HLC and The A.R.E. Library, Virginia Beach, 2005

I was asked if I wanted help when I first came into the A.R.E. Library, but I wanted to wander around first and find the HLC version of A Course in Miracles on my own. I didn't need to read it or even see it. I had an original hard cover edition, an original softcover edition, and, since 2001, an html version and a pdf version.

When I didn't find it, I went back to the librarian to ask for it. Naturally, at first, she pointed me to the familiar blue copy on the shelf. I explained what I was looking for was a manuscript that I'd heard was in the library. Now, this was the librarian that I'd come to like and talk with often when I came to the library over the next few months, but my request flummoxed her. Initially, she said that it wasn't in the library in a very confused way. I explained again what it was I was looking for. I was directed to knock on a door in the hall outside the library.

I knocked on the door and waited. And waited. There was no one behind the door. But the door was adjacent to the glass walled A.R.E. executive offices and, after a while, someone came out to offer assistance. I explained again what I was looking for and how I came to be knocking on this door. I was told that the man whose office was behind the door was a volunteer who came in only once or twice a week. He was in charge of the library's archives. I was given his phone number. The woman did not offer to call for me, nor offer me the use of a phone in the office to call the man.

I called later. I left a detailed message and a phone number. It was more than a week before I got a return call. The man asked me to explain again what I was looking for and I had to tell him all over again. He asked me where I was. I told him I was in Virginia Beach and that I'd be visiting the library over the next few weeks (I didn't know at the time that I'd be there a few months).

It was, again, more than a week later when he called and he seemed surprised that I answered. He told me this: Two young women came into the library wearing raincoats and the hid the manuscript in their raincoats, left, and never returned.

I trust my brothers who are one with me, but that does not mean I believe everything they say. What it means is that I trust that everything can be used for good, if we let our perceptions be so transformed. The details of this idea are in Workbook Lesson 181; a little more from that lesson:

What really happened to the manuscript of that is commonly referred to as the HLC version1 is probably known to a few people, but it doesn't matter.

ARE HLC ACIM Series

This is a series of posts about my visit to A.R.E.

1. ACIM, HLC, and A.R.E.
2. HLC and the A.R.E. Library
3. The A.R.E Library
4. Edgar Cayce, Sleeping Prophet
5. Edgar Cayce, the remedies
6. Edgar Cayce and Jesus
7. Jesus notes on Edgar Cayce
8. The Media Room at the A.R.E. Library
9. The A.R.E. Bookstore
10. Meditation at A.R.E.
11. ACIM Study Group at A.R.E.
12. Hurricane Katrina from V.B.
13. Ken Wapnick at A.R.E.
14. Planning the trip to the Gulf Coast

There are additional installments in this series and this list will be updated as they are posted.
Thanks for reading! Comments welcome.

1. 1. It is sometimes also called the Thetford version. My understanding is and I believe that there was never a separate version known as the Thetford version, only that the reference is sometimes mixed up with the HLC version because it was Bill Thetford's idea to give a copy to Hugh Lynn Cayce.