William Thetford

On July 4, 1988, at age 65, Thetford died of a massive heart attack.

In 1978, Thetford resigned from his positions at both Columbia University and at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. In 1980 he packed up his household and, at the apparent invitation of Judith Skutch Whitson, moved to Tiburon, California, where Whitson was by now employed full-time in the publication and distribution of ACIM.

After the completion of the bulk of the initial scribing/ transcribing process, for brief periods during 1973, 1975, and 1977 the short transcriptions of Psychotherapy, of Clarification of Terms, and of the Song of Prayer, which are the remainder of the standard material of ACIM, were transcribed in similar fashion.

In 1972 Thetford and Schucman were introduced to Kenneth Wapnick through their mutual friend Father Groeshel. Wapnick was intrigued by the manuscript although he soon realized it needed considerable editing to render it into a publishable format. Wapnick urged Helen to go over the manuscript once again with his assistance, which they did, bringing the final editing to a completion in the Spring of 1975. Thetford, Wapnick and Schucman, the three principle transcriber-editors of ACIM were to remain friends for the rest of their lives, throughout the arduous process of seeing this manuscript through to first successful publication, and beyond to witness the initial spreading of its teachings.

From 1971 to 1978 Thetford, was involved in the CIA mind control Project MKULTRA Subproject 130: Personality Theory.

The working relationship between Thetford and Schucman was apparently often somewhat strained, yet throughout these difficulties they would always maintain a certain level of professional courtesy and respect for one another. The story is often retold that it was into this environment of inter-relational strain between Thetford and Schucman that the ACIM material was in a sense first “invited” into this world. This “invitation” came in the form of an exclamation by Thetford one day, in the midst of one of their periodic difficulties, in which Thetford exclaimed, “There must be another way!” This exclamation was followed by a certain speech he made to Schucman describing how he believed that it was time for them to try to refocus their energies on constructive and helpful agendas, rather than being forever hyper critical and hyper competitive with one another. Expecting a typically condescending response from Schucman, the studied silence that followed his speech was then followed by a most surprising concurrence from Schucman, fully supporting his new proposal. This speech was given in June 1965.

According to Thetford, Schucman was sitting at home on the night of October 21, 1965, when she heard an internal "voice" say to her, "This is a course in miracles. Please take notes."

From 1965 through 1972 Thetford directly assisted Schucman with the transcription of the first three sections of the work, which was in fact the great bulk of the material. Then in 1972, somewhat to both of their reliefs (yet on some levels to their dismay) it appeared that the writing was complete, which for the most part it was.

In 1958 he accepted an assistant professorship, which later developed into a full professorship, at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. During a portion of this same period he also served as the Director of Clinical Psychology at the Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital. It was here that he would stay for the next 20 years, and it was here that he first met Helen Schucman, hiring her as a research psychologist and assistant.

For the five years following his graduation in 1949, Thetford worked as a research psychologist in both Chicago, and later in Washington, D.C. He was a research psychologist in the Institute for Psychosomatic & Psychiatric Research & Training at the Reese Hospital in Chicago from 1949-1951 and a senior psychologist for the United States government in Washington, DC from 1951-1954. In 1953 he was a consultant in Beirut, Lebanon at the Foreign Service Institute. He spent 1954 and 1955 as the director of clinical psychology at The Institute of Living in Hartford, Connecticut. From 1955 to 1957 he was an assistant professor of psychology at Cornell University.

Following graduation from high school, he was awarded a four-year scholarship to DePauw University in Indiana where he graduated with majors in psychology and pre-medicine in 1944. During the course of his university studies, Thetford eventually settled on the idea of specializing in psychology, and in 1949 he received his PhD in this field from the University of Chicago.

After graduating from DePauw in January 1944 until the summer of 1945, Thetford had a job as an administrative officer at the University of Chicago working with the scientific team doing atomic research. In his graduate studies he was fortunate to be one of the first students of the renowned psychologist, Carl Rogers.

William Thetford (April 25, 1923 – July 4, 1988) was an American psychologist, medical psychologist and professor. He is best known for his collaboration with Helen Schucman in typing the original manuscript and being on the editing team for A Course in Miracles (ACIM), a self-study curriculum in spiritual psychology. He died in 1988, aged 65, in Tiburon, California, after having made his involvement with the ACIM material and its study the most central focus of his life.

Thetford was born on April 25, 1923, in Chicago, Illinois to John and Mabel Thetford as the youngest of three children. At the time of his birth and early childhood, his parents were both regular members of the Christian Science church. At the age of seven, the untimely death of his older sister caused his parents to disavow their affiliation with the Church of Christian Science. Afterwards, for the next few years, Thetford sampled various other Protestant denominations.