Our principal purpose is to help students of A Course in Miracles deepen their understanding of its thought system, conceptually and experientially, so that they may be more effective instruments of Jesus' teaching in their own particular lives. It is our hope to share these pages with those who are drawn to the Foundation's form of teaching and its understanding of the Course. We invite you to read through our vision statement, which provides a complete explanation of our purpose and goals. HISTORY Those of you who have known us since our inception have seen us evolve from a Teaching and Healing Center, to a Conference and Retreat Center, an Academy and Retreat Center, an Institute and Retreat Center, and now an Institute and Teaching Center. From the beginning of the Foundation in 1983, as reflected in our vision statement, we conceived of the Center as a school. In 1993 we took the Center one step further by establishing an academy of learning as an aid and reinforcement to students' study of A Course in Miracles. The academy was inspired by, and modeled after Plato's Academy. In 1995 we founded the Institute for Teaching Inner Peace through A Course in Miracles (ITIP-ACIM), with a twofold purpose: to be chartered by the New York State Department of Education and to reflect the close relationship between the Foundation for Inner Peace and the Foundation for A Course in Miracles. We invite you to read the article explaining the historical context for forming the ITIP-ACIM. In response to a growing interest in our work, we opened our West Coast branch in La Jolla, California in 1997, renamed the La Jolla branch. Please see the corresponding pages for detailed information about this branch. In 2001, the Foundation moved to Temecula, California (see photo below), shifting its emphasis to electronic teaching, at the same time continuing its educational program through workshops and classes. PUBLICATIONS We publish a free quarterly newsletter, The Lighthouse, which contains articles about the Course, our schedule, and information about new publications. We invite you to write to us to be placed on our mailing list. In addition, we publish a wide variety of books and tapes on the Course, which can be found at our Catalog Shopping page. Books (including foreign language), audiocassettes, and videotapes are listed separately, and detailed information about each publication is available. All of our publications are also available for sale at our bookstore, which is called Oasis of Peace. A Course in Miracles and other publications published by the Foundation for Inner Peace may be found here. Finally, in our ongoing desire to help students deepen their understanding of the Course's thought system, our Teaching Materials page provides some key articles and excerpts. The teaching materials include an overview of the theory of the Course, articles from The Lighthouse, excerpts from our books and tapes, an abbreviated glossary of Course terms, and a description of our annotation method.