Foundation for A Course in Miracles

The Foundation for A Course in Miracles is a study and re-treat center established in 1982 by cofounders Kenneth Wapnick and his wife, Gloria Wapnick. Wapnick, a clinical psycholo-gist, was a close friend and associate of Helen Schucman and William Tetford, the two people whose collaboration was the initial stimulus for the scribing of A Course in Miracles (ACIM). He first saw the manuscript of the Course in 1973 and worked with Dr. Helen Schucman, the person responsible for channeling the Course from an entity she believed to be Christ. He helped prepare the manuscript for publication and has sat on the executive board of the Foundation for Inner Peace, the corporation founded to publish and distribute the text. He became a full-time teacher of ACIM soon after it was published.

Wapnick was raised Jewish but turned agnostic. After reading the works of Thomas Merton, however, he had decided to convert to Catholicism and become a monk. He was on his way to Israel to move into a monastery when he met Helen Schucman. Gloria Wapnick is a former social studies instructor and high school dean of students who has been working with A Course in Miracles since 1977. Raised a Catholic, she drifted away from the religion. In 1977 she had a session with Pat Rodegast, the person who channels an entity named Emmanuel. Directed to Wainwright House, a seminar center in Rye, New York, she found herself in a class on the ACIM. She met Wapnick at a conference on the Course. They were married in 1981.

Founded to facilitate the Wapnicks' teaching work, by 1984 the Foundation for A Course in Miracles (FACIM) evolved into a teaching and healing center in Crompond, New York, which was quickly outgrown. In 1988 the Wapnicks opened the Academy and Retreat Center in upstate New York, and in 1995 began the Institute for Teaching Inner Peace through A Coursein Miracles (ITIP-ACIM), an educational corporation chartered by the New York State Board of Regents. The institute operates under the aegis of the foundation, administering workshops and academy courses.

The Wapnicks had been inspired by Plato and saw the foundation as modeled on Plato's Academy, a place where people could study in an atmosphere conducive to learning, and then implement the acquired wisdom in their daily life. The foundation's Statement of Purpose is as follows:

To foster spiritual development through the study and practice of A Course in Miracles, a set of three books channeled by Jesus, that teach that the way to remember God is by undoing guilt through forgiving others. The corporation has as its specific aims to teach the Course, helping those interested to integrate the Course's principles into their personal lives, that they may better realize their true identity, shared with all people, as children of God; to teach and train those who wish to teach the Course to others; to teach the Course's reinterpretation of traditional Christian principles such as sin, suffering, forgiveness, Atonement, and the meaning of the Crucifixion; to further understanding of the Course by means of educational and training programs, seminars, and publications.

The Foundation for A Course in Miracles is headquartered at 1275 Tennanah Lake Rd., Roscoe, NY 12776-5905. It publishes a periodical, The Lighthouse. The website for the foundation is at http://facim.org/.

Sources:

Wapnick, Kenneth. Absence from Felicity : The Story of Helen Schucman and Her Scribing A Course in Miracles. Roscoe, N.Y.: Foundation for A Course in Miracles, 1991.

——. Christian Psychology in A Course in Miracles. Roscoe, N.Y.: Foundation for A Course in Miracles, 1992.

——. The Fifty Miracle Principles of A Course in Miracles. Roscoe, N.Y.: Foundation for A Course in Miracles, 1992.

——. Forgiveness and Jesus: The Meeting Place of A Course in Miracles and Christianity. Roscoe, N.Y.: Foundation for A Course in Miracles, 1992.