During set up for the shoot that day Julie and the class got into a discussion on how she started channeling in 1976. She also talks about her current understanding of the process.

   Julie: One summer I taught a class at the New School on the symbolism of astrology and its relationship to psychology. And there was a woman in my class who came up to me at the end of the eight sessions and said, “I’ve been studying channeling with a woman in Connecticut. I’ve begun to channel myself.” She was a soloist at the New York City Opera. “Could I do a session with you? I’ve really enjoyed this class. I would value your opinion on my channeling.” I said, “Sure.”
   Her name was Emily Derr and she came and did a session for me and she really only knew me as her teacher. She didn’t know anything about me, personal. And she said, “Collect some questions you’d like to ask, not fortune telling questions, but just questions about your life.” And I did, and sat down together; ordinary September afternoon. And she chanted, just the way we do before class. And then her voice changed which seems to go when a lot of people’s work in altered states (and there are various theories about it.) And she did a really extraordinary and very helpful session about my life and decisions I was needing to make on my path. Just guidance, not fortune telling.
   And after she left, I thought, Gee, I wonder if I can do that. So I sat down and I chanted, and I opened my mouth. And this very loud voice came out and said, “We greet you.” And I was all alone. I did the session. It was over. I took notes. I still have the notes. And I was very excited and pleased. And also, since I had been trained in psychology, I understood the dissociated states were a little tricky. And Phil came home and I said, “You’ll never guess what happened this afternoon and I know you won’t guess so I’ll tell you.” And he was excited about it.
   And I decided, well, I’m going to experiment with it, invite my friends over. And I was teaching astrology and Sue was in my class, and we were working on the Seth material. So you saw some of my first channeling.

   Sue: Yeah.

   Julie: Do you want to talk a little bit about your first impressions?

   Sue: Oh, we were like freaked out. There were only two of us. I think it was only Dia and me.

   Kathy: You were really freaked out?

   Sue: Oh yeah. It was… You felt like… We went into trance right with it.

   Julie: Kinda catching.

   Sue: And we felt like you were sort of levitating. There was all this energy in the room. It was like nothing I had ever experienced. It wasn’t like a meditation. It was much more dynamic than that, with lots and lots and lots of energy. I don’t remember anything that was said except that it was extraordinary. IN those days your eyes rolled way back.

   Julie: Way back. They don’t anymore. I know, I was looking at old videos, I though, ooh, that’s unnerving.

   Sue: Your eyes rolled back so only the whites showed. And, there was this strange voice, and everything about you changed. Your face…

   Julie: My face changed, my hand movements changed.

   Sue: And we didn’t know what it was. And you didn’t know what it was. Sorta thought, hey, watch this! And she would pop into this other character and it was like, “Whoa!”
   We made our peace with it right away. There was never any sense that it was… there was never any fear around it. We weren’t afraid. It was very benign for the session. It was… I remember it to this day feeling like we had just popped into another reality.

   Julie: And you were wonderful. You were, you know, I always felt supported. I mean this was an experiment.

   Sue: Oh yeah.

   Julie: For all of us.
   And I want on and invited friends to sit with me. And invited a couple of friends, one I remember in particular, who was a physicist, because I thought it would be interesting for him to ask me questions about physics, since it is a subject about which I know nothing. I know more now, about quantum physics. Saying I would have to answer in lay… ([slaps the mic accidently] I’m not supposed to do that right? The microphone’s here.) …Lay person’s terms. And I had, not at that time but shortly thereafter, I worked with a psychiatrist name John Pierrakos whose… We came to him… My friends Pat and Dick had worked with him, and we came to him as Helix teachers for supervision, and then I worked with him privately. And his, then wife, was a channel. Eva. So I knew I was in good hands. He could watch my channeling and tell me if he thought… you know [circles hands, laughs], I was in any psychological peril. And he just laughed, “No.” So very fortunate in having that support.
   And then I just went on and did it, with friends, and then eventually clients.
   My understanding of what I do has changed over the years. I think, like Eileen Garret until the end of her life said she was never quite sure what she was doing, exactly. I began by having an understanding, much like Jane Roberts, that Micciah was a non-physical entity who came through me, although unlike Jane Roberts, who channeled Seth, Micciah has said that he/she had never been in the physical realm, and Seth had.
   And then for a while, I decided that it was a kind of healing theater. That it was a larger aspect of myself and expressed intuitions that were available to me in an altered state, but it was really an enhanced aspect of me.
   And then, most of you know this story, one summer Jon and I were working together upstate and I was channeling and Micciah said sort of laughing, “You can think we are whatever you would like. As it happens, we are not a larger aspect of you. We are…” Now I understand it as an energy cluster. So my understanding has changed again. It’s a non-physical energy cluster, to which… And I can attune to only part of it. And it arrives through me as a personality. And that… You know, I’m always open to other ideas and possibilities. That’s where I am with it at the moment.

   Stacy: Is there any sense of like why the energy form seems to be?

   Julie: To be of service. To be of service and Micciah has often said that, “We teach you and you teach us.” And she’ll say, and may say this time, “There are many… When you meet there are many non-physical energies in the room with you, learning about the physical realm from you.” So, the exchange is mutual. The intention, always, is to be of service. That’s my understanding of it.