Saul Steinberg’s 4 hour talk on the early history of
ACIM Publishing
(recorded in 1983)
The recording is in eight parts of approximately 30
minutes each.
Each is an MP3 audio file of approx 11 Mb. at 32 kbps
mono (all the quality that was there on the cassette tapes)
To download (save the files to local disk) the MP3
files click on your choice:
For Streaming Audio (starts to play almost instantly)
click on your choice:
A bit of background on Saul Steinberg
Saul Steinberg was the first printer of A Course in Miracles.
Aside from being an engaging and entertaining speaker, Saul Steinberg provides some unique insights into the early history of the Course, along with his own personal impressions of some of the central characters first involved in its publication, Helen Schucman, Bill Thetford, Judy Skutch, and Kenneth Wapnick.
Steinberg is recounting events from 1975 and 1976 for the most part, when he set out to typeset, print and distribute the Foundation for Inner Peace First Edition. In this recording, he is doing so some time in 1983, which is just seven years from the time the events took place.
It is worth bearing in mind, that while much closer in time to the events than we are, and while he was an eye-witness to many, and a participant in some, seven years is plenty of time for the precision of human memory to blur, especially with stories that have been told and re-told repeatedly.
On some questions of fact, other accounts of the period do not agree with Steinberg’s account, usually on relatively inconsequential matters. In a few cases, none of the accounts I’ve heard agree entirely with the physical evidence.
For instance, Steinberg refers to Schucman and Thetford as “psychiatrists” which they were not, they were “psychologists.” It’s a distinction many lay people trip over, and is rather inconsequential. He also says the dictation happened in six years, while we know it was at least seven for the first three volumes and continued for several more years with the later volumes.
Like all “oral histories” we must remember this is the recollection of one person some years later, and is not necessarily precisely accurate. In some cases Steinberg is recounting events which happened some years before he was involved, and could only know anything about from what others had told him.
These recordings were dubbed from a 1983 cassette tape publication by Coleman Publishing which is currently out of print but which can sometimes be acquired on e-bay.