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Dr. Kenneth "Ken" Wapnick, passed away on Friday, December 27, 2013. He transitioned peacefully at home with his beloved wife Gloria and family at his side.

The following quotes are from A Course In Miracles and were included in the online notice of his passing: “There is no death. The Son of God is free.” (W-pI.163) “Teach not that I died in vain. Teach rather that I did not die by demonstrating that I live in you.” (T-11.VI.7:3-4)

Kenneth Wapnick, Ph.D. was born in 1942 in Brooklyn, New York. Together with Dr. William Thetford and scribe, Dr. Helen Schucman, Ken Wapnick helped edit the work known as A Course In Miracles. Educated as a psychologist, he currently heads the Foundation for A Course In Miracles (or FACIM). FACIM holds the copyright for publication of the full 2nd edition of A Course In Miracles.¹

Of the three people were key to the creation of A Course In Miracles Wapnick is the last surviving member.

In the late 1990s, Wapnick became a central figure in a lawsuit involving Penguin books, Foundation for A Course In Miracles, and Endeavor Academy. The lawsuit regarded the copyright of A Course In Miracles and the disputed claim that Jesus Christ is the author of the material.

Childhood

Kenneth was born to a culturally Jewish family that was only semi-observant in Jewish religious practice. His upbringing continued in Brooklyn during which he attended a traditional Jewish elementary school, or Yeshiva, for the first eight grades of his education.

After his completion of the Yeshiva training, much to his relief, Kenneth was permitted to attend public schools. By this point, Kenneth considered himself to be an agnostic, sensing numerous points of personal incompatibility between his own temperament and the overall temperament of the Jewish religion of his heritage.

While in public schools, Kenneth discovered his first professional interest: psychology, and especially the works of Freudian psychology.

Soon after becoming an avowed agnostic, he developed a deep appreciation for classical music, particularly of Beethoven and Mozart. As his appreciation for the compositions of these classical masters grew, he began to also discover that both of these classical masters were known to have strong spiritual leanings, which they were known to express in many of their musical compositions. During the period of his life which was so strongly focused on music, which lasted well into his adult life, he would describe his personal religious belief system as simply "the religion of music".

Higher education and early career

Continuing with his strong interest in Beethoven and Mozart, and also with new interests developing in various religious literatures, Wapnick enrolled in college in 1960 and majored in psychology. He received his bachelor's degree in 1965, and continued on in a Ph.D. program in clinical psychology. For his doctoral thesis, Wapnick chose the topic of St. Teresa of Avila, the famous sixteenth century Spanish mystic. Thus perhaps he made the first practical demonstration of the spiritual quest that was to follow in his life.

In 1970, shortly after the unsatisfactory dissolution of his first marriage, he began to simplify his personal lifestyle. This lifestyle-simplification process progressed further and further, until he eventually found himself living the private part of his life almost in the same style as a monastic hermit. Meanwhile during the day, he continued work successfully at his position as chief psychologist at a New York state mental hospital.

Consideration of a Roman Catholic monastic vocation

Recognizing his personal fondness for the simplicity of the monastic lifestyle, he began to develop an interest in doing personal research into monasticism. This interest eventually led him to visit the Roman Catholic Trappist monastery of Gethsemani in Kentucky (the same monastery in which the famous monk and author, Thomas Merton had once lived).

At the Gethsemani monastery he felt a sense of deep tranquility and belonging come over himself. His experience at the Gethsemani monastery was so profound, that it convinced him then and there that he had a religious calling, and that this calling was in fact to become a Trappist monk, as well as a Roman Catholic, (though not necessarily in that order!). Clearly at this point he sensed a profound inward call to radically transform the direction of his life, yet he did not yet have a clear idea as to where this call might ultimately lead him.

Introduction to Schucman and Thetford

During the course of the many transitions that were required for his planned entrance into the monastic life, Wapnick was introduced to a few different priests and related circles of friends. Two psychologists stood out in particular. These two psychologists were introduced to him as a result of some of their shared interests in the psychology of religious experience. These were Dr. Helen Schucman and Dr. William Thetford of the Columbia University School of Medicine in New York City, to whom Wapnick was first introduced in November of 1972. Needless to say, this "random" gathering of Wapnick, Schucman and Thetford had a profound impact on Wapnick. Even though the initial introduction between these three yielded no immediate changes in Wapnick’s life-plans, apparently on a subconscious level the introduction did indeed have a far greater impact on Wapnick than what he was consciously aware of.

During these initial introductory meetings between the three psychologists, Thetford and Schucman offered on more than one occasion to show Wapnick a manuscript which they referred to as Schucman’s "new book on spiritual development". Wapnick turned down these various initial offers, yet during the months that followed, certain images of this same manuscript appeared to Wapnick in recurring dreams. These recurring dreams ultimately led Wapnick to return to Thetford and Schucman and to ask in a rather straightforward manner (according to Schucman) if he might now be permitted to finally review this manuscript which was, in fact, A Course in Miracles.

Initial impression of the ACIM manuscript

Soon after Wapnick began reading the manuscript, again he had the experience of a personal epiphany, only this time it was not merely an experience on an internal/emotional level as before; this time it was also on a very rational level as well. Wapnick felt that he could now clearly see how all of the previously seemingly disparate elements of his life all aligned in a single direction. This was in a direction in which he could clearly see his psychology background, his spiritual background, and his other abilities blending into a single direction of usefulness. These abilities were to be used in the imminent editing, publication and dissemination process of the manuscript he saw before himself.

Early involvement in editing and publishing of ACIM

He soon offered to assist Schucman and Thetford in this editing and publication process, to which they readily agreed. Wapnick spent the next year and a half assisting Schucman in editing the manuscript beyond the point to which Thetford and Schucman had already taken it. By the autumn of 1975, the material was finally ready for its first official publication. In this initial publication process, Judith and Robert Skutch, the leaders of the publishing organization, the Foundation for Inner Peace, were instrumental.

Subsequent involvement in publication and teaching of ACIM

In 1982, Kenneth Wapnick entered into his second marriage with Gloria Wapnick, whom he met as a result of an encounter at an ACIM related event. The following year, Kenneth and Gloria Wapnick founded the Foundation for A Course in Miracles (or FACIM) in New York state. The foundation served initially as a residential teaching organization, but with the 2001 move to Temecula, California, the foundation evolved into a daytime teaching institute with an Electronic Outreach program.

Also during the years after the initial publication of ACIM, Wapnick became involved in other publication and distribution activities directly related to ACIM. Of particular note was Wapnick's development of an exhaustive concordance for ACIM, as well as the simultaneous release of the 2nd edition of ACIM, which included a uniform passage-numbering-system for all of the numerous passages found within the ACIM material. This passage-numbering-system was also incorporated within the new concordance. The thoroughness and accuracy of the concordance produced by Wapnick was fully on a par with some of the more thorough concordances already used for the Christian Bible.

Another publication and distribution related activity engaged in by Wapnick since the initial publication has been his oversight of the translation of ACIM into numerous non-English languages into which it is still being reformatted.

Thus far, the ongoing translation process of ACIM has created no fewer than 14 non-English language translations (2005). In addition to these activities, Wapnick also currently presents regular lectures, classes and workshops out of the Temecula, California headquarters of FACIM.

External links

Footnote references

^Note 1 : FACIM is the copyright holder for approximately 2% of the materials included in the popular 2nd edition of ACIM. The remaining 98% of these materials are in the public domain. For more information about the status of the copyrights to ACIM, see the second paragraph of: ACIM copyright litigation, ca. 1995 - 2003