The Vortex Workshop, Part 1

Once upon a time, I stayed away from books that claimed to be channeled. Too many of them were supposedly channeled by space brothers on Pluto or Zeta Reticuli and were unreadable.

Then in the 1970s, Seth Speaks by Jane Roberts was published and I changed my mind. Seth’s books are intelligent, philosophical and cover every imaginable facet about the nature of reality. The central theme of these books is, in Seth’s words: “You get what you concentrate on.” The problem with the Seth books is that they are lacking in practicalities – how to apply all this marvelous information to your own life.

Enter Esther and Jerry Hicks. Esther channels a group of souls who call themselves Abraham. The message is pretty much the same as Seth’s – that we all create our own reality through our thoughts, beliefs, emotions. But the Hicks take the practicality of this information to a whole new level. The primary tenets of their material  revolve around the law of attraction, that everything and everyone is vibration, and that our emotions are the barometer that signal when we’re in the vortex, “a vibrational state of being that is resistance free.” We enter this vortex during meditation and other altered states, through creativity, during sleep, and in death. It is the place from which we create our realities.

So the other day, Megan and I attended a Hicks workshop – her second, my first. The image above perfectly depicts the energy that infused this workshop from the opening at 9:30 to the closing at 4:00 PM. This energy is palpable and grew to a fever pitch throughout the day. I think the entire workshop falls under the third secret of synchronicity – The Theory of Everything.

Even though Esther told a story that was clearly a synchronicity, I never once heard that word. I never even heard the word coincidence. In contrast with Seth, this is interesting. At one point, Jane channeled the afterlife thoughts of Carl Jung. And Seth certainly knew a thing or two about synchronicity. 

The Morning Session

At the start, both Esther and Jerry greeted the audience of 300. Then Esther said something like, “Are you ready?”The crowd went wild, she smiled, waved good-bye.  Then she bowed her head, shut her eyes, and entered an altered state.  She spoke for 30-45 minutes on a number of topics. Snippets from my opening notes:
     – You choose with your attention to a subject.
     – You are always consciousness
     – By talking about a problem, discussing it endlessly, you focus on it and then the problem expands. But an equivalent solution is also expanding and is available to you in the vortex.  Your non-physical self has the solution.
    – There’s a tipping point, where you’re willing to tune to the solution rather than to the problem. How much discomfort are you willing to endure before the solution presents itself?
     – Negative emotion means you’re deviating from what you want. When you shout NO or insist that you don’t want something, you’re giving attention to the thing you don’t want. Instead, focus on what you DO want. Don’t focus on the absence of what you want. This is how you de-activate all the stuff in your vibration that is unwanted.
  While Abraham was talking, I could feel everyone sifting through their own experiences, finding the times they had focused on what they didn’t want and then didn’t understand why they could attain what they DID want.

After a short break, the group returned and this was where things got really interesting. Abraham said, “Is everyone refreshed?” The crowd shouted that they were and Abraham said, “What now?” Throughout the room, hands shot into the air. I realized that many of the attendees were repeats and knew this meant it was time for the “hot seat,” where Abraham chooses someone to come forward and have a one-on-one conversation with this group of souls.

In every instance, regardless of how personal or broad the individual’s questions were, Abraham always brought it back into a larger context. One young man, a musician, was concerned that the lyricist in his group wrote lyrics that he found troubling. Abraham advised him to focus on his enjoyment of the music they were producing and less on the lyrics. In time, as he withdrew his attention to the lyrics, he would attract a lyricist who wrotes lyrics every bit as beautiful as the music. He pointed out that an audience always resonates with a performer who is in synch with who they are. “Don’t push against the lyrics or the lyricist. Focus on what is satisfying about the music.”

Abraham advised him – and all of us – to get into the vortex (non-resistance) in any way we could. Then, from that place, focus on your desires and “do your affirmations, your visualizations, and speak affirmatively, affirm out loud, be specific. Allowing is the path of least resistance.”

One of the most interesting individuals in the hot seat was a guy who kept asking, “How do you know that? How can you prove that?”  At this point, we were all looking at each other – I mean, this guy was challenging Abraham!The exchange was heated, stern, funny, and again, Abraham put it into a larger context:
    -When you’re in the vortex, you know it. It’s undeniable knowledge, a state of being.
    -Find your vortex through your emotions.Emotion is the response to the direction of your thoughts. Prove this through your life experience.
     – First and foremost, care about how you feel. When you feel down, reach for a better feeling, a better thought, and your mood will shift.

    The afternoon session got intense and produced some of the best nuggets of wisdom I’ve heard in years. I’ll post that tomorrow.