down the words of Jesus.[1] The words in Schucman's notebooks (the "Notes") would eventually evolve into the three sections of the Course: the Text, Workbook, and Manual.
At the beginning of this process, Schucman confided in a colleague, Dr. William Thetford ("Thetford"), who was also a faculty member at Columbia. Thetford encouraged her, and in their spare time at work, Schucman would dictate aloud from her notes, making occasional revisions, while Thetford would type out the words. The revisions included omitting, for example, various references to Schucman's personal life. The process was apparently guided by the Voice, although at least some of the editing and shaping of the manuscript was initiated by Schucman and subsequently "confirmed" by the Voice.
The manuscript went through two additional drafts, one (the second draft) edited by Schucman alone and the subsequent one (the third draft) edited by Schucman and Thetford. In the third draft, the manuscript was split into chapters and sections, to which titles and headings were added. Sections where personal
- ↑ The parties devote considerable resources disputing whether Schucman's Jesus is identical to "Jesus Christ of Nazareth," i.e., the "historical Jesus" of the New Testament. Although the evidence suggests that for Schucman, Jesus was a symbol of God's love, and that she did not necessarily mean that she was speaking of "Jesus of Nazareth" when she spoke of "Jesus," the question is irrelevant for the purposes of these motions.
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