ego at work.

On one level she was an angst-ridden and prickly character that resented ACIM and everything associated with it. Yet on the other hand she operated at a high spiritual level. Ken had no doubts that the Voice Helen heard was that of Jesus.

Kenneth Wapnick the mediator

In New York, as Ken started editing ACIM, he had no money and no job. Initially he lived completely off his savings, devoting himself to the task at hand.

He soon came to know Bill and Helen well and experienced first hand the conflict between them. He might be part of a new spiritual family, but as he points on in his book Absence from Felicity this didn’t mean a he’d reached a holy Utopia

“…In short the, the situation was hardly the spiritual Camelot I thought I had wandered into. Rather it was, I was beginning to recognize, a complex hotbed of pain and hatred, paradoxically coupled with with Helen’s and Bill’s genuine dedication to God and the Course, not to mention a love and concern for each other…”

Helen and Bill never resolved their differences whilst they were both alive.

Time and time again Ken would experience these two people drawn closely together though the Course and yet pulled apart by their relationship with each other.

Starting the Foundation for A Course in Miracles - FACIM

The Foundation for Inner Peace (FIP) was formed shortly after Judith Skutch came on the scene. Judy Skutch was a dynamo of energy, contacts and ideas. Like Ken, she soon realised ACIM was to be her life work and she started the process of sending out Xeroxed copies of ACIM to friends and colleagues before getting it professionally published.

Judy Skutch already ran an organization called the Foundation for ParaSensory Investigation. The name was changed to the Foundation for Inner Peace (FIP) and in 1975 A Course in Miracles was published under the name of FIP.

The role for the FIP was to publish and disseminate ACIM.

Kenneth Wapnick and his wife Gloria started a sister organization to FIP in 1983, calling it the Foundation for A Course in Miracles (FACIM). The role for FACIM was to become a place to discuss and teach ACIM.

FACIM started out in New York and then moved in 2001 to Temecula in California, which is where it is still currently located.

Kenneth Wapnick guardian of ACIM

As ACIM has grown in popularity so has the number of spiritual teachers spreading its message.

An example of such a teacher is the hugely popular Marianne Williamson and her best-seller Return to Love. In early editions Marianne Williamson’s book quoted some parts of ACIM without the permission of FIP or without correct citations.

These kinds of instances have led FACIM and FIP to tighten up on infringements of copyright with law suits - which in turn has led to some Course teachers feeling disgruntled. Some feel A Course in Miracles is being controlled by FIP and FACIM. Many see Ken Wapnick as the driving force behind this.

Should FACIM and FIP allow people to draw from the material freely? Or might this damage the integrity of the Course?

It’s a debate that continues to rumble.

Kenneth Wapnick the teacher and author

Ken is the most renowned teacher of ACIM in the world. He has written extensively on the Course with titles like