A Course in Miracles Panel Discussion
at the Psychical Research Foundation

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Featuring (l to r) Bill Thetford, Helen Schucman,

Judith Skutch & Kenneth Wapnick

Durham, NC, December 10, 1976

Bill Roll: Judy suggested that we have a few minutes of meditation.

Judy Skutch: Bill, may I read something that I have read many times in the other room? And those of you who have not visited the other room may want to think on this in light of what we will be discussing today as we begin settling down and quieting and looking inside to our inner peace. That which is called God by the Christians, Jehovah by the Jews, Ultimate Reality by the Hindus, The Buddha mind by Buddhists, Allah by Mohammedans, and by the Chinese the Tao, That is the real self and all pervading. May we experience that!

Bill Roll: They asked me to give an introduction to this afternoon's program as a way of integrating the activity, or the non-activity you just participated in, with our work as parapsychologists. Let me say a few words about the relationship of this building with other buildings at the Psychical Research Foundation. The Meditation Center was established to fill a vacuum or need that we felt as professional parapsychologists. Parapsychology became what it is by modeling itself on the established sciences. It became essentially a process of, I guess, counting, classifying phenomena. But I hoped that parapsychology was going to tell me something about myself. And it turned out to be a rather superficial activity of observing things, counting things, leading to statistical evaluations that try to model a description of this world. And it turned out that this activity was indistinguishable from the activity of the other sciences. There was no difference except that the words we used were different. That is to say that the actual experience, the activity was in a way as shallow and as uninteresting as the established sciences that we had moved away from. So we came to feel that this is just as important or more important than being good statisticians, good engineers or good electrophysiologists, we first of all had to get a feeling for our own essential nature. And that turns out to be something that we have to encounter each of us on our own or together. It had to be something you could experience, something of awareness, consciousness. And so having a place where we could be quiet gave us an opportunity where we could learn about our big self. Or rather we gave our big self an opportunity to express itself.

Now there are many ways in which this can be done. Most of the ways are imports. People from other cultures, other countries come and bring us their wisdom, their experience. Then we become Indians or Japanese or whatever. We try to follow these methods. Now since our own major religion lost its monastic stake, its stake in meditation and quietness, it has become very difficult for many others and myself. That religion does not provide for a path or a method of getting to know our self. Many of us felt that organized religion was nothing but social activity and have been unable to find their self there. Now others have found it in Christianity, but for many of us that just has not happened. There hasn't been a procedure, there hasn't been a way, there hasn't been a real, systematic approach to getting to know one's Self.

The exciting thing to me about what you will be hearing about this afternoon is that here there is such a method, or it seems to me that there is. Very practical, very concrete, an extremely specific, very unromantic, I think. So I think that it is a fantastic hope for all of us in whatever we do.

In my own profession as a parapsychologist I can see this as one of the main openings in exploring the subject matter of parapsychology, exploring connections, which is what parapsychology deals with -- connections. And our culture as a whole which is based on the Christian religion, we have here a statement that to me completes the Christian religion. It brings it to conclusion. Now the conclusion it brings it to is not unexpectedly the same conclusion of the Hindu-Buddhist philosophy, the Hasidics of the Jewish religion have reached in their terms, their concepts.

Now the persons who have brought this to our attention, let's say that there has been an Ear and a Voice. Later on this afternoon you will meet the person who heard, and right now we will hear the person who has been responsible for saying it, for bringing it out. That is Judy Skutch. Now Judy has approached parapsychology much as I did as something that was really going to tell us the story about us, about our relationship with the world. And she too found that parapsychology was not sufficient, and so she was very tempted, and as a result of her great attention, her great focusing at one stage, she made a request that set somebody else that set still another person that turned out to be Helen. Judy was responsible for getting this material written, distributing it. There have been two published editions. One in the form of Xeroxed collection of this work and another one that just came out. And if it hadn't been for this Voice, this strong Voice of Judith's, this material would not have been heard. Judy is the president of the Foundation for Inner Peace whose main goal is to make this more and more available. She is also an instructor in parapsychology at New York University and over the years has organized numerous conferences and activities. She has helped to find the wherewithal for many parapsychologists to do parapsychology and has played a very important part in this field of scientific parapsychology. But her main task, of course, has been to take part in this Course in Miracles. So, thanks for coming, Judith. [applause]

Judy Skutch: I'm overwhelmed. I don't even have to speak to you now. Bill has done it all so well and has particularly explained how a group of us interested in parapsychology, in experimentation, can sometimes loose sight of why. And we in the field, and I am peripherally in the field because I do not have the academic training, but they held my hand a long time and people such as Stanley Kripner and Bill Roll and others have helped to educate me, have really addressed ourselves to proving that these events can be repeated over and over again in laboratory conditions. We often loose sight of the original impetus that drove us to the search -- Who are we? Where do we come from? Why are we here? Where are we going? You know, a few of those simple questions like that. Age old philosophical questions that we were struggling with. I will tell you not about myself or my journey. That is unimportant. We each have our journey. But when the questions get asked, do they get answered? And that's my story.

The Course in Miracles is the reason we are together and that is what I will tell you about, but first you are entitled to know how it came. And how it came is simple listening. Simple listening that I have a feeling many of you already do. So it is not so strange or bizarre to us that we can attune ourselves to that inner voice. That we even have one, that we carry on an internal dialogue so often without really defining what it is. So two people eleven years ago were sitting in a large medical center, and since I think we are far enough away from there, and you aren't going to rat on them -- they are very professionally nervous -- I can tell you that it is Columbia University Psychiatric Institute, School of Physicians and Surgeons which is a considerably prestigious medical center. They had been with the university for many years. They are both professors of psychology, one the chairman of the department of psychology, the other a research associate. And one a man, the other a lady. And since they are here I can gladly identify them as Bill and Helen, and this will be their debut and the first time they have appeared on a university campus in a university setting.

But this happened eleven years ago. Sitting in their office they discussed how terribly frustrated and unfulfilled they were feeling because of the abrasiveness of the academic setting, of the non-communication between the individuals, because of the red tape they had to go through to get grant money, because of the inability to reach each other, and even in their own personal relationships. And so they were kind of concerned about this.

After one particular incident that was the last straw, Bill said to Helen, his employee but long personal friend of about ten years, "Helen, there must be a better way!"

"A better way for what?"

"A better way to live in the universe. This one we are involved in now is so unfulfilling." And he mentioned all the problems they were having.

And she said, "I don't know of any other way, do you?"

He said, "No, but I have a feeling we should look for it."

And she said, "You know, Bill, I think you are right. And I will join you in that."

Now to us this may not sound very strange, but they reported to me that this was the first miracle, that they actually joined together on something that wasn't writing a research proposal or editing a journal of abnormal psychology, both of which they were doing. But they did join in the belief that perhaps together they could find a better way and that better way they assumed was going to be more fulfilling, more loving, less frenetic and perhaps even closer. This was eleven years ago this past summer that the question was asked that there must be a better way. Immediately the question started to be answered. What I mean by that is that a series of very intense, some would say extraordinary, psychic experiences... I'm glad she is not here. She calls them images, but I'll call them psychic experiences ... began to happen to Helen, the woman.

At that point, let me see, she was 56 years old and had never had any background in anything that even smacked of religion or spiritual awareness. In fact she was what she calls a practicing agnostic Jew. And Bill was a practicing atheistic Protestant. So together they made quite a pair.

The experiences were profound. I can give you a few examples of what kind of experiences. I would say that they started very gently, but right away with the symbolism of a very clear dream. Helen could experience things from that moment on a lot. A dissociated state whereby she was both aware, not in a trance, and awake in an awake dream. A situation that had all the trappings of another time, another place or people.

And the very first of these experiences of which she was unprepared happened while she was sitting at her desk and all of a sudden she felt that she was on the bank of a beautiful winding stream on a nice summer day. And she was very surprised because she was aware that she was at her desk having a reverie. But she found in her dream on the bank of the stream an ancient rowboat. She thought, "I wonder if this is seaworthy? I'll push it into the water and check." She did and it was. She got into the boat and was happily going downstream, seeing the countryside, when all of a sudden -- fear. There were no oars in the boat, no motor. And she didn't know how to swim. And as soon as she felt fear, instantly a figure appeared in the boat. An ordinary looking man who said, "Do not be afraid, my child. This boat is equipped with an ancient receiving mechanism that also sends signals. You can activate it by mind and I will teach you how." Which he did and she learned and that was the end of that experience. And she said to her associate, "Bill, you won't believe what just happened to me. I'm sure I'm awake but yet I'm dreaming." And she told him about it. He said that sounds very interesting. And he is a kind of thorough, scholarly man, as you will see, and he wrote this down because it didn't seem to mean anything but yet again maybe it did. And they discussed it as to what it might be, and they didn't have the slightest idea. Remember that they are psychologists, and psychotherapists and dreams are kind of important to them.

The next day she was in the bus going to work when all of a sudden she was again in that rowboat. She was aware that she was both on the bus and in the rowboat but she was more in the rowboat than she was on the bus. And she was really this time gripped by fear because it was a terrible storm at night, lightning, thunder and waves coming over the side. And in the fear she forgot how to work this apparatus. And as soon as she recognized how fearful she was, again the figure appeared in the boat. This time he had on a yellow slicker and a yellow hat, all prepared for the storm and said again, "Do not be afraid, my child. I will help you." Which he did and that was the end of that experience.

She got to the office and said, "I'm freaking out! It wasn't exactly like yesterday but it was equivalent." And Bill said, "That is very interesting. What do you make of it?" And she said, "Nothing at all. I wish it wouldn't come again." But it did later that afternoon. She was again in the rowboat. This time peacefully, thank goodness, happy and in full control. And because it was such a pleasant day she decided to beach the boat and take a little walk. Which she did. She pulled the boat on a shore and she said her foot struck something hard, metal probably. She looked down and half submerged in the sand was an old treasure chest. "Oh," she thought in her awake dream, "this is getting exciting. Buried treasure! Now that is getting more like it. None of that dull stuff." And she opened it up expecting to see rubies, diamonds, tiaras, at least a few Spanish coins; she was disappointed to find nothing in it except an old black book. She took the book out and could barely make out the letters in gold, but she could make them out and did remember them, and she was able at her desk to write them down while still being in that so-called awake dream.

She said to Bill, "You want to hear the weirdest of all? Now there I was...” and she told him the whole situation...” and instead of emeralds and diamonds, I found an old black book."

And he said, "What did it say?"

"Well, I didn't read it because it did not look that interesting from the outside but it said...”

"What is it?"

And she showed him. "I know it's Greek. It's Aesculapius. What does that mean?"

And he said, "It's one of those gods. Let's look it up." And they checked in a Greek anthology and found that it was the god of healing. "Hmmm, that's an interesting sequence." So from that time on the situation became more and more symbolic and stronger and stronger in feeling. At one point she was, of course, afraid she was going crazy and mentioned it to him a few times.

Bill said, "Look, we both know all about those things. You're doing well in your work. You're functioning very well in every other way. These experiences that have happened to you, don't worry about them." And I may add that I'm not ashamed of them, but I think they should have been more aware of the field of parapsychology. She said that she was scarcely aware of J.B. Rhine down at a place called Duke that rhymes with kook. So this was her prejudice strongly against anything of the psychic in origin. Bill was not as judgmental about the field but was not well read in it at all and terribly naive. At this point he started, unbeknownst to her, digging, because he wanted to find something that would put her mind to rest, which he did.

But the experiences continued in intensity and one that I really like illustrates, and you will meet her soon, how anti this experience she was. Helen saw herself in an old cave. She figured it could have been ancient, thousands of years ago. Empty except that on the floor was a scroll which she picked up, being a curious lady. She opened the scroll which had two handles, and she found completely blank except for two large words in the center saying, "God Is." And she was interested.... [Bill and Ken enter room]...ah, come on in. Kenneth, you were just in time for the scroll story. .... You got here! You made it! You left Helen home? Too bad. I don't think Helen came. [laughs]

Bill Thetford: Helen is out in another car.

Judy Skutch: Bill is not truly in it. He was just witnessing what was happening, but he will tell me if I'm right or wrong. This is Dr. William Thetford, Dr. Kenneth Wapnick behind him. Here was Helen looking at the scroll in this image. That is where I quit when they came in. And she saw the words, "God Is" which is strange for her to see she felt. And on the left was blank and on the right was blank. At this point she heard a voice, disembodied this time, say, "If you look to the left you will be able to read everything that happened in the past and if you look to the right you will be able to see everything that is to happen in the future. And she said that she knew that everything the voice said was true, but she felt revulsion at what power this would give a person. So, she rejected it. She closed up the scroll and said aloud, "No, thank you. This is all I want and this is all I need." Remember from her background this was odd, even in a dream. And she heard the voice say to her, "This time, my child, you made it. Thank you." Now I don't know how Bill interpreted that at the time. What did you say to her when she said that?

Bill Thetford: I don't know. I really don't remember what I said to her, Judy. There was a full series of things going on at the same time.

Judy Skutch: We are just getting some background on how Helen's experience of coming from a totally different perception at that time consciously. Many of these kinds of incidents happened, but that one I felt was important to tell you because there was, at least subconsciously if you like, a rejection of the psychic for the psychic's sake, for power. And also, if you want to even look at it that way, some kind of a connection to perhaps that this thing could have happened before, whatever that before means. In other images and experiences Helen feels that she has had experiences or contact with Bill in what we might say are many other lifetimes. Of course it's really irrelevant, but she felt that there had been a relationship through these experiences, that she had had images, many, many times before, and they weren't always pleasant.

Bill Thetford: She's not very comfortable about acknowledging that.

Judy Skutch: Yeah, okay, so let's forget about that. But a lot of those experiences had to do with this. I think that the final and most important experience, which will give you background on how these three months progressed, was the situation when Bill and Helen were going to the Mayo Clinic. And the night before they were to go on their trip. Was it the night? It really doesn't matter if it were the day or the night. Helen saw a church which was Lutheran. She saw it very clearly and it indicated to her as she sketched the picture in some detail, that this would mean that she would find that she was not crazy. That when they got to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, they would find that the church indeed existed and this would be what we might say legal evidence.

Bill: She thought she would see it from the plane as we were landing. She would look down on it.

Judy: It's kind of hard to see anything from a plane coming down. And as Bill says, they didn't. You tell the story of how you went to see all the churches.

Bill: Well, she was very upset because it seemed very important to her that this particular church somehow be found. So I suggested we get into a cab. I simply asked the driver to take us around, describing what this church was like, the turrets and towers and so forth. She felt it was a Lutheran church. So we saw something like forty churches in the environs of Rochester, Minnesota. After we saw each one of these churches it was obvious that this wasn't it. We finally went back to the hotel. Helen was rather dispirited and tired. We went through a very busy day and as we were leaving that afternoon I was checking out and bought a souvenir book at the desk. I opened it and there was a picture of Helen's church exactly as she had drawn and described it, which was on the site of the Mayo Clinic now. This church had been razed when it was built. I was excited, "Well, Helen here is your church. You were just looking down on it from a different perspective of time." She was pleased that somehow she wasn't totally crazy. Do you want to finish that story?

Judy: No, go on.

Bill: We changed planes in Chicago, as I recall on the way back, and as we were walking around the waiting area Helen said, "That young lady over there is in terrible distress. She needs help." I didn't notice anything different about her versus any of the other people sitting there. So Helen went over and talked to her. Indeed, she was in great distress. She was running away from home and family, her first trip to New York, very little money, didn't know where she was going to stay. Charlotte's her name. The important part of that is, I think, that as Helen was asking her about her beliefs (Charlotte said that she was Lutheran) this inner voice said very clearly, "This is my real church, your relationship with your brother. It has nothing to do with buildings or artifacts."

Judy: I think that that connection between what we might call the psychic experience and the understanding, again through the inner voice if you'd like to call it that. What we are really talking about here, that is the signpost of what we are really talking about, relationships with each other or helping your brother as the voice said to Helen. It wasn't the edifice she was shown earlier. It was rather helping her brother that was the true church.

Joe, you coming in? [Helen enters room] We have a seat up here for Helen. Yes, there are places to sit. Do people want to come in now and sit down? This was the last important incident prior to the inner voice dictation of A Course in Miracles. Not long after that, in fact eleven years ago Helen awakened you at night?

Bill Thetford: I don't know if she woke me, but she called me. This was in the middle of September that we went to the Mayo Clinic and it was about a month later that I received the call that I keep hearing about all the time. You keep reminding me.

Our friends are here. Hi, Helen. We're talking about you.

Helen Schucman: Oh. At the moment I'm in great peril. [laughter]

Judy: You have a great leader. Why are your shoes here?

Helen: Huh.

Judy: You want to be different.

Helen: I try to do what people want, but I don't always know what it is.

Judy: Some entrance!

Helen Schucman: OK.

Bill Thetford: OK.

Judy Skutch: We are just leading up to your first experience with hearing your internal dictation. Would you like to say anything about it?

Helen Schucman: Well, you generally do it fairly well! You've read it more often than I have actually.

Judy Skutch: Probably so. By the way they wanted to get the whole thing. I've already told them it was your debut. They are all very, very loving. Very supportive.

Bill Thetford: I was mentioning how you called me one night in sheer panic. Her voice was trembling and she was terribly frightened and could barely get it out. She said, "I don't know what's happening, but this inner voice is very urgent. It is saying, 'This is a course in miracles. Please take notes.' What do I do?"

Helen: And what do you think he said?

Someone in audience: Take notes!

Helen: Right. [laughter] So that's what happened.

Judy: Well, she sat down and she takes very fast shorthand dictation. Thank goodness because when voices pick they pick well. They sort of let you do what you're used to doing anyway. At least if it is a good voice. And I think we should just start in the way it begins because there is no better way to introduce you to a six year collaborative venture between Bill and Helen here, who I can thank publicly for undertaking this very courageously, because it was the antithesis of everything they both believed.

Helen: It was a very, very trying experience.

Judy: So we call her the unwilling scribe. So this is what was heard from the beginning, [reads introduction from Text]. Did you faint then?

Helen: Way from the beginning?

Judy: That was the beginning.

Helen: Yeah. But no, I really never was out of conscious control at all which I think may have made it a little bit harder. As I was saying to my friend who very kindly drove me here, it was a very curious thing because I am not the kind of person who does things she does not like. And I'm apt to be very opinionated though not always right, but while I'm opinionated I'm positive. And I'm really not the kind of person that does this kind of thing, but it never really occurred to me not to do it. And this is something I cannot understand. It was making me too damn uncomfortable. It was driving Bill out of his poor mind. And we were also writing research papers while we were doing this. And they did not seem to conflict. It was a very rapid thing that just sort of happened. I didn't believe in this kind of thing. I might have classified it as ... I won’t even say. I'm a psychologist and opinionated. But it was a curious thing. I think Bill and I both felt somehow it was a real commitment. I don't know what I as a person really add to it. In fact, I don't think I add anything to it. We're working on it. It's very difficult. Some of you may have found it so. I have not found it any easier. I really don’t know anything about it that you won't know by simply reading it. It's very clear.

Judy: I think you should probably know that a lot of them have not even seen it or heard of it. I think we should first start discussing what it's about. It says it is a course in miracles and miracles is a trigger word for many.

Helen: Oh, yes!

Judy: What is a miracle? In fact, I think you wanted not to call it that, but it called itself that, so there wasn't much you could do about it. And if I share with you some of the principles of miracles which starts out the Text. Since there is a text, it's a course and a workbook.

The Text is fundamentally what its precepts, its concepts are. It sets forth a system of belief in the Text basically that we are not what we think we are. We view the world through our five senses and think we are victims of the world that we see. And we act according to how we see, perceive ourselves in this physical universe. When indeed this is our error. And our fears stem from this error of misperception. We misperceive what it is that we are. And it sets about very clearly to establish what it is that we are and why we got into all this trouble. We are, well it calls us collectively the Son of God. We are of God. Our source is God. And God is Love. So then it sets about various ways in the Workbook for us to achieve this knowledge which is re-educating our beliefs, wiping away our past belief system and replacing it with one we choose to believe is true, one that it gives us. And applying every day the lessons it is teaching. Because it is only in the application of these lessens that you will find their truth. That's where the knowledge is, in the experience.

So as you start this system of spiritual re-education, then you find in its action, and only in its action, will there be meaning. It is really to me what makes this system different than any other because basically as we said right before our meditation, the truth is the truth is the truth is the truth. And we call it many names, but it really doesn't matter. We know it is the same truth. We can choose any form that we want and we will get there. There being home, the self, higher self. This one chooses a Christian statement. I believe the explanation at one point though not in the book was that Christianity happens to be the major religion of the world, of the Western world in which we live now, and it needs correction. Because Christianity, as it is practiced today, doesn't seem to be very Christian.

The only way we can achieve this memory of our self, who we really are, is in experiencing love. The only way we can experience love is to remove the barriers to it. The only way we can remove the barriers to love is to forgive our brother. And so the book, the Course, is about forgiveness and how to practice it. So in its practicing we'll know it's true. That's a very simple statement of the Course in Miracles. It has a teachers' manual which teaches us how to be teachers, meaning we teach only ourselves. And that's really the way we look at teaching. There are people who sit up here and people who sit there, but what we are doing really is exchanging. And those who sit up here at any given time are really teaching themselves, and you are the witnesses to the belief system that they are really teaching themselves. It can occur at any time and I'm sure that you share that yourself. That one of the reasons we teach is to learn. And of course, that is true. So in three books we now have a Course in Miracles thanks to Helen's and Bill's six year fight to get it thru. And I would now like to deal with the material itself specifically. And I find that Bill usually gives a very good overview from a psychologist viewpoint. How about you giving us a mini-overview, Bill?

Bill: I really don't have an official statement of about what the Course in about.

Judy: Make it unofficial.

Bill: It's sort of a heady course in many ways. It is about changing perception. As a matter of fact, that is its only goal. Knowledge is something that lies beyond altered perception. Altered perception leads to Knowledge. We cannot learn knowledge; it is something that comes to us almost automatically when our perception has been shifted, when our defenses have been lowered. We are no longer distorting through the lens of fear. When our relationships have been healed through a letting go of all the hurts most of us have experienced at one time or another in life. Giving freely. That's a hard thing to explain and it's a hard thing to practice. It is something that can't be done without a great deal of practice. At first, it is very painful for people in their relationships. And, increasingly, I think that becomes obvious that if we hold anything against anyone we hold it against ourselves. That is where distortion will always be. That is where we have to shift and there is a way of shifting. I cannot explain it in words. I can only say that I think it is a constant thing in life that you undertake this kind of change. All experience I think is changed. The things that are called miracles in the Course are regarded as natural, as simply expressions of love. They simply occur and they do. Something that many people have noticed is that they suddenly find parking meters and that becomes a miracle that they use at that moment. Perhaps it could be phrased more euphemistically by psychologists by saying there is no order of difficulty in problem solving. Whatever you think a problem might be there is an answer or solution to it. That I think is the key to what miracles mean. It is a course on mysticism, and it becomes very advanced as it goes along and you go along with it. We never read any of the mystics. This was totally out of the blue as far as we were concerned. It was only later that I realized that this was a summary of the perennial philosophy of the East and West that has always been there except I didn't know about it.

Helen: I wasn't looking!

Judy: That takes us to the exercises which hopefully will change your perception. People sometimes say to me, "What do you mean by hopefully?" I'm qualifying not because I don't know whether it works or not. It certainly does. But because I don't know their willingness. And that is all it asks. One's willingness to change.

Helen: I would like to add two things to what Bill said which I think will be a little more specific. One of them is the words’ main emphasis really is that you are in a position to choose your own reaction and what you see and not what anyone else does to you. You may think you are responding to the outside world and not to something that is being aroused in you. And that is not true. No one can do anything to you unless you allow yourself to regard it as harm. But there is an interpretive process that comes in there. You can see it happen sometimes in your thoughts. And when you work with patients you can see this. Where actually there is a brief pause for one minute and then they decide to have a fit. You know, I think if you stop for a minute and wait to see it in yourself, and you can capture it right there. You wait to decide and then you do. And therein lies, you know, then you don't get divorced, or whatever it is. You can go along recognizing and think it is important to recognize that [this is the best thing in the Course] you are sending out witnesses to attest to what you already believe in anyway. And the time that it is clearest is not in the beautiful things that happen to us every once and awhile, you know, and they do. But it is the sort of thing that happens to me, you know, when... My husband is a bookseller, and he has a yen to having wall-to-wall books on the floor. Now I have a fit about this and so I will say to him, "Look, you know, get that away before I get up in the morning." And then I come in in the morning looking for trouble, you know. And I almost hope he hasn't put them all away. Now that's simple minded, but you know what I mean, because there's a tendency to want to react in a certain way. I think that that's one thing that when you get used to gives you a tremendous feeling of liberty. You are not at the mercy of these situations. You don't have to do that. And you can choose how you will react. I think that is one of its more constructive ways and the other one is the definition of forgiveness which is a little different from our usual use of the word. I'm using it in the way the Course puts it. The way the ego forgives is to say, "We know you are a bastard, but I'm so nice I'm going to let it be alright." And that is not the way you do it because if the guy really is such a terrible person he shouldn't be forgiven. You have to look at something else in him and know that that really isn't what you see. Therein lies the forgiveness in that you literally overlook that and see something beyond that in him because all he is is frightened.

Judy: You are shifting your perception to see spirit, light, God, love, anything you want to call it, in him which is also in you. That binds you, joins you, rather than separates you. Love can come in and fear will disappear.

Bill: I remember when we came to a sentence. I will always remember very clearly the day. Helen was taking it down in shorthand and I was typing it during our lunch hour, you know, wolfing down a cheese sandwich. It said you have two emotions — fear and love. One you made and one was given to you. And I thought, [snaps fingers] "That's it! Of course!" One of those Aha! reactions. Suddenly that was very meaningful to me. Now you may have to read two hundred pages before it is spelled out in a way that is equally meaningful to other people or some other sentence may catch your eye or mind in a very gripping way. And I suddenly realized, "Of course, that's true." That psychologists spend a great deal of time talking about defenses. All Freudian psycho-analysis has to do with defenses and a kind of normal range presumably which is very poorly defined which everyone can project, they can intellectualize, rationalize, or deny or distort in a whole series of ways. Each defense is necessarily a distortion of perception. Yet we talk about distortions of perception as if this is something that is normal, natural and only when it gets really out of bounds do we call it pathological. That was my background. And I realized that this actually made no sense at all. That whenever there is any kind of distortion in perception there is distortion. We once asked one of our doctoral candidates what it would be like if someone had no defenses. And the first reaction we got was, "They'd be crazy!" The definition of a defense is that you first experience fear or threat and are engaging in a psychological operation which is presumably designed to minimize that fear or threat, but it does it by distorting your awareness, so that you can't really deal with the problem. That's fear. The answer to that is love and while love is a very hackneyed word, the ways in which it can be spelled out and applied are, of course, wonderfully specific. That's what this is all about.

Judy: I think we could give an example of that I got again and again and again, but today at lunch. I was talking to a young man I met for the first time today about his fascinating work in prisons with meditations for those inmates who were looking for a way. He was offering them a potpourri of many different kinds of ways in his meditation program. And we were talking about defenselessness, not that when he goes into prisons he is afraid someone is going to bop him. But when he was with some federal people looking for aid and he was meeting with the heads of many commissions and they were looking at him and he was non-degreed, non-academic. What could he say to them of value and how was he going to get money and support for this program. And he said, "All of a sudden I realized that I didn't have to defend who I was. I didn't have to defend what I was doing. All I needed was the truth. And so I went in defenseless. I looked at them with love. And each one came over to me and said, 'I am glad to know you.'" Defenselessness is strength. He looked past the fear. He acted out of love and he was completely non-threatening to them. Suppose he had gone in fearful and right away tried to justify what he was doing and also apologize for his lack of background in this. Many people might have said, "What does this young upstart think he is doing? He is going to take away our jobs. This may infringe on my department." But he went in defenseless and in his defenselessness lay his strength. And he felt that this was a very powerful experience and that he would never, never go back to the old way of thinking once he realized how that worked.

Helen: He will though.

Judy: Well, he hasn't because he has done it many times since. You say he will. I say he won't. You haven't met him yet.

Helen: OK

Judy: Will he go back to the old way?

Helen: Briefly, I don't mean forever.

Bill: I think Helen is just emphasizing the fact that it does take a while.

Helen: It does take a while.

Judy: You know, as long as we have the books here and we have you here, I think I would like a little bit of a systematic discussion of the material itself, and read just a few of the principles of miracles because it's a course in miracles - what does it mean by miracle? And since this is a parapsychological meeting, I would like to relate it to parapsychology. The very beginning of the Course in Miracles defines the meaning of miracles. It wastes no time; it really doesn't. It gives fifty principles that Bill said really shook him up as he first read them as he was typing them. Because they tell you right at the beginning that this is totally different than ordinary experience. And of course, when I came across the documents and Bill and Helen and Ken shared them with me for the first time, I recognized that coming from parapsychology, and took the material to California where I spent many happy days working. And this was actually the Stanford Research Institute because we were finishing up work with Igo Swann, Pat Price and Uri Geller and I said, "Hey, guys, what do you think of this?" "Oh, is that stuff religious?" And I said, "Wait! Wait, wait, wait: Let me read you a couple of things." And I read them the first two principles of miracles which read: 1) There is no order of difficulty in miracles. One is not harder or bigger than another. They are all the same. All expressions of love are maximal. I read that first principle of miracles and Russell Targ said, "Of course, we know that. There is no order of difficulty in parapsychological phenomenon." Uri Geller doesn't bend or break a spoon a little and bend or break a spoon a lot and have one bend or break more important than another. Because the fact that he can interact with metal and matter at all is saying something. You know, it's a lot like being a little bit pregnant. Everything you believe is or it isn't. It isn't either a little or a lot. And then I read: 2) Miracles as such do not matter. The only thing that matters is their source which is far beyond evaluation. And he looked at me and said, "Isn't this the reason for parapsychology?" Far beyond your evaluation, miracles as such do not matter. The only thing that matters is their source. And what his source is is ultimately our source. This is perhaps an overly brief explanation of why it's called A Course in Miracles and little bit about what the miracle is. And how do you find this miracle and how do you use it? Well, of course, we do not have to look far to find that it is within us.

Forgiveness is the way and Helen has tied that in by explaining what the course means by forgiveness. Looking beyond what we thought of as our past perception and seeing the truth in each individual with whom we come into contact. Someone asked me about a year ago, "Do you think this is possible within our lifetime?" And I said, "I certainly hope so.” That was a year ago and someone asked me this last week and I was stunned by my answer. "Do you think this is possible in our lifetime?" And I said, "Of course." What was the difference in my answer I asked myself? The difference was that I had a year to work with it and I know that for me it's possible. And change isn't possible just a little or just a lot, but totally. It is possible once you decide that moment of acceptance. Now many people ask, "What are these lessons?" Let me give you an idea of how gently they start and again remember that we are talking about changing perception, and I'll read you a couple of paragraphs from the introduction of the Workbook. "A theoretical foundation such as the text provides is necessary as a framework to make the exercises which this workbook contains meaningful. Yet it is doing the exercises that will make the goal of the course possible. An untrained mind can accomplish nothing. It is the purpose of this workbook to train your mind to think along the lines the text sets forth." Then it talks about what the training is, what the schedule is — a lesson a day for a year. And then it says, "Some of the ideas the workbook presents you will find hard to believe, and others may seem to be quite startling. This does not matter. You are merely asked to apply the ideas as you are directed to do. You are not asked to judge them at all. You are asked only to use them. It is their use that will give them meaning to you, and will show you that they are true."

And it starts out with the very first lesson which you are directed to do for only a minute or so. "Nothing I see in this room means anything." It sounds very simple, but also it can be very frightening. Nothing I see in this room means anything and it asks you to look around the room at random for about a minute and say, "This light bulb doesn't mean anything. This window doesn't mean anything. That table doesn't mean anything. That person doesn't mean anything." You don't have to include everything. It would take more than a minute then, but you must not exclude. What is it saying? Well, right away there is a block. That table may not mean anything, but that person does. It is not saying that there is no meaning at all. If you go a bit further you will discover what is meant by that first lesson. "I do not understand anything I see." And you follow with, "I see only the past."

In other words we are looking at the past all the time, and that is why we can't look anew. If we are looking at the past all the time, how can you look at a person you live with, work with and see them fresh. We can't be carrying past perceptions with us. "I see nothing as it is now," is another lesson. "My thoughts are images I have made." You can see the implications as we go on. "I am not alone in experiencing the effects of my seeing." "I am determined to see." That's around lesson 20. By the time you get to your third week you are making a statement of willingness, "I am determined to see." If you dropped out before that, well, obviously you are not determined to see. And all of these lessons added pages, sometimes two, sometimes three, of explanations of what these sentences mean. And the sentences, of course, become a form of meditation, I would say guided meditation that helps me use them during the day and apply them.

Helen: They get prettier.

Judy: I'm looking for the prettier. How's this one, "God is the light in which I see." There's nothing prettier than that one. "There is nothing to fear." That's very pretty. Pick a pretty one. I want to hear what Helen calls pretty.

Helen: Well, actually...

Judy: You like the second part of the book...

Helen: "I place the future in the Hands of God." And, oh yes, "All things are lessons that God would have me learn." That's a very nice one.

Judy: Who's on that one? Someone in this group is on that one. Ashby! It was Ashby. He told me this morning that his lesson, was, "All things are lessons that God would have me learn." And they have been. Haven't they?

Helen: I was looking at this and I think that some of the other little lines that are put in the lessons, "Forgive and you will see this differently," is a very helpful thing to remember. If you can look at things that appear to be destroying you and you can actually say, "I will forgive and this will disappear." and mean it. It gets nice. Now I don't think it actually means that it disappears, but if you look at it differently from your viewpoint it has disappeared. I think that that is again a very central thing. And I think, if I may, Judy, when you say, "I see nothing but the past," I think there is something else in that it might be, just a minute, it's true that if you didn't have all your past associations nothing would mean anything to us. We have taught ourselves very definitely what everything means and that is the basis on which our whole thought system is founded. But if it is wrong, these are the premises on which we base it and if it should be wrong and according to the course it is wrong, we have made a very big mistake.

Judy: Nothing worse than that.

Helen: Nothing worse than that. That's right.

Judy: I think we can remind ourselves that, whereas we have looked upon situations where we made mistakes and called them sins. Sins demand that we get guilt, punishment. Mistakes just get corrected. It's a much gentler way of treating oneself. I remind myself every once in a while, "What did I do that fool thing for?" Stop berating myself and treat myself as if I'm a little child just learning how to walk. I have little children and I wouldn't beat up on any of my kids when as a toddler they started to run into the street or fall down or trip over something. I just pick them up and dust them off and gently guide them along the way. That's what we have to do with ourselves. We are systematically trying to relearn and to let go of our egos. And being hard on ourselves only compounds it. So we say, "I made a mistake this time. Next time I'll do better." I find a lot of people angry at themselves if they forget a lesson during the day or if they skip a day or two. What good does that do? It's another defense and delay. But rather say, "All right. That's what I did today. I really want to do this. I'll go on. Yesterday wasn't my day." Any way that we can apply that concept to ourselves we'll have a better chance to be happy.

One of the tools that the Course has taught me that I find very effective, and this may be kind of naive for this group because I have a feeling you know this much better than I, is asking for help. It's finally recognizing that I don't have to be embarrassed or ashamed when I say, "Maybe there really is a God after all. And I can leave this in His hands. OK, I'll try it. I'll give a little bit to God and see what He does with it." And come to recognize that if I totally accept what I already know to be true and allow myself to ask for help in any situation no matter how large, remember there is no order of difficulty in problem solving, that that situation will be resolved happily for all. If you find yourself in conflict and you must make a choice, the choice can only involve pain and suffering on one hand for someone and perhaps happiness or what seems like happiness for someone else, that is not the right choice. Only when you leave it up to something greater than yourself, even when you call it your higher self, or the Holy Spirit if you like, or God if you like, when you give it up to that it is extremely gratifying to know the feeling of that freedom and the fact that the results are always right. How many of you live that way anyway? Hmm. Hmm.

Bill Roll: Perhaps one of the most important parts of the Course concerns the difference between illusion and reality. Do you see its message as similar to that taught in the East?

Judy: Bill calls it the Christian Vedanta.

Bill: I think so. That is the central problem of the Course and I don't know how to state it simply in words than any of us do. I had never heard of the Vedanta before and it was only after the material came through that I started reading these things and discovered Vivekananda and all these exciting people.

Stanley Krippner: I can say something along those lines as well. Something that turns a lot of people off that hear about the Course are that the early portions are primarily Christian, but it is interesting that once they really get into it, whether their background is Judaism or the Eastern religions or nothing, they find that these words that have been bothering them seem to drop away and they really find that the Course bridges the Eastern and Western religions. And I think that that is one of the great appeals in terms of the universality of how these important thoughts are put down in what I think is the simplest possible form.

Judy: We still have Stan Krippner, thank goodness, with us. Stanley was probably my first real teacher in all of this. I said Dr. Rhine's book yesterday and it was, but Stanley in person because it is personal relationships that teach us the most and Stanley was my earliest. So for both of us to be working with, struggling with this material together is a very big thrill for me.

Stanley Krippner: Yes, the material is not easy and it is hard. It is a struggle. You have resistance. You backslide as you go through it and pull yourself back together again. So it is a discipline. Now I can give one obvious correlation to the field of parapsychology in addition to what Judy does and that is that this whole notion of forgiveness is really one of the keys to the material, and if you have been in parapsychology as long as I have, and when you have as much abuse, scorn and criticism as has been leveled at me and when you have as many personal shortcomings as I do, you sort of have a lot of people to forgive. [laughter] When I got to the part of the material where I had to visualize these people that I thought had done me wrong I had a whole line of people waiting. [laughter]

It was a struggle. For some of them I really resisted. You not only have to forgive them. You have to find the light within them. And it's easy to, as it says in the Course, to say that is a horrible person but I in my righteousness forgive them. It is not that type of forgiveness that the material demands of you. Another thing that is true that our psychiatrist friend just mentioned. In previous years I had read a lot of Carl Jung and about synchronicity and the material has made it more meaningful to me because now I see a whole synchronistic pattern emerging in my life that had just evaded me before. And that's a very exciting thing for me.

Judy: People seem to find this happening a great deal with or without the Course in Miracles once they are attuned to that, or once they follow this way of life. Since there are so many people working with the material I can say that I hear over and over again, "You know, my lesson today is exactly addressing the question I had, or the problem I had, or the conflict I had." And I say, "What about yesterday?" "Yeah, yesterday did too!" "What about the day before?" "You know, that did too." "Wait ‘til tomorrow!" [laughter] It is stated many times and in many different ways that we are always dealing with the question of the illusion of our separateness. And we are always dealing with the question of our fear blocking our lovingness. That is why the lesson, "All things are lessons God would have me learn," is a very big revelation when you finally experience that this true. "That why all these things are happening! Now I see I'm supposed to be learning from this. Oh, well." But you do the Course when you want to. And sooner or later you stop passing the buck. The buck stops here. Now is the time I want to change. Now is the time I want to see things differently. Now is the time I want to be whole.

And these kinds of things come up over and over again. If we, no I will not say we, if I sound messianic or evangelistic, please forgive me. I don't mean to. I'm excited about the Course because it works, and I'm finding it extremely comforting and bringing me into contact with all these brothers and sisters who are also sharing a road, and it does not have to be this one. It doesn't have to be this form. It could be any of them. And this is why I'm so excited.

Now is a good time for us to talk about the section on psychotherapy which is not printed with the book but which is a separate little pamphlet by itself because that seemed to be the way it was supposed to be. And this mentions psychotherapy. It could be TA. It could be gestalt training. It could be any one of them. This is a little pamphlet that talks about psychotherapy: purpose, practice and process. And it says in its introduction: "Psychotherapy is the only form of therapy there is. Since only the mind can be sick, only the mind can be healed. Only the mind is in need of healing. This does not appear to be the case, for the manifestations of this world seem real indeed. Psychotherapy is necessary so that an individual can begin to question their reality. Sometimes he is able to start to open his mind without formal help, but even then it is always some change in his perception of interpersonal relationships that enable him to do so. Sometimes he needs a more structured, extended relationship with an "official" therapist. Either way, the task is the same; the patient must be helped to change his mind about the "reality" of illusions."

Bill Roll: I think that this would be a good time to have a little break and stretch our legs.

Questioner: Ken, how did you get involved with the Course?

Ken: I came about three-and-a-half years ago. I first met Helen through a mutual friend. I hadn't heard about the Course at that point. I had been told about this book that Helen had written and that it had to do with messages she had received about spiritual development. I was extremely interested but at the time I didn't want to get involved with anything on that scale. The whole time I was in Israel, mostly at the Trappist monastery, I was thinking about this book. And I keep thinking that it had something very important for me. So I did return the May of the following year, 1973, and I headed straight for Helen and Bill's office. I walked up and said, "Here I am. Where is the book?" The material that I read at that point convinced me that this was what I had been looking for, not even knowing what it was.

Helen: He's the religious one of this group, [much louder] we never paid him. [laughter] [Stanley Krippner has to leave to catch a plane at this point]

Judy: Dr. Roll has suggested that we open the floor to questions now. We'd like to hear from you too. What you are doing. How far along you are on the path. Perhaps you can teach us a great deal. Not perhaps. You can. Who is going to start?

Female questioner: How many people are doing this course?

Judy: "How many people are doing this course?" the question is. We don't really know exactly. We do know that since this system has come out, we published it July of this past year, this year, over 2000 copies have been distributed with no advertising. There is no publicity. It's word of mouth. There are 2100 copies out from the last printing. Before that there were 300 copies made of a Xerox put together of a very small format, almost unreadable. I think Joe Janis must have single-handedly copied of those perhaps another 80 to 100. So off-hand I think 2500 people have the material. and I don't know how many others have copied it. And how many are sharing. And this is only a few short months. So we really have no idea as to what the future will bring with it, but those people who are choosing or ready to choose this particular form will come to it. There have been people through their own experiences who have been lead to a place where they are ready to write about it and communicate it to others, but we have nothing to do with that. And it is up to them to do it. And you will be seeing literature from next month on, there will be articles appearing of people who have been using this material and wanted to review it. And that may change the picture, I don't know. We feel that it is directing itself as a church, and we have only to listen. And again one of the tools that the Course has taught me is not to ask for help but listening. If you ask a question you are not listening for an answer, at least not very well. So listening is a part of it also. So there is a good bit of meditation asking and receiving what we feel is the way that we can handle this now.

Female questioner: I know that you are supposed to do the Workbook one lesson a day, but how about the other books? Do you read them straight through or what?

Judy: There is no set system. It does not suggest anything except to not do more than one lesson a day. It does not say do one lesson one day, one the next, one the next. Certainly you do have to do them consecutively, of course, in sequence. But you do not have to spend one day only on a lesson. It's the same lesson worded over and over again. And some days it hits you, a line in the book, and you stop for that day. That's an individual choice. As far as reading the Text, the Teacher's Manual, it is a good idea to read the Text along with the workbook because after all what good are applying the lessons if you don't have the foundation. But I don't think it is necessary to read the Text from beginning to end before you start the lessons. Do you?

Helen: No, but I'm rather partial to reading the Text first.

Ken: In the Teacher's Manual it states that everyone should start wherever they feel they should. The Workbook, Text, Teacher's Manual; it really doesn't matter.

Judy: The teacher is within. In this particular system there isn't a rule. There is no master. It is teaching you something you already know in a form so that you can remember it.

Fritz Klein: Do you think maybe as this spreads, as more and more people begin to use the material that the situation will arise where people will try to deify Helen?

Helen: Couldn't! [laughter]

Judy: Why do you think we convinced her to come here. We knew when you saw her that right away you would know differently.

Helen: I have a story that I think will answer that. I have a very dear friend called Mary Pat and she called me up and she said, "Oh the people down there are just going to love you."

"Me?"

And she said, "Yes!"

And I said, "Why?" And she said,

"Well because when they look at you and listen to you they will realize that if God can use you, He can use them." [laughter] I wasn't sure I liked that statement.

Judy: I'm not sure if she forgave Mary Pat.

Female questioner: Do you think, Helen, that the Course appeals to a particularly intellectual type of person?

Helen: It does have a special readership, the way every other form has. And there are other forms for whatever place you are in the world thus far. I do agree with you that it is quite a literary thing and it does require a certain background, but, you know, people with literary backgrounds should have a break too. Let's not be prejudiced against them. There are many things that I have subsequently seen that say exactly the same thing in a much simpler way. Really, well it is exactly the same thing. I happen to like this stuff from a literary viewpoint I'm kind of a snob, but there are many of us... you know, salvation really shouldn't cut us out simply because we're snobs. [laughter]

Ken: This course can be learned by not just reading it, but by being in contact with people with whom you can learn it. And I think that as the Course starts to develop you will be seeing some schools, etc. where the teachers are the pupils who have studied the material themselves but they can in turn teach what the Course says to people. It is the content of the Course that is important, not the words.

Male questioner: I'm a divinity student. I'm interested in what the Course has to say about Jesus. Could you just summarize that for me?

Ken: A major distinction is made between Jesus and Christ. When the Course uses the word "Christ" it refers to the one Son of God of which each of us is a part. It would include Jesus. The difference between Jesus and each of us at this point of time is that he has nothing that is not of God. In other words, there is no ego left in him. He speaks of himself as being an elder brother and as a teacher. But he does speak of himself being in charge of what the Course calls the Atonement, whereby every Son of God returns home. He makes a big point about the fact that he is not to be worshipped. And that while he does feel that he is entitled to a certain amount of respect and obedience because of what he knows and helps you to be... [writing on top of recorder]

Judy: We should add that in the Teacher's Manual in the very back there is a clarification of terms. And this came through a bit later because these questions were asked and had to be addressed. So its author was asked and the answers are in the back. So where it says Jesus - Christ, what is the meaning? I like this paragraph: "The name of Jesus is the name of one who was a man but saw the face of Christ in all his brothers and remembered God." And then it goes on to the next page: "Is he God's only Helper? No, indeed. For Christ takes many forms with different names until their oneness can be recognized."

Member of audience: Actually, in terms of these theological symbols are really still, I think, interpretative and speculative. OK, I like what you said before that when you digest the whole message in context of the book, the question of interpretation of these difficult theological questions becomes irrelevant at this time.

Judy: It's an excellent point because the course very specifically says that those who want to find controversy will.

Bill: It also says that there is no such thing as a universal theology. That would be impossible. It's not a course on theology even though some of these clarifications are introduced. That is not its purpose.

Helen: It goes on though. It says that there is a universal experience.

Judy: I think it says that a universal theology is impossible but a universal experience is imperative.

Male questioner [strong Southern accent]: How is the concept of original sin handled?

Judy: Beautiful question, you want to take it?

Bill: I'm not big on original sin. [laughter]

Indian member of audience: Original sin is only our sense of separation from our Creator. And this is a delusion because we cannot separate from our Creator. [applause]

Questioner: How do you reconcile your answer with nature?

Indian: Because whatever you think you have made is not what God has made. And whatever God makes is perfect, and what you have made is a delusion.

Ken: In other words it hasn't happened.

Indian: Exactly, I make myself up in Heaven, you are there. I make myself in Hell, you are there.

Questioner: What you are saying is that there never was any original righteousness nor was there any fall.

Bill: It's a bummer package. [laughter]

Judy: It talks about the sleep of illusion likening it to as if we are in a dream, a nightmare where there seems to be no resolution to our conflict. And all we have done is forgotten God and who we are. And what we are doing with like this or any other system is laboriously trying to climb back into memory. And it is the memory that will teach us the truth. Otherwise we could sit here and talk forever.

Questioner: What is the difference between illusion and reality?

Indian: Illusion is illusion and reality is reality. [laughter] There is illusion because we separated ourselves from God and the only way back is to forgive ourselves and forgive our brother.

Questioner: Does war exist?

Indian: We are living in a strange world. War, hatred, people hijack people and we look at all that and say that it is real. We are projecting our own self if we cannot say that that person who has done that is perfect. This war is perfect. If there were more people that knew perfection, war wouldn't happen, hijacking wouldn't happen and things would change. And that is a miracle!

Helen: I think it is fair to say in answer to what you said that I don't think anybody would say, nor does the course say that you can't shoot a body. Nor does it ever say that Jesus' body wasn't crucified. It is obvious that it was. But this may not be the reality of God and I think that is where the distinction is. The illusion is what you and I make or the world as we see it now. But reality is what God makes and reality does not change. It is a constant changeless state. It isn't born and it doesn't die. It exists apart from all of the things that we see and believe and that we think. It's not our world.

Judy: Coming back to the dream. If you can think about a particular dream you had recently that was powerful for you so you remembered it. If you think of that dream, it was peopled with characters. Where did they come from and who made them? Who did what to whom and how and why? All of them are projections of your mind. What it is saying is that all of this is projection of a mind that has separated itself only in an illusion. And really if we recognize that this might have been and if we are not happy with the way we are now and try to go along that path to remembering, we will start to have the experiences that will tell us it's true. It's getting through the barrier of words and symbols that is very difficult. It making that first step in having faith that this might work, and I'm not talking about just this system.

Male questioner: I'd like to hear something about Helen and Bill's personal journey from an agnostic Jew and an atheistic Protestant who are psychiatrists as well...

Helen: Pardon me, an atheistic Jew

Questioner: Oh, and an agnostic Protestant? [laughter]

Helen: Yes, I would be inclined to say that.

Questioner: OK, but as a psychiatrist you must have gone ...

Helen: Psychologist! [laughter]

Questioner: You must have been going through a great deal of self analysis as you are progressing along this to get to a point where you accept this as a religion as opposed to even a therapeutic philosophy. Like how did you get from point A to point B?

Helen: We haven't made it yet! [laughter] But we're working on it. I mean that.

Bill: I wouldn't like to regard the Course as a religion even though I know what you mean. I think we have been very concerned not to regard it as a religion or a cult or any of that kind, but simply as a teaching that came as it did and which will hopefully help people in whatever way they can be helped by it. So for me that is an important distinction to make. We are not trying to proselytize. I think we would be very uncomfortable if we were here for that purpose.

Helen: Yes, but he has a point, Bill. What he is really saying is what we believed at the time the Course hit us, Bill, is not really what the Course says.

Bill: No

Helen: There is no question. In fact, it is at variance with it.

Questioner: Why didn't you say that this is repressed philosophy...

Helen: It didn't ask me! [laughter] It just came out this way and that was it.

Bill: I think our agreement that we were dissatisfied with the way we had been handling our troubles both personally and professionally was the question that leads to the Course. I asked for another way and Helen joined with me. There was that joining and looking for another way. We didn't know how it was going to be. The Course came as an answer to that. It was a very serious question. Now I can't say that explains but at least that is the context in which it occurred. Personally it had an enormous impact and it meant as far as I was concerned that absolutely everything I had ever thought had to be challenged. Nothing that I believed up to that point was true. It was very difficult. I can't say that I have gone through this and reached the point where I'm beyond all these problems. I'm not. There are still problems that come up in various contexts and we're all working on it together. But it has certainly made a very pronounced change in how I would look on practically anything at this point. No question. It would be impossible for me to do some of the things I did a long time ago.

Questioner: Bill, how do you regard the voice that dictated this?

Bill: Well, I certainly know since I know Helen very well, I've known her for more than 18 years, that that is not Helen's voice. [laughter]

Helen: I'm not going to say anything.

Bill: Helen and I have written a large number of papers together. That was totally different. We struggled and strained. Our egos got in the way. They didn't sound like this, didn't come out like this.

Helen: They were well written though!

Bill: The incredible thing was that I saw Helen taking this down between phone calls or whatever without really paying too much attention. She just, you know, was hearing it and writing it down. Actively resisting it at the time because it appeared to be very threatening, certainly in terms of who it came from. Right?

Helen: Very!

Bill: The dramatic aspect of all this is so compelling that that in itself made quite an impact, but had I felt the material was inconsistent or something I could not understand, I would not have been able to accept it. I read this very critically. I didn't say, "Oh, revelation! This stuff is terrific!" I read this very, very critically. We both did.

Helen: I haven't read it at all for a long time. [laughter]

Bill: What did it say? Did it contradict itself on page 80 from what it said on page 23? But it didn't! I don't know anyone who cannot contradict themselves over even a few pages. It's that kind of thing and more importantly, I tried out some of these principles and they worked.

Female questioner: Have you had any more automatic writing experiences since then?

Bill: It was clairaudience really. She heard the words and wrote them down. It was not automatic.

Questioner: Have you had anymore experiences since then?

Helen: Every once and awhile, I wrote over a hundred poems after that. If something special comes up I will sometimes write an answer to it. I probably could, but I haven't felt any particular pressing need to. There’s an awful lot of stuff there already. I'm not sure we need any more.

Questioner: How do you feel that this is different from automatic writing? I don't know that much about it.

Bill: I think there is a difference in that automatic writing is when someone seems to just let the pencil go and things emerge that they are not aware of. Helen heard this very clearly like she would hear a phrase and she would write it down. She was perfectly aware that she first heard it and then she wrote it down. It's like an inner dictation that went on.

Male questioner: You mean, you could do something else simultaneously?

Helen: No, but if something else interrupted me, I could put it down and do the other thing as I very frequently did while at the office. We had all kinds of emergencies happening. And I would pick it up again and go on with it. Not simultaneously, no.

Judy: For everyone here, we should make this point that what we would like you to remember, and many of you already know, is that Helen is not the only one who can do this. Let me see some hands. How many in this room do some writing? Yeah, don't be shy. I mean listening to an internal voice and writing down what you hear. It isn't so rare and I've been in the field many, many years as Bill Roll has and Stanley Krippner. We've met many people. In fact, the first time I told Dr. J.B. Rhine about this, it was a very noisy conference and we went aside and he asked me what I was doing. It was about a month or so after I received the material. I was very excited about it and wanted to share it with him, and since he didn't have any background and didn't know whether or not I did, he said, "Be very careful, Judy. I've got trunks full of this stuff at home." And he means that many people listen and write. My husband has been working on his own means of spiritual growth for six years now, way before I met Helen and Bill and Ken. Anyone who starts working with this material and starts working with his or her own internal guide, teacher, Holy Spirit, Voice for God, whatever you want to call it, and will allow this to happen or wants this to happen will most likely find that he or she can do the same thing. And that is very important because if only Helen could do it we would all be in trouble.

Helen: Doesn't seem likely.

Male questioner: I've heard the comment that the language is psychological...

Helen: I'm a psychologist.

Questioner: When you hear something you hear it in words that are from your vocabulary?

Helen: No, it defines its own terms. It is psychologically slanted. There is no question about that.

Judy: We might say to this group because they are all very open, that you had questions about this in the beginning and did ask internally "why me?"

Helen: I sure did! And I'm still asking it. The answer that I originally got was extremely practical. I was the one “because I was going to do it.” And this was obviously true. Aside from these simple facts, no matter how clear to me I may get in language, there is no argument. However, I was thinking about this earlier and what I got may be relevant, particularly to this group. I'm a simple soul, and I don't know anything about this thing. But I was given a very short explanation of what was happening before and I did see the books before they had been taken down. Very strange experiences. I told William that I was going to do something very unexpected.

Bill: You did.

Helen: And the book in the treasure chest and the whole thing. But just before this happened I sort of got an explanation that we were kind of heading for a catastrophe and that people were being called back all over the world to do certain things in a kind of coordinated plan of help. That this was part of it. It was by no means the only part. That this was one form and this form would be for some people. In other parts of the world there would be other forms that would probably bear no resemblance to this, but the content would be the same in the end. That this was a special assignment which I, in a moment I frankly don't remember, had contracted to do. So I was going to do it! It was, as I said, part of a much larger curriculum and it was in a sense a tiny part of it. I But as I said, it comes in other forms and I have an equal respect for any one of them. If this had come along and said it was the only way to God, I would have thrown it away myself.

Male questioner: When, if ever, did the voice identify itself?

Helen: Hush, Ken

Judy: She doesn't want to say it out loud.

Helen: I don't mind. I just don't want to be locked up.

Ken: The voice never says it is Jesus, but it is spoken in first person. He talks about the crucifixion, he talks about the resurrection, and it’s obvious that this is Jesus.

Bill: There's no question.

Helen: There's not much question.

Bill: Well, she argued with him all the time.

Helen: You must believe in something if you fight with it so much. I did not welcome it.

Male questioner: Ken, what is your background as a Jew?

Ken: In terms of my background, I was born a Jew and I was brought up as a Jew. And four years ago I converted to Catholicism for reasons that I am really not sure. But I think it was obviously in preparation for the Course. I guess if I had to say what I am I would say a Christian. In the light of this Course everyone is a Christian.

Helen: I think Ken's story is a little more interesting than that. Because due to the fact that he was baptized and he insisted on writing his dissertation to the horror of his whole committee, on mysticism in St. Theresa of Avila. How he got through is a miracle in itself, believe me. I don't think Adelphi will ever be the same. But he is a clinical psychologist. But the fact that he did this. The priest that baptized him spoke to a friend of ours and said, "I have baptized a guy who is a psychologist." And that is how we met him. If he hadn't done that we probably would have never met him. He had a very strong desire to become a monk. And when he stayed at the monastery he felt very much at home there. He doesn't quite know why he did many of the things he did, but I think we all did things that led us to each other. Like one day I was copying pictures in a book of my husband's and it seemed like a good idea to become a psychologist. I don't really know why. There is sort of a way in which we all came together which is very odd.

Bill: Very odd.

Male questioner: Have you tried to bring to memory any previous lives in which you were together?

Helen: I have nothing to say about that. I don't know.

Judy: The Course talks about reincarnation as being irrelevant.

Helen: It does not consider it wrong by the way.

Female questioner: Did you say that you have to loose your ego, give up your ego? Is that true? What is the ego anyway?

Helen: I objected very strongly to the term originally, but I wrote it down because this is what it said it should be. I found out subsequently that both the terms ego and self are used in eastern religion a great deal which I did not know. I think that is probably the way in which it used it and probably where the term came from. As I said it was alien to me because psychologists do not use the word ego the way this one does.

[Major discontinuity in the tape. Tape resumes with Helen discussing her scroll vision.]

Helen: It was a very old one, and I opened it up and unrolled it to the middle panel on which were written only two words, "God is." For an atheist this is not very comforting, but I again looked at it and that was all there was. But the scroll was much bigger. So I unrolled it further and there were two very large blank panels, one on the left, one on the right. And anywhere I looked at it little letters jumped up, you know. And I thought the explanation was that if I wanted to look at the left I would be able to look at the past. And if I wanted to look at the right, I would be able to foretell the future. It was all written there. And I thought about it for awhile and I was undecided for a bit. And then I thought, "No, that's not what I want." I kind of rolled it back and just left the center panel and said, "This will content me." So I just kept the "God is" and I didn't want the other things. Alright, Kenneth, I never conclude this. He always does.

Ken: And Helen heard this internal voice say to her, "Thank you. This time you made it."

Helen: You see, I don't understand what these things actually mean, but I did know that it was a very necessary test and that I had passed it. And I think that the conclusion of this is even more interesting. About six years later I was in Israel and saw the cave. There was no question about it except for the position of the water level which I said should be up to here. Bill said that two thousand years ago it was.

Bill: I'd read that in the guide book. This is at Qumran.

Helen: Where they found the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Bill: We were standing in that very bleak area in Qumran. It was intensely hot and I couldn't imagine you would enjoy this because it wasn't really your kind of thing. And you suddenly recognized something about the place. You knew it extremely well.

Helen: I thought I was coming home. I take no stand on reincarnation at all. I don't see where it should be true or false, and I actually don't care. But this was a knock-out of an experience. I saw this cave so distinctly. I'm almost convinced there is something further down from where they found the Dead Sea scrolls. I think they'll find others in time. I doubt if it will say that. I have found that a number of things that I have seen have an allegorical side and a real side to them too. Or they have some connection with the physical universe too. Or they were something that was either going to happen that is meaningful. I did see the books before I even took it down. I've seen a lot of strange things for a respectable research psychologist. So you can see where it has been a rather difficult transition for me to make. Lord knows I've had a lot of help with it. I'm trying to work on being grateful for the experience. That'll be nice. Don't you think?

Member of audience: We are grateful for it!

Helen: Thank you. That is a big help to me. Very big help. I have heard it from other people and it always means a lot to me. So maybe next time when I meet all you good people (we do have to leave pretty much now) I'll say let's all be grateful together. And you're going to pray for me (over there, where are you?). You are!

Female member of audience: All of us. All of us!

Helen: Thank you, I'm sure it will help us all. We do have to take off. [applause]