Article about attending a Seth Session by Helen Wambach PhD

[Deb]

Due to its size, I am adding the full text from an article written by Helen Wambach, PhD about her experience and observations after attending a Seth ESP class in 1977 in the next post. Helen Wambach was a clinical psychologist who later did a lot of research on past and future life regression. The article is very long but and enjoyable read and I appreciated the observations of an "outsider" to a Seth session, who was also a trained clinical psychologist. What tickled me the most was Helen's direct interaction with Seth, and his comments and advice to her about some of her troubled wards of state — he knew their names and situations while Jane did not.

Here's more information on Helen Wambach. And a quote from her book, Life Before Life (I just ordered it), which could explain Seth's comment about how "Birth is much more of a shock than death. Sometimes when you die you do not realize it, but birth almost always implies a sharp and sudden recognition." (SS, Session 513):

"Dr. Wambach found that 89% of those hypnotized said they did not become part of the fetus until after six months of gestation. A large group said they did not join the fetus, or experience inside it, until just before or during the birth process.  They existed fully conscious as an entity apart from the fetus and even after six months many reported being 'in' and 'out' of the fetal body.  "Many subjects reported that the onrush of physical sensations on emerging from the birth canal was disturbing and very unpleasant. Apparently the soul exists in a quite different environment in the between-life state. The physical senses bring so much vivid input that the soul feels almost 'drowned' in light, cold air, sounds. Surprising to me was the frequent report that the new-born infant feels cut off, diminished, alone compared to the between-life state. To be alive in a body is to be alone and unconnected. Perhaps we are alive to learn to break through the screen of the senses, to experience while in a body the transcendent self we truly are.' "

[Deb]

Helen Wambach Ph.D., 1977, A Session with Seth, New Realities Magazine Vol. 1, No.1, March/April 1977

(Thanks to Lynda English, posted on Facebook 11/05/18)

It was a bright March day in 1973 and the sun glinted on the broad Delaware River as I drove the narrow road through Pennsylvania's Bucks County on my way to Elmira, New York. I had stolen away from my busy life in Red Bank, New Jersey, where I was running a group home for emotionally disturbed adolescents, and from my teaching at Brookdale College where I was exploring parapsychology with my psychology class. After reading Jane Robert's book The Seth Material I had immediately felt that many answers I had sought were there within the covers of this book.

On impulse, I called Jane Roberts to tell her that I was one clinical psychologist who didn't think that the phenomenon of her mediumship was to be put away as a neurotic or schizophrenic example of mind-splitting. She was cordial and friendly on the phone, and invited me to attend her Tuesday night ESP session in Elmira. I had already begun my research into past life recall, and when I thought about my journey to Elmira, I imagined I was looking for some direction in my research, but I knew I was also seeking some for myself.

Jane Roberts' mediumship began when she was preparing a book on How to Develop Your ESP (re-issue under the title, The Coming of Seth), and experimented with the Ouija Board. The board was very active, spelling out many messages. Soon she moved to speech while in trance. In itself, this progress from Ouija board to trance mediumship is not unusual for students of the psychic. What is unusual is the quality of the material from a trance entity called Seth who comes through Jane. Those who have read Jane's books, The Seth Material, Seth Speaks and The Nature of Personal Reality are aware of the profound nature of the explanations Seth gives for our conscious experience in this three-dimensional world.

Downtown Elmira has a grimy, work-a-day air with its solid nineteenth-century buildings; an unusual place for a guru of the Aquarian Age to surface, it seemed to me. Sedate old homes past their prime and now converted into apartments grace the elm-shaded streets.

Jane lives in an apartment and as I found it that day she opened the door for me. There was nothing eccentric about the way she dressed, or about her smiling courtesy as she ushered me into the living room of the apartment she and her husband Rob shared. Jane offered me a cup of coffee and we talked casually. I mentioned to Jane that I was a psychologist working with young people, and she expressed to me some of her concern about the people who visited her.

"I would like so much to help all these people," she said. "I don't see myself as a therapist, and sometimes the problems people bring to me are very difficult. I'm glad that Seth is able to help some of these people, but I feel writing is my own skill and not counseling." Rob sat quietly on the sofa petting the cat. He is a handsome man with an air of quiet serenity. I thought he served as a wonderful foil for Jane's vivid energy, and that they made an excellent team.

Soon the crowd gathered. There were eighteen of us scattered around the large room in the apartment adjoining Jane's living quarters. Jane sat in a wooden rocker, talking and laughing with the new arrivals. The atmosphere in the room was one of friendliness and expectancy. A few of the class members were from the Elmira area and had been attending the class since it began in 1971. Others had heard of the class through Jane's books and had joined it more recently. Most of the members of the class had traveled many miles to attend the session; a group of six or seven had driven up from New York City just for the evening.

The class began with Jane discussing some of the material in the book that Seth was dictating at that time, The Nature of Personal Reality. Some group discussion began. When Jane speaks as Jane, her voice is light and rapid and she peers at you through thick-lensed glasses. Suddenly, Seth appeared.

Her glasses were flung to the coffee table in front of her. Her head snapped up and her eyes flew open wide. I looked at the pupils of her eyes, and they seemed to be much larger and darker than before. Her posture was incredibly straight and she gave the impression of having put on twenty pounds in two seconds. When Seth came through Jane, one had the impression of a masculine character using the body of a feminine woman. Seth looked around the room and began to speak.

I was astonished at the change in Jane's voice. Seth's tones were deep and booming, and his pronunciation had an odd flavor to it. "It's an accent of some kind," I thought to myself 'but what is it? Scandinavian, Indian?" I had never discovered what this accent is, but it is obviously present when Jane speaks as Seth. Jane talks in a rapid voice, but Seth speaks slowly and enunciates very carefully. There is a great variety in Seth's voice tones as he emphasizes a point. Seth began his portion of our class session with the following exercise he wanted all of us to participate in.

"And for now I would like you all to do something," he said, "Close your eyes or leave them open as you prefer, but I want you to sense within yourself the living that is happening within you. I want you to feel that energy that is your own life flowing vitally through you and to go along with it. It sings through your body and through your creaturehood. It may be difficult to listen to my voice and sense that livingness within you, but my voice can also serve as a vehicle to let you experience that subjective feeling that is unique with each of you.

"You plunged into creaturehood at your birth. It keeps your eyes open and your lips smiling as you look at me. It keeps your legs up upon the table; it keeps your eyes blinking, and it goes on within you all the time. It is the essence of your being. It keeps you alive. If you cannot trust that which keeps you alive, then what can you trust? It keeps your fingers wiggling. It is the unknowing knowing that rushes within you at every moment and you can trust it above all things. It is the unknowing knowledge of which you can also become aware, and it is your most intimate being.

"It does not come from others. You will not find it in books, or concepts, or precepts. It comes from the intimate experiences of your own being. When you are alone, feel it. Go along with it joyfully, and say, 'I give myself up to my life.' With that attitude, all other things that you need to know will come to you."

Seth's voice saying these words had sent a strange feeling through my nervous system. His voice seemed to echo, not just in my ear, but in my entire body. Hearing Seth was a dynamically different experience compared to reading his words alone.

Seth disappeared, and Jane returned to her body. She blinked, reached for her glasses, leaned forward in her chair and asked a class member to describe what Seth had said. Jane is not conscious of Seth's words when he is speaking through her, and must find out the contents of his remarks from the transcripts a class member makes from tapes of each session. It's interesting to be asked by Jane what Seth had said. Seth's words seem so beautifully phrased that it is quite difficult to express them in your own words. When Jane asked me to explain, I stumbled along trying to paraphrase Seth. In the middle of my explanation, Jane's glasses flew off again. She sat bolt upright in the chair, and Seth's voice boomed out, "That is not quite what I meant."

Seth discussed the nature of beliefs and asked the class to look carefully at their belief systems. He asked the class to discuss some of their own beliefs. I mentioned a problem I have in dealing with money. I like money and the things that it buys, but I have the feeling that wealth means corruption. My political attitudes are basically left-wing, and I had learned to associate material goods with what I thought of as oppression of others. As I was discussing this, Seth broke into the conversation.

"All of you, as I will say in my present book - commercial - (Seth was referring to The Nature of Personal Reality which he was dictating to Rob through Jane. His humor here referred to the fact that this was a money making operation.) relate to problems of good and evil; the value judgments you place on such things as health, wealth, color, and race. Some of you consider poverty a sign of virtue and good," he paused and looked directly at me. He went on, "So that when you look at someone who has money, you think he is not spiritually attuned; that there is something wrong with him, he must be taking advantage of someone else, he must be nasty, he must be a capitalist. You think of someone who is poor as being spiritual." Here Seth turned and stared into my eyes, "He may be stupid."

I laughed, because I thought Seth was indeed correct. Poor people expect to be poor, so they create that reality. Seth went on to say, however, that things are not quite as simple for each of us. "If you believe that your beliefs cause reality - and they do - what is your attitude towards the poor? Do you say "They caused that reality, too bad, that is their hard luck?" These are questions I want you to consider."

Jane joined our conversation frequently as we discussed our belief systems. In the course of the conversation it emerged that three of the young people who had come to the session were involved in a love triangle. The feelings generated by this were intense, and Jane looked concerned as the conversation grew heated. It seems that the husband's best friend had successfully seduced the wife, leaving very bad feelings all around. Jane's concern grew as she tried to respond to the anger and to the sorrow that emerged during the discussion. Soon she broke into Sumari.

Sumari is the name that Jane and Seth had given to a very unusual phenomenon. When Seth comes through Jane, her eyes are bright and wide open and her gestures are abrupt and masculine. At other times, Jane goes into trance and strange fluent musical notes come through. As Jane, singing is the least of her abilities. She demonstrated one night to a group how poorly she can carry a tune and how small her vocal volume is when she is singing as Jane. When Sumari comes through, her voice achieves an astonishing depth and richness, and covers a vocal range from soprano to base. When one is listening to the sounds, it appears as though it might be in a foreign language, although no specific language comes to mind. It is the tonal quality and the rich emotional expressiveness of the tones that seems to carry the weight of the meaning. Seth has said that Sumari touches depth in our minds that words cannot reach, and that the meaning in the sounds is in the individual reactions that the sounds engender in each one of us. Sumari flowed effortlessly through Jane as she sang a song to each of the members of the love triangle. They didn't seem to be much affected by the music, however, the dark looks continued. The lover of the trio finally burst out with his feeling that you get sex wherever you find it and that cultural mores were a denial of one's basic nature.

At that point, Seth burst into the discussion. His voice boomed out, "I do not want to shatter anyone's preconceptions," he said looking at the lovers. He continued, "The male is human, however, his sex drive is connected with his love, even though your cultural mores may serve to protect him from realizing the capacity of his own great love, for in your society, love is a female characteristic - and woe to the male who shows it. In your society it is not male, it is feminine to your way of thinking as a society. So often he hides his own love from himself. But the male does not go out hungrily to f--- whoever he can, in those terms, without feelings; for he hopes in his great finesse some love may be gained, some taste of creaturehood become his own."

Seth then turned his attention to the husband and wife. His voice softened somewhat as he said to them, "There are no questions of morality here, only misunderstandings and a confusion of beliefs that will be resolved. And it is only natural that our Pan here," and Seth looked smilingly at the lover, "serves as a catalyst. And both of you knew it ahead of time. Now I will return you to the present situation, and to the joy and the agony of your loins!"

Seth's interjection here immediately changed the tone of the discussion. We all laughed at the identification of the lover as Pan. Indeed, he was a slight, merry young man with a real twinkle in his eye and it was easy to picture him strolling the hills with flute in hand.

One of the class members explained to Jane what Seth had said. Seth apparently felt this explanation was not adequate, and so he returned again. The transition from Jane to Seth was quite astonishing. Jane had been peering quite intently through her thick glasses at the class members and listening to the explanation. In a twinkling, the glasses came off, the body leaned back in the chair and the blue eyes flew wide open.

Seth spoke again. "In the vast reality of your being and in the joy of your existence, all of this is an aspect of your living, and sensation, and the knowledge of life that is within you." He returned again to the husband and wife. Staring intently at them he said, "You have chosen this course for your own reasons. You have set up this situation and you yourselves know that it will be resolved. So you play games with yourselves, for it seems to you that you do not know the answers. If you examine your conscious mind, both of you, and your conscious beliefs, the resolution will become quite apparent."

Seth then turned and swept the group with his eyes. There was a pause, but we all knew that Seth was there and not Jane. Seth resumed again, speaking more quietly this time. "If a life itself does not seems to provide enough excitement, then you will provide it through your living and learn from it and enjoy all of its ramifications. And so, in those terms, none of this is tragic. And it has served, and is serving, for all of you, purposes that you yourselves have set," and he looked to the Wife, "and that you have set," and he looked around the room. He looked smilingly at all of us. The room was completely quiet as we listened intently to his words.

"So the questions brought about this evening apply to all of you in your own way. You are creatures, yet there is a difference between you and the animals. And sexuality can led into dimensions that, in your terms, the animals do not know. Some animals - almost, but not as much as you, feel the nature of their mortality. They come together with biological spirituality great in its depth of passion, and so do you. From that sexuality of your own you can form great spiritual and biological frameworks of affirmation, and rise from those frameworks beyond the nature of what you think of as creaturehood, and that knowledge is within you. You have free will. So you can do as you wish. You can create endless splendor, or become lost in a maze. And even those mazes are creative, and from them you achieve new levels of creaturehood and morality and go beyond them. But you must each find your own way." Seth turned again to the husband and the wife and said, "And your way, and your way, must be your own way."

The tension in the group relaxed, the group was quiet, and several of us mused over Seth's statement that we can create endless splendor or get lost in mazes. I thought to myself that I had seen the greatest job of marital counseling in my professional experience. Husband and wife were smiling at one another, the lover had quietly moved away and was talking to others in the room. Jane may have doubts about her ability to handle the human problems that come her way, but certainly through Seth she could do a magnificent job of resolving them.

Shortly after this, the class broke up. People were smiling and laughing and there was an atmosphere of great friendliness in the room. This had certainly been the most unique class I had ever attended.

Later Jane told me that Seth wished to speak to me. I thought that Seth would want to discuss my past life regression experiments, as I had talked to Jane in some detail about the work I was doing. Jane invited me to sit down with a cup of coffee and we began talking about hypnosis and reincarnation.

After about three minutes of conversation, Jane's coffee cup came down on the saucer with a distinct clink, her glasses came off and Seth sat there opposite me. I felt a sense of awe - a feeling that I tended to reject intellectually on the grounds that I was properly sophisticated as a psychologist. Nevertheless, that primitive awe did come to me and could not be denied. Seth's voice boomed out, and to my surprise, he began talking about the adolescent group home that I was running in Red Bank, New Jersey.

He began by supporting my basic principles, which were to allow these young people as much freedom as possible within the confines of the group home. "You are right in assuming that these young people cannot express 'proper behavior' until they have had an opportunity to allow the negative feelings in their expression." I explained to Seth that it was quite difficult to get the proper authorities to go along with my plan of allowing the young people to set up their own rules. Seth was sympathetic to my point of view, and said that this was a good way to provide the psychological elbowroom needed by these angry teenagers.

Seth had a twinkle in his eye when he said, "Remember, Helen, you are not saving anyone. You have the idea that these young people are victims and it is up to you to save them."

It was quite true that at some level I did think of myself as a ministering angel to poor battered children, an illusion which Seth was now destroying. Seth continued, "Remember that each of these young people chose their own path."

I felt like arguing with the great master. "But they were battered and abused as small children, surely they couldn't be responsible for that and the effect it had on them."

Seth responded, "Ah, but they chose their parents, they chose the lifestyles to experience in this incarnation." Seth went on to give the names and backgrounds of several of the young people under my care. This was certainly astonishing, because Jane could not have known the names or the backgrounds of these girls. Seth made me understand that these young people had set problem lives for themselves in order to overcome past fears and resistances.

"In a sense, they need you and they need the group home right now. But so do you need them as a part of your development. Remember, when you feel that you are the doctor administering to the patients, we are all seekers and we all learn from each other."

I had expressed a lot of concern about one of my girls. I had a need to keep all of these girls in the home with me, to avoid having them return to mental hospitals or jails. Seth seemed to know this, and broke into my thoughts.

"Diane will not come back to the home. She will be all right, but it is not necessary for you to devote so much concern to this one child. Focus your concern on the others." Seth was right, it turned out later that Diane did not return to the group home.

Seth seemed so interested in the group home that he gave suggestions on how to arrange the physical layout. "You need to set aside one room - perhaps the dining room - as a place where physical exercise can be made available. These young people need to express bodily some of the anger, some of the powerful emotions that are charging through them. Give them an opportunity to do this through physical exercise." How did Seth know that such a room was available in my group home? And how did Seth know that Diane would not be returning?

My experience with Seth was an eye opener in many ways. His knowledge of my work in Red Bank was definitely supernormal; Jane could not have known the details. But beyond that, the sense of awe I had in Seth's presence, and the way in which is voice seemed to lift and charge my thoughts - widen my horizons - was something outside all of my experiences. I felt that I had found a guru.

But Seth warns against gurus. As he had said that evening, "You will not find it in books, or concepts, or precepts; it does not come from others. It comes from the intimate experience of your own being."

Was there a Seth level in me, in all of us, as there was in Jane? Jane's Seth was such a marvelous teacher. Was this because Jane herself was an unusually bright, perceptive, and well educated woman? Surely this played a part in the richness of Seth's vocabulary. No medium is merely a channel, but an active participant in the translation from the wider consciousness to the here-and-now world.

The experience of hearing Seth teach his ESP class is unforgettable. Fortunately, I have been able to hear almost all of the class sessions on tape, and they have deepened and enriched my life. The class sessions were discontinued in 1975, and the group experience in Elmira for those of us privileged to observe it has now become a part of the past. It lives on in tape recordings and transcripts.

Jane and Seth are both busy and productive. Jane reports that Seth's book The Unknown Reality, Vol. 1 will be out this summer. Jane has a book of her own, The World View of Paul Cezanne, in the works and Seth is now dictating another book. Seth and Jane speak an ancient wisdom in the sparkling, sophisticated way for twentieth-century America.

[chasman]

thank you for posting this Deb.
I have enjoyed reading it sooooo much.
utterly fascinating.

[Sena]

The article is very long but and enjoyable read and I appreciated the observations of an "outsider" to a Seth session, who was also a trained clinical psychologist.

Deb, thanks for this interesting article. I have had Helen Wambach's book "Life before Life" for several years and can certainly recommend it.

[Deb]

Sorry guys for my absence, I've been overwhelmed with work for some reason (having to accept I've attracted that). Finally, I think, things are resolving.

@chasman, the article was most interesting for me because I'm always looking for objective observations of the Jane/Seth phenomenon. I still need to track down the quote where this psychologist was mentioned. I just have to wonder how many professionals met and consulted with Seth/Jane and have written about their experiences. I'd love to track down more accountings.

And @Sena, I've received my "Life Before Life" book and am looking forward to reading it.

[chasman]

thank you Deb.
you are very intelligent. and you are very thoughtful.

[Deb]

Here's a link to my Dropbox, where you can read and/or download the ESP class that Helen Wambach attended. It sort of brings this topic full-circle, as it mentions Helen and what was discussed in the session. Very interesting. I was going to just put the text into a Word document to make the file size smaller, but this is a scan from Rob's transcript of the class and I thought you'd appreciate seeing his typing, corrections and typos (not many, I envy his typing skills). This class is also available in the Seth Audio Collection, Audio 6. I'll listen to it and see if I can fill in the two blanks that Rob missed.

Again, you can download or just read it from this link:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9ks3km9b5nh3jom/ESP032073_Wambach.pdf?dl=0

[chasman]

awesome.
thanks Deb!!!

[Sena]

I found this quote from the Seth session interesting:

"If  a  religion  separates  you  from  the  joy  of  your  being, then  it  is  detrimental.  If  you  think  you  need  a  particular religion  in  order  to  justify  your  physical  being,  then  it  is detrimental.  If  you  think  you  need  grass  to  do  the  same thing  then  that  is  detrimental."

[Deb]

What I didn't understand was Seth's last statement:

"The idea is never for anyone to be involved with anything. You are all individuals. Now, continue."

He was talking about how sex is different for humans than animals, and next that we must each find and go our own way in life, no one else's way. But the way the sentence I underlined is worded, it seems awkward to me. What does he mean by "never for anyone to be involved with anything?" Maybe Rob made a note-taking error. I haven't been able to find this transcript in the Audio Collection yet but will try today.

[chasman]

yeah Deb,  that sounds like a mistake.
I re-read that line a few times, trying to understand it.