The Scholar’s Toolbox I: Primary Sources release 0

In this edition we have only a limited subset of E-text or transcripts of the handwritten Shorthand Notes. The Text volume has been transcribed and the first draft is now available. Volume 4, Use of Terms has been transcribed in its entirety. The Pre-canonical pages from the Notes and the Special Messages have been transcribed. All of the currently available Notes pages for the Song of Prayer volume are also transcribed into E-texts. No guarantees are provided as to the accuracy of this material. What it does is provide a “look-up tool” so you can search for a text string and identify the page of the original Shorthand Notebooks on which that text occurs. Without such a searchable reference, finding anything in the Notes can be quite time-consuming.

This does cover many of the most significant variations from the Urtext which is otherwise largely an accurate transcript of the Notes.

I have been told by reliable sources that good quality e-texts of all or most the Shorthand Notes have been created and do exist, and have existed for some time. However, those who are in possession of that material do not see fit to make it available at this time. Therein lies a tale, but this is not the place to tell it. I am fully aware of what a severe handicap to ACIM scholarship the lack of this material is, and how much effort is being totally wasted by so many trying to reproduce what has already been done.

In time a complete e-text of the Notes will emerge, as other things which people wished to keep secret have. Failing that, it will simply be done again.

I sincerely and deeply regret that complete e-texts are not available. However, to repeat an important point, the Urtext e-texts are mostly reasonably accurate and cover about 95% of the Notes material with very few large differences after the first few chapters. And the first three chapters and the pre-canonical pages are here in transcript form. That covers most of the differences. Being mostly so similar, the Urtext provides a useful, if imperfect “searchable text” for the Notes for many applications. Given that both Notes and Ur are referenced according to the same grid, a reference located in the Urtext e-texts will generally land you at the corresponding page in the Notes in a matter of seconds. If you don’t understand how to use the cross-referencing, see the Tutorial.

Eventually, of course, the ideal thing would be hyperlinks between the reference points such that you could “click up” corresponding pages side by side! One day!