ACIM Study Group
A Course in Miracles
A Course in Miracles is a complete spiritual path that provides a roadmap and journey back to God. The “Course” offers radical, transformative teachings that provide a step-by-step way to apply those teachings to assist us on our spiritual journey. A journey to inner peace, love, forgiveness, and our return home to God. These teachings help us to remove the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence in our lives by letting go of fear, anger, judgment, and guilt, allowing us to choose true forgiveness.
A Course in Miracles, on one level, is a restatement of the core of wisdom found in every major world religion. The course does contain some religious terminology, Eastern mysticism, and modern psychology. However, the Course is a spiritual teaching rather than a religion. The Course makes no claim of being “the only way,” but clearly states that it is only one of many thousands of forms of “the universal course” that can be used for personal transformation.
The language of A Course in Miracles is vibrant and profound. Many sections of the Text and Workbook are very poetic and written in blank verse, leading some people to compare the Course with some of the world’s great literature. The text and language can be, at times, head-scratching and triggering because of the way it is written. This can frustrate many who begin the journey with the Course, leading them to simply put it aside. The thought system of the Course is intellectually sophisticated and combines spiritual inspiration with deep psychological understanding of such phenomena as belief and defense systems, perception, and identity.
However, A Course in Miracles is also very practical. The daily Workbook lessons provide a systematic, step-by-step approach by which one can apply the principles of the Course. The lessons do not require much time or extensive practice periods, but they do demand a willingness to question every value one holds about what the world is all about, and the willingness to see things differently — through the eyes of God.
A Course in Miracles teaches that there are only two basic thought systems, one of “perception” and the other of “knowledge.” The thought system of perception is inherently illusory because it is based upon interpretation, not on fact. It is founded on our belief in our separation from God and from one another. From this flows a belief in evil, sin, guilt, fear, and scarcity. It is a world of appearances, of birth and death, of time and constant change. This thought system of perception is what the Course calls the ego, which is actually a set of beliefs that center around the body as our reality and the limit of our being.
The world of knowledge, on the other hand, is truth. The Course teaches that the real world, which reflects truth, can be seen only through spiritual vision, and not through the body’s eyes. The world of knowledge is one of unity, love, sinlessness, and abundance. The Course views reality as composed only of God’s thoughts, which are loving, constant, timeless, and eternal. Evil, sin, and guilt are regarded as misperceptions. Sin is regarded as a lack of love, or as a mistake calling for correction and love, rather than for guilt and punishment.
Once we are caught in the world of perception, or the ego’s thought system, it is as though we were caught in a dream. To awaken to reality, it is necessary to reverse our thinking and correct our mistakes. We need help to awaken from the dream because our physical senses accept only information that reinforces our belief in the dream's reality. A Course in Miracles offers us an avenue of awakening by showing us that our usual perception and sense of identity are distorted. It offers us a way of correcting these distortions so that we can see ourselves and the world more clearly. This change in perception is what the Course means by a “miracle.”
Unlike some other thought systems, A Course in Miracles does not suggest withdrawal from the world. It teaches that our relationships offer us unique and valuable opportunities for learning, awakening, and healing. The Course offers a variety of approaches by which relationships based on fear and lack can be healed. Forgiving ourselves and others provides the means to use relationships to let go of the past's burden of guilt and grievances. In the context of the Course, “forgiveness” means recognizing that what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred. Forgiveness does not pardon sins and make them real. It sees that there was no sin. Forgiveness reveals only the extensions of love or calls for love, not the attack or hate. By changing our perception in this way, we can remove the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence, which the Course says is our natural inheritance.
A goal of A Course in Miracles is to train us to listen to God’s voice, the Holy Spirit. This extension of God’s mind serves as our inner guide, directing our thoughts, telling us precisely what to do, and guiding all our efforts. To be truly effective, we must learn to rely on our own internal teacher rather than looking for help outside ourselves. We are thus guided to discover our own God-given function.
As we are led from the world of the ego to the world of love, our perception of ourselves as separated persons is corrected, and we remember our higher, or true Self. We remember we were created by God as His Child, and we are enabled to accept the Christ within, and to see with Christ’s vision. We recognize our oneness with God, our Self, and all our brothers, and are able, finally, to “teach only love,” which is our true function as Children of God.
Who Wrote the Course
A Course in Miracles was received and scribed by Helen Schucman through an inner voice that came to her via inner dictation. The inner voice identified itself as Jesus. Helen was a research psychologist at Columbia Medical Center in New York City. The Course was published in 1975 and is written in 27 languages. We will learn more about Helen, her story, the Course scribing and journey during the ACIM Intro class.
The ACIM Text Study
When you become a student of the Course, it becomes a lifelong journey in studying and practicing its wisdom, lessons, and messages to free the mind of the ego. I have been a student of the Course for over a decade, and I am still practicing Jesus’ teachings in every moment.
This text study group will be a 1-2-year process for those who stick with it. The ego will see this as a long, torturous endeavor. Take a moment to feel what comes up when reading the time frame. What excuses will you come up with? What fear comes forward? This work is not a quick fix because we have had many lifetimes of programming to dismantle. This is a course in mind training and a step-by-step spiritual approach and practice to break free from the ego’s thought system of fear, anger, sin, and judgment and return to our True Nature and Self, which is Love.
The "TEXT" Study Group will be broken up into two sections:
ACIM More than An Intro
The text study group will start with an introduction and overview of the Course. This will enable new and seasoned students of the Course to gain clarity on the Course's background, terms, the characters Jesus brings forward, and the spiritual practices provided in this version. We will go over some brief guidelines for the class and participants. This introduction will be held in the first week of the study group.
Main Text Study
As a group, we will dive into the Main Text body of the material. You will be given specific sections to read each week so that when we meet, we can review those sections you studied. In class, I will share an overview of those sections, answer any questions, engage in a couple of in-class exercises, and have open free time to discuss anything that came up for you during class. Because the Main Text is the longest and most important, we will be taking approximately 18 months to move through this.
For this study, we will be using “A Course in Miracles – Complete and Annotated Edition”, edited by Robert Perry, founder of the Circle of Atonement. While there are several versions of A Course in Miracles in circulation, many students are familiar with the FIP (Foundation for Inner Peace) edition, often referred to as the “blue book.”
Although you're welcome to reference the FIP version, please note that it differs significantly in structure and content from the Complete and Annotated Edition. As a result, it may be challenging to follow along during group study and when using class handouts.
To fully participate and receive the most from this course, I strongly recommend obtaining the Complete and Annotated Edition (purple cover). That said, the Workbook for Students is nearly identical in both versions, so you are welcome to continue using the blue book for that portion of the course.
You can purchase a copy of the Complete and Annotated edition here.
This copy of the Course includes the main text, all 365 lessons, memorable cameos of Helen Schucman’s journey in writing the course, and the manual for teachers. The Complete and Annotated Edition (CE) aims to restore the material that was lost. It was created by revisiting Course Scribe Helen Schucman's shorthand Notes and editing them afresh, retaining the original words to the maximum degree possible. By going back to the words Helen heard in her mind and wrote down in her notebooks, the CE brings you into a more direct encounter with the power of those words. It includes, either in its main body or in appendices, those approximately forty-five thousand words that had been removed in the original published edition.
The teaching in this edition does not contradict teaching found in other editions of A Course in Miracles. However, we believe this edition will allow the Course's true meaning and character to shine through more clearly and enable you to better see the Course for what it is, relate to it as it is, and apply its profound truths to your life. - Circle of Atonement
ACIM Workbook Lessons Study
The Workbook for Students in A Course in Miracles is a structured, year-long training in mind transformation designed to shift perception from fear to love. Comprising 365 daily lessons, it offers a practical means of applying the Course’s core teachings to everyday life. Each lesson focuses on retraining the mind to see differently—teaching that the world we perceive is a reflection of our thoughts, and that peace comes only from changing the cause, not the effect. The lessons are simple yet profound, inviting consistent practice rather than intellectual understanding. Through ideas such as “I am never upset for the reason I think” and “God is the strength in which I trust,” the Workbook gently dismantles the ego’s thought system and restores awareness of the Holy Spirit’s guidance. Its purpose is not to teach love, for that is beyond what can be taught, but to remove the blocks to love’s awareness so the mind can remember its natural state of innocence, joy, and unity with God.
We will meet once a week for 12 months to go over that week's lessons to provide helpful insight and guidance on each lesson.
ACIM Manual for Teachers
The Manual for Teachers in A Course in Miracles serves as a guide for those who have accepted their role as teachers of God—not in the worldly sense of authority or hierarchy, but as willing channels of love and forgiveness. It explains that everyone who learns the Course will eventually teach it, for teaching and learning are the same. The Manual addresses the most common questions that arise on the spiritual path, such as “What are the characteristics of God’s teachers?” and “How is healing accomplished?” Each answer emphasizes that true teaching occurs through demonstration, not words, and that the teacher’s only function is to listen to the Holy Spirit and extend His guidance. The Manual reminds us that the teacher of God’s classroom is not defined by external form but by inner readiness—the willingness to see innocence instead of guilt, love instead of fear. In essence, it trains us to embody the message we have learned: that all minds are joined, and through forgiveness, the teacher and the student become one in the shared remembrance of God.
When Do We Meet?
The start date for the ACIM "MAIN TEXT" (next start date will be 2027) (ALREADY IN PROGRESS).
The start date for the ACIM "WORKBOOK" (next start date will be 2027) (ALREADY IN PROGRESS).
The start date for the ACIM "MANUAL FOR TEACHERS" study group will be the week of (JULY 2026, EXACT TBD).
Each study group will meet once a week for approximately 1-1.5 hours via Zoom.
I will be hosting a WhatsApp group where we can meet and engage during the study group. This information will be provided in the welcome email, along with other information needed for the study group.
ENERGY EXCHANGE: There is a 1x $20 energy exchange for the study Group, and purchasing “A Course in Miracles - Complete and Annotated Edition”
TO JOIN
Please fill out the registration form below. I will contact you with further instructions.
Contact
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Circle of Atonement
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