History of Spiritual Response Therapy

Robert & Mary Ann Detzler

In the fall of 1985, Dr. Clark Cameron, a sociologist, and his wife Sharon introduced Rev. Robert E. Detzler, a Unity minister; to the psychological therapy method they called Response Therapy. Cameron had been experimenting with and using the pendulum and eight key phrases (or areas) to research and correct subconscious problem areas for clients. (The original eight phrases include Identification through Past Lives listed on the left side of Chart 4A. (Detzler 1989))

Cameron was introduced to the core idea behind this therapy by David Cheek (1968) and Leslie LeCron (1968), who point out in their book, Clinical Hypnotherapy, that an ideomotor response is extremely valuable for locating hidden messages that cause problems in daily life. An ideomotor response is a physical signal such as a finger lift or eye movement made by the subconscious in response to a direct question, bypassing the conscious mind. In Techniques of Hypnotherapy, LeCron (1961) specifically identifies the pendulum as a tool that may be used with the ideomotor response, without hypnosis. Seven of the eight key areas for Cameron’s research were taken from Clinical Hypnotherapy (Cheek and LeCron 1968).

Stories of the healings and life changes resulting from Cameron’s work interested Robert and he scheduled himself for clearing work. He then invited the Camerons to do two mini-workshops at the church for further testing of the system for results and interest. Robert persuaded the Camerons to teach a longer training course; Robert gathered five other students and they each paid $2,500 for twelve Saturday classes spread over a six-month period. Robert’s wife, Rev. Mary Ann Detzler, participated in the second class given by the Camerons under the name of their Stress Research Institute of San Jose, California. In addition to introducing Response Therapy, the classes included reading and reporting on a great many psychological and counseling books and discussing how the mind works.

Three months into the class, Robert was using this method as his primary counseling in the Unity church with great results and appreciation by the clients (although several Board members were disapproving). As the positive feedback and increased size of donations per counseling visit became apparent to the Board, Robert was sanctioned to continue to do this method of clearing. Before the class was finished, he had added the efficiency of charts to the method, thereby saving time and money for the client. Robert had also persuaded and demonstrated to the Camerons the necessity of clearing discarnates (earth-bound souls) and the importance of researching past lives with each and every client.

Robert began adding spiritual aspects to the method and five additional keys (listed on Chart 4A – Inheritance, Discarnates/Blocks & Interference, Past Lives/Other Dimensions, Future Lives, and Fear (Detzler 1989)). He created fan-shaped charts to speed up the work. He began writing about the system in a book, Your Mind Net(Detzler 1988), which was published in 1988 shortly after he taught his first class in this method in March of 1988. Later that book was revised and the name changed to The Freedom Path (Detzler 2006). His work and requests for classes increased until he resigned from the church in May of 1989 to devote himself full-time to Spiritual Response Therapy – SRT (as he now called his expanded spiritual version of the clearing work). By this time, Robert had about eighteen charts, a fledgling study group, and began seeking incorporation recognition as a church in California.

In January of 1990, Robert and Mary Ann moved to Washington State and started traveling to various areas of the United States to teach classes. The Spiritual Response Association – SRA officially became an incorporated non-profit religious educational organization recognized by Washington State and the IRS on April 22, 1991. Since that time a Board of 4 to 9 dedicated directors have assisted the Detzlers in envisioning and running the organization. The California church was dissolved after the formation of SRA. Mary Ann has served as administrator of the organization from the beginning until her retirement in 2009.

Robert presented SRT to the West Coast Dowsers Conference in July of 1989 and 1990, as well as to the National Dowsers Conference in Danville, Vermont in 1989. By September of 1991, he had taught about 500 students the basic principles of SRT. Robert and Mary Ann went to the United Kingdom for the World Healing Exhibition during November of 1994, where he was a presenter. The following year they again went to the World Healing Exhibition where following the exhibition Robert taught a basic SRT workshop in London. During this time Robert was also holding monthly SRT potluck meetings in his home in Washington State. These SRT informational presentations were recorded and offered for sale.

At the turn of the century, the Detzlers were invited to attend a healing One Brain Conference in Hungary. After speaking at the conference, Robert taught a Basic class in a 17^th century castle to 66 students with translators for Polish, Hungarian, and Czech languages. Since then, chapters of Soul Re-Creation (Detzler 2003), plus class materials have been translated into German, Spanish, Czech, Polish, and Hungarian among other languages. By 2003 all three of Robert’s books had been translated and printed into Czech. By 2006 Reverend Detzler had reduced his hours of telephone consulting to half a day and a SRT Consultant manned the telephone at the SRA center the remainder of the day. Robert also reduced his SRT meetings and long-time SRT teacher, Kathryn Hamilton-Cook, began to do recorded informational meetings in Seattle.

As of December 2010, the SRA had approximately 6,800 names on a general mailing list which included subscriptions to the monthly newsletter, Ascension (SRA Publishing 2011) which is translated into six languages. Students and Practitioners reside in over 45 countries. We are truly an international association of Light Workers.

Bibliography

References

Detzler, Robert E. Soul Re-Creation, rev. edition. Redmond: SRC Publishing; 1999.
Detzler, Robert E. The Freedom Path, rev. edition. Lacey: SRC Publishing; 2006.
Detzler, Robert E. Your Mind Net. Redmond: SRC Publishing; 1988.
Detzler, Robert E. SRT Chart 4A Inheritance, Discarnates/Blocks & Interference,
Past Lives/Other Dimensions, Future Lives, and Fear, SRT technique charts. Redmond: SRC Publishing; 1989.
Le Cron, Leslie. Techniques of Hypnotherapy. New York: The Julian Press; 1961.
Le Cron, Leslie, and David Cheek. Clinical Hypnotherapy. New York: Grune & Stratton; 1968.
Spiritual Response Association. Ascension, newsletter. Olympia: SRC Publishing; 2009.