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Notes on the names and identities of the Versions

 

1)     The “UR”iginality problem.. 1

2)     The first two “Urtexts. 2

3)     The third “Urtext” or USCO Urtext or Sub-Urtext 3

4)     What about the Notes?. 7

5)     And on to the HLC …. 8

6)     The naming nightmare. 9

By Doug Thompson

Even ACIM veterans can get confused with the wide variety of names applied to some of the five major versions of ACIM which are now generally known.  Due to the fact that those who are in possession of early Course source materials are unready to share it, we don’t know nearly as much about the early days of ACIM as is known to be knowable.  If anyone really knows exactly how many versions of ACIM Helen Schucman and Bill Thetford made, s/he’s not talking.

Unfortunately this is not a simple topic. I cannot say with certainty just how many versions there actually are or even, in the case of one of them, whether it is one version or fragments of three or – or even possibly more!  This existence-uncertainty factor does not help us when it comes to sorting out what to call them!

Briefly, for the Text volume of ACIM, the widely recognized versions, many of which have appeared in multiple editions, are five:

1) Schucman’s original Notes

2) Thetford’s original  Transcript

3) USCO “[Sub]Urtext typescript  (a patchwork of editing)

4) Hugh Lynn Cayce Version (HLC) (final scribal era edit)

5) Nun’s Version

It really must be pointed out that in addition to those five for which there is physical or very solid witness evidence, there is strong physical evidence in the USCO material (number 3 above) that it actually is a patchwork of at least three different “versions” and possibly more.

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1)        The “UR”iginality problem 

Each of the five “cardinal” versions produced by or under the supervision of the Scribes has been called by a variety of different names and the English word “Urtext,” (ǔr-těkst) (ˈɜrˌtɛkst) from the German (oor-těkst) (ˈʊərˌtɛkst) for “first text”, has been [usually by mistake] applied to each of them at one time or another! 

There are reasons for this.  Since late 1999 when the Hugh Lynn Cayce typescript was rediscovered at the ARE library in Virginia, there have been a series of revelations and discoveries of earlier ACIM materials.  This material had been, and in large part continues to be suppressed by its custodians who, for many years, advertised the 1975 Abridgement as “virtually unchanged” from the original dictation.  With each earlier version discovered, the result of the revelation of the massive changes has been shock.  And with each revelation there is the thought, “ok NOW we’ve got the original.”  Each new discovery was mistakenly supposed to be, and called, “the original.”

The Cayce typescript proved to be 25% longer in the first five chapters, the next older typescript proved to be 66% longer in the first two, and the original Notes, though still available only in fragments, reveal still more.  At each stage the first impression of finding the ‘older’ material was that it must be the “original” or “URiginal” as the case may be.  At the very least, being longer and less edited it was certain that it was more “original” than previously known copies.  Publicity surrounding each of these versions at the point of discovery stressed the “more original” nature and less careful commentators subsequently accepted these initial mistaken assumptions as “factual.”  With many of the descriptive names applied to ACIM versions over the years, there is this same problem … mistaken assumptions lead to descriptive names which are inaccurate and therefore misleading which leads to a great deal of disinformation, misinformation, and confusion.

The terms “Urtext” or just “Ur” along with the terms “original” and ‘unexpurgated” have been very popular in ACIM circles.  In almost all cases, however, these terms have been misapplied to material which is neither unexpurgated nor original nor, strictly speaking, a “first text.”  The claims arise both from ignorance as to the truth and advertising hype, the desire to appeal to the public desire for “originality” and “authenticity.”  It is simpler to just call it “original” than to explain that while it is somewhat more original, it’s not actually “the original”. 

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2)        The first two “Urtexts

The term “Ur” or “Urtext” first appears in ACIM literature with Wapnick, in Absence from Felicity (1991), who used it to refer to the earliest typescript which was described as a transcript of Schucman’s handwritten Notes typed by Bill Thetford day by day as the scribing proceeded from 1965 to 1968 for the Text. If that first typescript was an accurate transcript of the Notes, those two documents, the first notes and the first typed transcript, would be identical in content, and thus not actually different “versions.” The term “original,” “first” text or “Ur” might reasonably be supposed to apply to one or both of these because they are “original.”

There is evidence, however, that Schucman did not read the entirety of her notes to Thetford and may have otherwise “edited on the fly,” but until copies of the Thetford Transcript emerge, this can’t be confirmed.  The Thetford Transcript, or the first document to be called the “Urtext”, and what was initially supposed was the document filed at the USCO as the “Urtext,” remains elusive and is the only version of ACIM which we know for certain existed for which no certain physical evidence has yet emerged.  There are a few pages which some think derive from Thetford’s Transcript, but nothing that can be fully confirmed.

None of this material has been thoroughly studied to date.  (April 07) Much of it is still available only in very raw, rough photocopy form and the machine readable copies in circulation currently are severely flawed by errors and lack of proofing. 

Some of it is still almost entirely unavailable to scholarship and is known only from sketchy and sometimes unreliable published reports by those who have seen it.  There is therefore some uncertainty regarding that list of five versions since I’ve never seen one of them, and another is very obviously a patchwork of several different typescripts or versions, yet it is named (almost certainly mistakenly) as if it were a single “version”.  There is strong evidence of there being more than just five significantly different versions put together at significantly different times by one or both of the original Scribes with or without varying degrees of assistance from others.  Since it is the case with the known material, that in each re-copying the Scribes both corrected earlier errors and introduced new ones, it is vital to the task of reconstructing the original dictation that all materials which may contain corrections of errors or fragments of the original dictation be found, preserved, published and thoroughly studied.

From what we have of their work, we can see a great deal about how the Scribes worked and did their editing.  In a nutshell, they re-worked some of the early material again and again and again, periodically re-typing pages with changes they’d decided upon.  These changed included corrections which were dictated, what appear to be corrections which were not dictated, typos, errors and omissions, and some very apparent editing errors.  Each “version” is therefore significant because each can help us assess what is an error and what is a correction, and corrections do show up at every stage.  Because of that, we cannot say that the “oldest” form is always the most reliable or authentic.  There were errors at the outset.

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3)        The third “Urtext” or USCO Urtext or Sub-Urtext

In 2000 a typescript filed at the United States Copyright Office (USCO) by Wapnick shortly after Schucman’s death in 1981, which was labelled “Urtext” was published.  The “USCO Urtext” or Sub-Urtext here refers to that document.  It was initially – and quite understandably – thought to be what was on its label, what Wapnick had written about in Absence as the “Urtext,” that first Thetford Transcript. It turned out not to be the ‘Ur typescript at all.  It consists of 1072 pages almost all of which are almost certainly “re-typed” from earlier material with some editing.  Of the 1072 pages the first 381 appear to include fragments of as many as four different “re-typings,” some of which appear to be very early, possibly only a single remove from the actual “Urtext” and a few segments of which some believe to be the first written record. The latter 690 page section, which begins with the typed page number 209 on the 382nd folio and ends with the typed page number 886 on the 1072nd folio, correspond extremely closely to the 1972 Hugh Lynn Cayce (HLC) typescript, both in page numbers and content, minus the chapter and section breaks.  You will note that folio 383 of the “Sub-Urtext” is marked page 210 of this latter part. It’s also almost exactly the end of chapter 8, or the first of the four original “rounds” which were originally bound in four separate binders.  Were this part not packaged together with the first 383 pages one would immediately conclude that one had found the latter three of the four original binders of a retyping which immediately preceded the HLC.  Being only 886 pages long, when it is known an earlier retyping was at least 1072 pages long, one would conclude on the basis of size alone that this was a very late document in the editing process with most of the deletions already done.

This is what has become known as the (Sub) Urtext for chapters 9 through 31.  It is not remotely “ur” anything, but is clearly the immediate predecessor of the HLCIt is also visibly a single work, a consistent, integral “re-typing” in its final 690 pages and 23 chapters.  The first 381 pages are a totally different story, and a completely different “versions” of ACIM.

The pagination of this huge section, three fourths of the total, is crucial.  It is completely inconsistent with the previous 381 pages but completely consistent and clean across the 23 chapters it includes. It shows by its number of pages alone that by the time of this typing nearly all of the “deletions” which were to be made by the end of the HLC had already been made.  These numbers could only arise in a “re-typing” after a great deal of what appears in the first 381 pages had already been removed, reducing those 381 pages to 208 pages.  In other words, we have a pre-HLC “version” here, or at least the last 23 chapters of one from which the first 208 pages are simply missing but for there to be a page 209, and there is, there almost certainly had to once have been a page 208!  Page 208 doesn’t usually come immediately after page 381, but it does here!  Onto this late 23 chapter segment was tacked an earlier version or patchwork of versions of the first eight chapters which includes 381 pages instead of the 208 we’re missing.  It’s not the same version!  It doesn’t even look the same.

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We are assuming here that in the “original transcript” or “Urtext” by Thetford, the first page he typed would be numbered “1” and the last page would be numbered something greater than 1072 since we know there are at least that many pages to the Text.  We are assuming that one person, typing one document, would not periodically restart the numbering at “1”.  However, we may be assuming too much.  It is safer, perhaps, to assume that having reached page 381, the typist would not then revert, on the next page, to page 209, a page number already used some weeks before!

The first 381 pages are quite interesting. They contain at least four different internal numbering systems, and correspond to the order of material in the later HLC very closely but contain an additional 162 pages of material!   These pages appear much earlier than the later 23 chapters, and are typed much more crudely.  Yet this is not the Urtext, or Thetford’s transcript of the Notes.  We have enough of the Notes to see that this material is substantially abridged from the Notes already.  We know then that the Notes are longer and that the Thetford Transcript (genuine Urtext), if it is at all close to the Notes, must be a good deal longer than 1072 pages! What we see comes exceedingly close to conclusive proof of two re-typings after the Urtext and before the HLC.  Unless someone can come up with another plausible explanation for the extremely odd pagination, that is what these page numbers are telling us.  That would make of the HLC the fourth rather than the second re-typing, and much further removed down the line of the editing process from the “original” Urtext than heretofore supposed.  In other words, the evidence suggests that much of this material is further removed from the Urtext which it was mistakenly called than has been generally supposed.

The second “numbering system” in the Sub-Urtext which involves the “circled numbers” ranges from folio 174 to folio 381.  The former is numbered 10 1. (see illustration)

The numbering DOES restart at 1 on folio 174! But the one is written in after an originally typed 10 is crossed out! Sure enough, folio 165 has a “1” typed in and crossed out with 164 written in. Folio 162, 10 pages earlier also has page “1” typed in, crossed out, and replaced with 161 written in (but not circled).  Again page 159, dated Nov. 30, is typed 1, crossed out, and the number 158 written in.  This one has the handwritten header “Dictated without notes.”

On Friday Nov. 26, on folio 147, we have the page number 1 again, crossed out, with “146” written in.  On Nov. 24th, DICTATED WITHOUT NOTES appears at the top of another page “1” rewritten as 143.  And on Nov. 22, page “1” again is crossed out and 131 is written in on what is now folio 132.  This happens again on Nov. 20, with page one being crossed out and 129 written in on folio 130.  This page has two other numbers written in, 56 showing up just beside the date, and lining up with it, making it appear to be the originally typed page number.  Now “56” is an interesting page number because folio 56 represents a dividing point in the earlier pages where at the very least, a typewriter ribbon was replaced.  But margins also change and so does the content, with the most interesting “possession” material showing up here.  It may be in the editing the order of material was shuffled.  That number “56” might mean a number of things.

On folio 80, dated by hand as “Nov. 13” we have another page one crossed out, and yet another number crossed out so thoroughly as to be illegible.  This series continues to page 8, folio 88, and includes, on folio 84 a page marked “83a (NOTE)” which appears to be a correction inserted later.  Finally on folio 21, we again find “page 1” crossed out and page 21 handwritten in.

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November 13 on folio 80 is the first date this material includes.  We can only date the rest from the Notes.  Between October 21 and Nov. 30 someone, at some point in the process, typed up early material using page one no fewer than 8 times!  Later these numbers were crossed out and others written in.

What’s going on here?  These few pages from Nov. 20 to Nov. 30 include some which are marked “dictated without notes” and may all be “dictated without notes” and may represent situations where Helen was “inspired” to take notes while sitting at a typewriter so she just typed instead of using her shorthand notebooks, beginning each session with page “1”.  Later the material was perhaps inserted in sequence to the re-typing of the original (Thetford’s Urtext) transcript she was working on and manually renumbered to fit.

In the first 61 pages however, the numbering is consistent.  We do have some “Notes” material for this period, the first three weeks of the scribing, and we know that what is here in the “USCO Urtext is already edited and condensed.  This first 61 pages then is clearly a re-typing, but possibly a rather early one.  This is not the Thetford transcript – or “Urtext” however!  It is too severely edited to be that. 

Thetford has said that his transcript included certain spelling errors, such as “bother” for brother and “crucifiction” for “crucifixion.”  (he says so here) Neither typo shows up in this document at all, although we do find an instance of this in the later pamphlets.  This is another reason to suppose that it is not the original Thetford transcript or Urtext.

These “dictated without notes” fragments may actually be Helen’s original typing of these portions or they may be later re-typings.  The fact of the original page numbers is highly suggestive of these being the originals, however.  The crossed out numbers and new handwritten numbers would then represent a later re-sorting of the pages with these segments inserted into a re-typing of the Thetford transcript as the editing proceeded.  That would throw the page numbering off in the transcript for all pages following such insertions.

But that is not the pattern we see.  The later numbers aren’t out by a few pages, they are out by 186!

The last page of the “circled numbers” is the 381st folio and is first numbered 224 and then this is crossed out later and the number 208 is written in.  (see illustration)

What follows is the last section of chapter 8 on folio 382 marked 209. This is physically where the HLC was divided into the second of four binders, or approximately one quarter of the total length.

 From this point on the page numbering and typing is consistent.  From this point on we have a discreet “re-typing” and a work that appears to be a single whole.  Prior to this point, in the first 381 pages, we appear to have a patchwork of various bits and pieces of generally rough quality which suggests very early origin.  Yet none appears to be the actual “original” Thetford typescript because there is too much missing from the Notes. The “dictated without notes” sections, presumably, never had a chance to be put into the Urtext, or Thetford Transcript.

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When the Notes become fully available for study we should be able to learn much more about this later document.  At the moment it is impossible to say with certainty very much save that none of Thetford’s “signature” typos appear and that the numbering suggests most of it is a later or much later re-typing of that original transcript.  By ‘much later’ I mean that there is likely an earlier “re-typing” to what we see here for chapters 9-31, and I draw that mostly from the pagination evidence.  I admit that page numbers alone could be explained by something as simple as sloppy filing practices.  However even that makes it difficult to explain how the page number “209” shows up at the end of chapter 8 following page 381!  Yet that is page 219 in the HLC. That is so close to the HLC numbering that the difference could be explained just by margin settings.  It’s a ten page difference over 200 pages.  And here this document appears 10 pages shorter.  By the end, it has 886 pages to the HLC’s 866, or 20 pages longer.  This is an even smaller margin of difference.  So the page numbering we see is fully consistent with the theory that we have here, in fact, the last three rounds of a later re-typing which was highly edited, edited back almost to the scale of the HLC.  Instead of “round 1” (roughly chapters 1-8) of that re-typing, we have a patchwork of bits and pieces including a fairly complete re-typing of pages 1-80 or so.

It would almost appear as if having lost the first round of this pre-HLC re-typing, a clerk scrounged around in old boxes for earlier drafts of that round and came up with 381 pages to fit the slot left by 208 missing pages.  Then it was all bundled together and labelled “Urtext” although little, if any of it actually is.

One final comment on page numbers … in the first 381 pages numbers are written, crossed out and re-written, sometimes as many as four appearing on one sheet, which indicates a serious effort to keep them all in order and organized as editing proceeded and pages were cut, cut down, and retyped.  From folio 381, marked “209” on however, no such effort is visible.  Only the originally typed number appears and nothing is written or crossed out by way of an effort to fit this latter numbering system in with the former.

However, in looking at pages 209-886 (folios 382-1072) by themselves, assuming for a moment the first 381 folios were not present, no one would doubt that we simply obviously have the last three of the original four binders or “rounds” of the Text Volume in a single re-typing.  We’re obviously just missing the first round which would be expected to contain pages 1-208 and correspond to the HLC  pages 1-219.  Page 209 (folio 382) of the USCO Urtext material corresponds to chapter 8, section K of the HLC, “The Answer to Prayer” on page 219 of the HLC typescript.

What we haven’t done yet is compare the USCO Urtext material to the HLC and that will have to wait for the finishing of the proofing on the earlier document.  We do know there are differences, but most that we’ve noticed are rather minor wording, punctuation and emphasis changes.  Assuming nothing more dramatic than that shows up, this is fully consistent with this being the immediate predecessor to the HLC but something later than the Thetford transcript.

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There is an oral tradition of two or more re-typings having been done by Helen.  It may be that some portions of the material were re-typed more frequently than other portions.  It has been noted that after chapter 8 the rate of editing changes drops dramatically and it may be that the Scribes simply felt no need to re-type this material as much as with the earlier.  Therefore it may be misleading to speak of “re-typings” with the idea that “A re-typing” would involve all 31 chapters.  It might just involve one!

I think what we have here in the USCO Urtext patchwork is the last 23 chapters of a pre-HLC re-typing by Helen that is missing the first 8 chapters.  There is every reason to suppose that the first 8 chapters of that version do or at least did exist.  At a guess, this would be Helen’s second retyping, with the HLC being the third.  The first 381 pages do not appear, except perhaps for a few pages, to be the “Ur.” They appear edited, condensed and re-typed, but in an earlier, rougher and more primitive form than the later 23 chapters.  I will guess this represents Helen’s FIRST re-typing and it may never have included more than the first 8 chapters or so. We do know that these 381 pages were cut down to 209 in the HLC and that this material was even further cut back in the 1973-74 editing.

In addition to these two discreet documents we appear to have some inserts which were “dictated without notes” for unknown reasons.

The only thing certain about this document is that it is not a single “version” but rather is a collection of fragments of several otherwise unknown versions. This compilation of several typescript fragments is commonly known as the “Urtext” which it most certainly isn’t!  We call it the “Sub-Urtext” even though it is popularly known as the “Urtext” because we know it is not the actual “Urtext” and are trying to avoid confusing people with inaccurate and misleading names!

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4)        What about the Notes?

Also at the USCO, Helen’s original Notes, all 3,000-odd pages of them, are filed.  This first of all the ACIM writings, which might therefore warrant its being called “Urtext,” is distinguished in the deposit by not being called Urtext and by not being included in the material that is called Urtext.”  This tells us one thing. At the time of the deposit the word “Urtext” was not being applied to the Notes but to something later.  It is not certain if any of the material filed as “Urtextreally is – a few bits might actually be from Thetford’s original typescript; it is certain however that most of it is later and already substantially edited.  This may have been a clerical mistake at the time of filing, such that the intent was to file the Urtext but a later retyping was filed by accident instead.  Or it may be that this somewhat later material was actually regarded as “the Urtext” by those doing the filing.  There is currently more evidence to support the theory that they simply put the wrong stack of papers into the box, but not enough to make it conclusive.

While there are copies of the Notes in existence those who are in possession of them have been less than eager to make that material available.  Since I don’t have anything nice to say about this direct attack on scholarship implicit in the suppression of vital primary source material I won’t say anything about it.  Only a few fragments of the Notes have so far become available to me but more and more fragments all the time such that a picture is gradually emerging.  One thing is quite clear, the material will, in due course, become available.

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5)        And on to the HLC ….

Of the five major or cardinal versions currently recognized, several of which have various editions with some differences, the HLC, is no earlier than the fourth, but more likely the fifth or sixth.  Dating from the most recent, the 1975 FIP abridgement, or Nun’s Version, the HLC is the second-to last. There are three older, earlier and more original versions known with certainty to exist. There is a growing body of evidence that there may be at least two and possibly more between this version and the “original” original! The HLC is the version which Wapnick and Schucman abridged into what became known as the FIP First Edition in 1976, and which has also been called the “Criswell edition,” the “Xerox edition”, and the “Nun’s Version”  and 1975 Abridgement. It has been called a few less flattering things also! These can all be considered different editions of the “Nun’s Version” as they have few differences. Until 2000, the later was the only version of ACIM generally available and the very existence of other versions with substantially different content was hidden.

The “HLC” or “HLC Version” of a Course in Miracles (ACIM) refers to all editions which are based on, and at least claim some attempt to be somewhat faithful to the Hugh Lynn Cayce typescript copy of ACIM which was re-discovered in 1999 at the ARE Library which is dedicated to the work of Hugh’s father, Edgar Cayce.  The name derives from Schucman herself who called it that, according to Wapnick, and the fact that Hugh Lynn Cayce was given a copy. Alone of those who were given copies in that era, Cayce managed to preserve his for posterity.  The Cayce typescript is the only known copy of that version, so it bears his name for that reason also … it’s a copy of Cayce’s copy!  When first discovered it was not immediately known what version it was, and many thought it was the “Urtext”, and some, apparently, still think of it as a good deal more “original” than it is.  This is in part the explanation for the large number of novel and unique names which this version has attracted over the years, most of which contain some allusion to originality which adds up to false advertising.  While closer to the original dictation than the later FIP materials, the HLC is a long way from the “original” dictation.  Wapnick describes it as the “penultimate version” which means “second to last” and if we consider the 1975 FIP abridgement to be the last, or “ultimate,” the HLC is indeed the immediate predecessor, or penultimate version.  “Second-to-last” is accurate, “original” or “ur-anything” is not accurate.  IF there are five primary versions, this is the fourth, but there are probably seven, and this is the sixth.  It is not the first, it is not the original, it is not the “Ur” and applying such appellations is, in our view, unhelpful and confusing and rather deliberate false advertising because most of the people doing so either know better or should know better.

The HLC is distinguished by two conspicuous things: it is the first version to have chapter and section breaks and it is the last version prepared by Schucman and Thetford without outside participation.  However many versions or partial versions preceded it, we can see that the Scribes had removed everything remotely “personal” in nature by the time of the HLC.

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6)        The naming nightmare

Since the purpose of a “name” is to “communicate” the identity of a thing, and to allow us to economize on language when speaking of identity, the use of the most readily recognized name seems sensible if the objective is clarity and precision of communication.  The process of continually hatching new names, many of which are descriptive in nature and as descriptions revelatory more of the ignorance of those coining the terms than of the nature of the object named, is decidedly unhelpful and very confusing and wasteful.  We decline to use names which are misleading or inaccurate as descriptions, except to point out that in some writings, those names are used.

Each new name for a familiar object is just one more way of hiding it from search engines and from scholarship.  Each new name is certain to simply sow confusion for newcomers to ACIM.  Each new name introduces confusion and reduces clarity. If someone wishes to find out about the HLC, there are at least 15 names to search for on the net, and two of them were hatched in the past few months!  A year from now there could be 30 names for the document!  This insanity has to end!

Some occasionally used names, some of which are descriptions, and some of which are very inaccurate as descriptions, include Thetford Version or Thetford Redaction, JCIM, 1972 Version, Original Edition, Urtext, Ur-Compendium. There are many others.  All these are usually, but not always, alternative names for the HLC version. Some of these names are used to label other versions as well.  Just about every version has at one time or another been called “Ur-something” mistakenly! As noted, there is a good deal of confusion in ACIM nomenclature. The name “Thetford” and the name “Ur” or “Urtext” or “original” all more accurately refer to much earlier material than they do to the HLC and can therefore be misleading when applied to this late and already significantly abridged version. 

I can certainly explain how some of these names arose, because I was involved with or responsible for coining at least two of them.  When CIMS first set out to print the HLC in 2000, it was my desire to not get sued.  Since Wapnick was claiming a trademark for “ACIM,” the idea arose to use “JCIM” to convey the same idea without using exactly the same letters, so as to avoid a trademark lawsuit.  “JCIM” was meant to be precisely synonymous with “ACIM” yet came to be precisely synonymous with “HLC.”  I was similarly involved in calling the HLC the “Thetford Redaction” at a time when the 1975 abridgement was being called the “Wapnick Version.”  There was indication from Robert Skutch that Thetford had been largely responsible for its preparation.  Later, however, no support was found for this supposition that Thetford more than Schucman had been responsible for it and the only one of the cardinal versions to which Thetford’s name could be accurately affixed was in fact the “Urtext” or “Thetford Transcript.”  That, of course, is a much earlier document.  It became clear that calling the HLC by the name “Thetford” was only going to cause confusion.

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I’ve learned to be more careful with names.  When a name gets used, some people will pick up on it and keep using it even when others discard it or it is found to be inaccurate.  The above examples are trivial when compared to the “Urtext” problem.  The lengthy discussion above illustrates the problem with calling anything “Urtext.” One of the problems is that at one time or another, someone or other has called almost everything “Urtext.”  Of course this gets condensed in English usage to just “the Ur.”  Depending on the audience this may be perfectly clear or totally misleading.  The basic problem is similar to that with applying the name “Thetford” to the HLC.  The name more aptly applies to a different version.  So the material at the USCO labelled “Urtext is not that original Thetford Transcript which more aptly and originally is deserving of the name.

This danger lurks for all of us who explore unknown or hidden territory.  Great efforts have been taken to hide and obscure the origins of ACIM, though even greater efforts are underway to reveal the truth.  We don’t know what we’ll find next until we find it and we are constantly being surprised and discovering that what we had thought and presumed to be there is not or never was!  I mean we ALL started out with the belief in “virtually no changes!”  And we were ALL surprised.  We’re not the first explorers to trip over our assumptions.  Christopher Columbus thought he’d landed in India and named the inhabitants “Indians.”  Natives of the Americas still call themselves Indians in tribute to Columbus’s ignorance!!!  However, whenever there is liable to be ambiguity, we are accustomed to adding the qualifier “west” or “east” before the word “Indian.”  Not that you can blame Columbus!  He had no way of knowing there were a couple of continents in the way en route to India! In his world the continents hadn’t been counted yet.  In ours, it’s just the versions of ACIM that haven’t been counted. Amerigo Vespucci, the mapmaker, signed his map of the new world and people ended up thinking the name of the new continents was “Amerigo” or “America” … which has to be the oddest new world naming fluke of the lot!  Many other names were suggested, including “New France” and “New Spain” and “New England” but it was “America” that stuck!

We should therefore be extremely careful about calling anything according to a description of what we think it is unless we are absolutely sure.  We can be sure that “HLC” is safe because it simply describes the certain and known provenance of the typescript and makes no effort to describe it, it only seeks to identify it.  Similarly, “USCO URTEXT” defines that document in a similar way, through its certain provenance … where we got it and what it is labelled in that archive.  However it is still being called the “Urtext” and there is still another document known to exist which is called by, and far more deserving of, that name, so we need a qualifier such as we use with “east” and “west” Indian.  We opted for the moniker “Sub-Urtext” since it derives from and is later in time than the Urtext.  We did not want to ditch the now-familiar name entirely because that would cause even more confusion, especially for anyone doing a search for “Urtext” on the net, for instance.

The big problem with the name “Urtext” is that it is not really a name, it is a description, it means “first text.”  In mathematical theory as I understand it, there can only be a single “first.”  And calling the fourth or fifth or sixth or seventh by the name “first” is going to confuse people!

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