The beginnings of A Program in Miracles can be tracked back again to the collaboration between two individuals, Helen Schucman and William Thetford, both of whom were outstanding psychologists and researchers. The course's inception happened in the early 1960s when Schucman, who had been a medical and study psychiatrist at Columbia University's University of Physicians and Surgeons, began to see a series of internal dictations. She identified these dictations as coming from an internal voice that recognized it self as Jesus Christ. Schucman initially resisted these activities, but with Thetford's encouragement, she started transcribing the messages she received.

Around an amount of seven years, Schucman transcribed what might become A Program in Miracles, amounting to three sizes: the Text, the Book for Pupils, and the Manual for Teachers. The Text lies out the theoretical base of the program, elaborating on the primary concepts and principles. The Book for Pupils contains 365 classes, one for every single time of the year, developed to steer the audience through a day-to-day practice of applying the course's teachings. The Manual for Educators provides more advice on how best to realize and show the maxims of A Program in Miracles to others.

Among the central subjects of A Program in Miracles is the idea of forgiveness. The program teaches that true forgiveness is the important thing to internal peace and awareness to one's divine nature. Based on its teachings, forgiveness is not merely a a course in miracles or honest practice but a elementary change in perception. It involves making go of judgments, issues, and the understanding of failure, and alternatively, seeing the world and oneself through the contact of enjoy and acceptance. A Program in Miracles stresses that true forgiveness results in the acceptance that we are interconnected and that separation from each other is definitely an illusion.

Another significant facet of A Program in Miracles is its metaphysical foundation. The program gift suggestions a dualistic see of truth, unique between the pride, which shows separation, concern, and illusions, and the Holy Spirit, which symbolizes enjoy, reality, and religious guidance. It implies that the pride is the origin of suffering and struggle, as the Holy Spirit offers a pathway to healing and awakening. The goal of the program is to greatly help individuals surpass the ego's confined perspective and arrange with the Holy Spirit's guidance.