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 brochures, newsletters and magazine articles continue to appear in which the Course is discussed, analyzed, and explained.

Due to the nature of the defenses raised in this action, it is necessary to set forth the origins of the Course and its publication history at some length. In 1965, Dr. Helen Schucman ("Schucman"), an associate professor of medical psychology at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons, experienced some tension at work. The head of her department had expressed his irritation at the "angry and aggressive feelings" reflected by the attitudes of the staff, and had concluded that "there must be another way." Schucman agreed to help him find this "other way." For the following three months, she experienced a series of particularly vivid dreams. Soon thereafter, she began to hear a "Voice" which would speak to her whenever she was prepared to listen. In October, 1965, the Voice told her: "This is a course in miracles. Please take notes." Schucman then began to write down what the Voice said, a process she later described as a kind of soundless "rapid inner dictation." Over the next seven years, until 1972, she filled nearly thirty stenographic notebooks with words she believed were dictated to her by the Voice.

At some point, Schucman identified the Voice as "Jesus," and she thereafter apparently thought of herself as a scribe taking