whether or not prior to publication of the Course in 1975, those in possession of the Course distributed it. Even prior to the trial it had been established that a number of copies of the Course had been given to various people. The question, therefore, to which the trial was directed as framed by the defendants’ Seventh Affirmative Defense was the extent of this distribution and whether or not that publication was general or to a select group for their review and comment.
As the factual findings to follow will demonstrate, mysticism, psychic phenomenon, and self-interest are revealed through the testimony of, and about, unusual people and events.
If there were only one truth, you couldn’t paint a hundred canvases on the same theme.
Pablo Picasso, quoted in Helene Parmelin, Picasso Says “Truth,” tr.1969.
Notwithstanding Picasso, for copyright purposes, one truth must be found in order to resolve the instant dispute.
I. Findings of Fact
- A. The Source
In 1965, Dr. Helen Schucman (“Schucman”), an associate professor of medical psychology appointed to the faculty of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of the Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center, began to hear the words of what she referred to as “It” or “the Voice.” Schucman later identified this voice as “Jesus.” In October 1965, Schucman reported that she heard from the Voice the words “This is A Course in Miracles. Please take notes”; Schucman then began to write down what she described as a form of “rapid inner dictation.” (Tr. 66,384) Over the next seven years, she filled nearly thirty stenographic notebooks with words she received from the Voice—words that would ultimately evolve into the Text, Workbook for Students (“Workbook”), and the Manual for Teachers, the three sections of A Course in Miracles.
Schucman was a clinical psychologist at Columbia Medical Center in New York City at the time she scribed the Course. Dr. William Thetford (“Thetford”) was her superior and colleague. Schucman and Thetford collaborated working in private offices in “an air of secrecy.” (Wapnick Tr. 374). Schucman dictated her scribed notes to Thetford, who then typed them. Eventually the manuscript totaled 1,500 pages and was placed into black thesis binders.
Schucman was embarrassed by her scribing and considered it her “guilty secret.” (Tr. 65, 369, 426). She did not want her co-workers, professors in the psychology department at Columbia Medical Center, to know about the existence of the Course. Schucman and Thetford were afraid that their professional reputations at Columbia would be adversely affected if their professional peers found out about the Course and chose to keep it a secret. Both wrote and copyrighted articles prior to 1973, but never placed a copyright notice or restrictive legend on the manuscript.
- B. The Distribution
As the work began to take shape, Schucman and Thetford revealed the work to individuals who they believed would be interested in the intersection of the psychological and the spiritual realms of consciousness.
Hugh Lynn Cayce (“Cayce”) was the founder of the Association for Research & Enlightenment (the “A.R.E.”), an institute that was created to promulgate the teachings of his father, Edgar Cayce, a psychic who had experiences similar to those of Schucman and had “taken down” messages
