The roots of A Program in Wonders can be tracked back once again to the effort between two people, Helen Schucman and William Thetford, equally of whom were prominent psychologists and researchers. The course's inception happened in the first 1960s when Schucman, who had been a medical and research psychologist at Columbia University's University of Physicians and Surgeons, started to have a series of inner dictations. She defined these dictations as originating from an inner style that recognized itself as Jesus Christ. Schucman originally resisted these experiences, but with Thetford's encouragement, she started transcribing the communications she received.

Over an amount of seven decades, Schucman transcribed what can become A Class in Wonders, amounting to three amounts: the Text, the Book for Pupils, and the Information for Teachers. The Text lays out the theoretical basis of the program, elaborating on the acim ideas and principles. The Workbook for Pupils includes 365 lessons, one for every single time of the season, developed to steer the reader via a daily training of applying the course's teachings. The Handbook for Teachers gives further advice on how to realize and teach the maxims of A Program in Wonders to others.

One of many central themes of A Course in Miracles is the notion of forgiveness. The class shows that correct forgiveness is the main element to inner peace and awakening to one's divine nature. In accordance with its teachings, forgiveness isn't only a moral or ethical practice but a fundamental change in perception. It requires allowing move of judgments, issues, and the understanding of failure, and as an alternative, viewing the entire world and oneself through the contact of love and acceptance. A Class in Wonders emphasizes that true forgiveness leads to the acceptance that people are typical interconnected and that separation from each other can be an illusion.

Another substantial part of A Course in Wonders is their metaphysical foundation. The course presents a dualistic view of reality, unique between the pride, which represents separation, anxiety, and illusions, and the Holy Heart, which symbolizes love, reality, and religious guidance. It shows that the vanity is the foundation of suffering and conflict, while the Holy Heart supplies a pathway to therapeutic and awakening. The target of the course is to simply help persons transcend the ego's restricted perspective and arrange with the Sacred Spirit's guidance.