[Helen Wambach Ph. D.] :
Book Review 225
Wambach then explains why she used Chicago as a source for
her data. She wanted to see if the data she received from her previous
work in California matched up in some way with the Chicago data,
to dispel any possibility that the answers her participants gave her on
her questionnaires were inuenced by their geographical and cultural
backgrounds. The rst hypnotic induction she conducted was for the
“birth trip.” She describes how she also slips into trance while inducing
her participants to follow her on the hypnogogic journey. Here is a bit
of an example of the avor of the experience:
I would get a feeling that in a certain corner of the room someone
was experiencing diculty. I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what this was,
as I am not sure when I am experiencing telepathic communication
from others. Like most of us, I require some kind of objective proof
before I can accept telepathy as a fact. But still, I felt that in the right-
hand corner of the room there was someone who was experiencing
some anxiety. I sent a thought to this person that all would go well
with them and they could trust me. (Wambach, 2020, p. 2)
This comment reminded me of Carl Jung’s “transference grid,”
where not only do we convey information through our voice to the ears
of whomever we are communicating with (conscious to conscious) but
also in a variety of other ways, one being “unconscious to unconscious.”
Certainly we can apply this concept to any form of communication with
any sentient being (or possibly non-sentient as well!). In hypnosis it
would seem the “unconscious to unconscious” route would be more
prominent, as well as conscious (hypnotist) to unconscious (subject)
(Jung, 1946/1969, pp. 163–323).
Aer the hypnotic induction, Wambach asks her subjects a number
of questions such as:
Now I want you to go back into your memory and nd a picture of
yourself that was taken between the ages of six and twelve. Look
closely at that picture. Where were you when that picture was taken?
You will remember more and more details of that place where the
picture was taken. (Wambach, 2020, p. 3)
Throughout this series of sessions with her subjects conducted
in one long day, her own personal experience is recorded: dierent
226 Book Review
images that come up for her, some abstract and some relating to the
questions she is asking, and they are interjected into the book. She ends
up asking quite a few questions (dozens) including questions about her
participants’ choice of birth parents, partners, whether they wanted to
be born or not, etc. When she is nished (aer about four hours with
her participants sitting on the oor the entire time), she takes them out
of trance and has them all ll out a detailed questionnaire.
The next chapters detail the answers, her impressions of the
answers, and an overall analysis of the session(s). It is again emphasized
that her goal in conducting these sessions in the Midwest (Chicago) was
to compare the results to her results in California where most of her
previous work was performed. She says in the early part of this chapter
that she did not see much dierence between California and Chicago.
Essentially the rest of the book focuses on analyzing the answers
in her questionnaire, moving from topic to topic, which are (as chapter
headings): “Choosing to Live Again”, “Choosing the Twentieth Century
and Choosing One’s Sex”, “Why Are We Here on Earth? Have We
Known Our Family and Friends in Other Lifetimes?”, “When Does the
Soul Enter the Fetus? Is the Soul of the Infant Aware of the Feelings
of the Mother?”, “Taking the Big Step. Getting Born”, and “Adopted
Children. Premature Births. Caesareans” (Wambach, 2020, p. v). These
are fascinating questions, and the answers from her hundreds of
participants are even more fascinating and intriguing.
Imagine a quantitative research article with many charts, with
columns containing percentages of specic types of responses: sex of
participant, age of participant, whether the participant has been under
past life hypnosis before, etc. And then take all that data, and rather than
keep it in “chart format” verbalize it all in a narrative. It is a qualitative
presentation of a quantitative study. The book is not quite that sterile.
Wambach does include her own personal interjections about her own
life and other experiences she knows about from other participants
that are relevant to a particular participant’s personal response. She
also allows for the subjective, heartfelt, responses to her questions,
presented in the participant’s own words, which a quantitative report
would have little use for.
Wambach also makes much eort to straddle the fence between
a serious quantitative analysis and a more qualitative approach by
Book Review 227
inserting percentages through-
out: “Only 11 percent of the
sample reported being aware of
being inside the fetus any time
between conception and the six-
month gestation period” (p. 92)
and “When all the 750 cases were
analyzed, 89 percent of all the
subjects responding said that they
did not become a part of the fetus
or involved with the fetus until
aer six months of gestation” (p.
78). Although Wambach enjoyed
giving percentages, she also,
seemingly just as oen, referred to
ambiguous phrases such as many
participants or very few subjects
without any numerical indication
as to what those descriptions meant.