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Washington Women’s Heritage Project records, 1900-2000 
University of Washington Libraries Special Collections 
Saranel Binyon 
February 4, 1998 
Cassette 3, Side 2 
 
 
Saranel Binyon  00:00 
[Recording begins mid-sentence]-- look at other cultures and take what's best from each one and 
give them the best of us, I think it could work. And so much of it is going to be not allowing 
anyone to have power over anyone else, and how that shakes out. Democratic? Maybe, I think 
it's going to be different than the democracy that we know it, that we know today, it's going to be 
a different type of thing. I don't know what that is, but when each person has his or her rights and 
no other person can infringe on it, should be a pretty fun society. And I think it's going to take 
women to move towards, toward that arena.  
 
Katherin Hervey  00:46 
Is that kind of what you meant when you said before that you don't think that government should 
really be a part of our lives, but everyone-- 
 
Saranel Binyon  00:58 
I don't see how they can be, you know, because government means power, you know. They say, 
"Well, you've got to have laws." Yes, you can have laws, but you don't have to enforce them the 
way they're enforced today. Yes, there will always be people that are not nice, and we will have 
to have some sort of government or something to deal with that type of person. But I really think, 
in my heart of hearts, that when we learn to feed the body correctly, to train the brainwave 
correctly, and to have freedom, to not worry about staying alive, that there will be fewer 
criminals and fewer bad people. I think most of it is, it's a chemical imbalance anyway-- 
 
Katherin Hervey  01:47 
Or [?vital pressure?].  
 
Saranel Binyon  01:49 
Yeah, something like that. You know, it's not, I don't think it's inherent in man to be bad. [Side 
comment] Our plant is talking over here. 
 
Katherin Hervey  01:59 
It's saying hello. [Returns to interview.] Explain more about your role as a therapist. Now, you 
said that, you know, that you find it odd that people come to you asking, you know, "Why am I 
here?" You know, "Where am I going after this life?" And stuff like that. Why, why do you think 
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that people come to you and then, how do you, how do you deal with it in that respect, when they 
do? Within your role as a therapist, you know?  
 
Saranel Binyon  02:37 
I'm not real sure why, and I deal with it by answering the questions, probably not in a way that 
that most Westerners would understand. I think that I sort of allow, well, I do allow my higher 
self to answer those questions, because I think I know nothing when someone asks me a question 
like that, I have to move the ego part of me over and let the part that's not bound in ego answer 
the question. And I think that that's how I deal with it as a therapist. And a lot of times I don't 
know the answer and don't hesitate to say that, you know, I don't know. I know what I think. 
 
Katherin Hervey  03:24 
And then do they want to know what you think? 
 
Saranel Binyon  03:26 
Mm-hmm, usually. And even if they don't agree, it's at least given them another paradigm to look 
at. They have another view, and I think that's important. The more we know, the better off we'll 
be, no matter what it is that we know. The more we know of anything, the better we are to handle 
whatever else comes up. 
 
Katherin Hervey  03:50 
So do you, do you kind of do this along with, with the neurofeedback? 
 
Saranel Binyon  04:01 
Mm-hmm, if it comes up. And strangely enough, it usually does. I think that anytime you get 
close enough to someone, physically and spiritually, to, to see and to work with brain waves, or 
to see and work with the energetic body, which is basically what I'm doing, there will be an 
exchange of energy on many levels. And it's on some level that there's a connection, and then the 
client probably wants to know more about it. So it's, you know, kind of a, an opening and an 
allowing to happen. 
 
Katherin Hervey  04:01 
Is there kind of a point where the machine or the computer stops and you kind of, you kind of 
take over? 
 
Saranel Binyon  04:20 
Well, not necessarily. I don't even have to do that. I mean, you know, as the people learn to 
balance their brains, they're going to want to know more who they are. And I don't even know 
that it has that much to do with me, I think it has to do with the process that they go through. 
When they decide to feel better, when they decide there's a better way other than what they've 
tried before, and it is learning to manage the brain, learning to really run this, our vehicle, then 
they're going to want to know, okay, you know, I can do this, what else can I do? If we use just a 
little sliver of our brain, imagine being able to use more of it. I mean, why can't we levitate? You 
know, I think we can, if we knew we could. We-- look at the dolphins, you know, they use a lot 
of their brains. We don't use ours, but I think we're going to. The evolution that we're going to 
see is not necessarily a physical evolution, it's going to be a mental evolution, as we evolve into 
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more aware, more alert, more thinking beings. When we can use telepathy with no problem, and 
many people can already, when we can have [inaudible], and many people do that already. So, if 
one person can train the brain to do that one thing, then society can. So that, I think, has to do 
with evolution. So, to answer your question, it's not me as a person, it's the whole energetic shift 
that we're feeling, I just happened to get to watch it, and it's fun. 
 
Katherin Hervey  04:20 
What kind of clients do you, do you normally get? Coming to you for a whole variety of stuff? 
 
Saranel Binyon  04:20 
A whole variety of stuff. I'll tell you what I don't get. And this is, this is an interesting thing to 
me. I don't get child molesters, I don't get people that are criminally minded, I don't get, I don't 
get suicides either strangely enough, or I haven't yet. But that is not a mindset that comes to me. 
The one of the therapists that I know quite well works beautifully with people that abuse 
children, moving them out of that mindset. And they come to her, you know, they've never come 
to me, thank God. I think that we kind of call to us on some level, what, what we can and are 
willing to deal with, but I'll deal with just about anything, except cruelty, [?I won't do that?]. 
 
Katherin Hervey  05:25 
People who come to you because they want to-- 
 
Saranel Binyon  07:39 
If they've been child abusers, which, to me, is the most hideous, or a woman beater, I don't know 
that I'd ever want to deal with them. I don't have a lot of sympathy for them. I don't understand it 
on any level. So, I wouldn't be any good for them. I think in order to deal with any kind of 
dysfunction, you have to kind of understand it on some level. [Siren in background] That's why I 
work well with teenagers, I can understand their little [?lies?].  
 
Katherin Hervey  08:28 
Do you, do you work with a lot of teenagers?  
 
Saranel Binyon  08:33 
Mm-hmm, I do more adults than anybody, than any, any age group, but I work well with 
teenagers.  
 
Katherin Hervey  08:40 
Last time you said that, that, basically that we're all being controlled in some way by the dark 
forces, you said, for lack of, lack of a better word, how do you feel that you're being controlled? 
Or do you?  
 
Saranel Binyon  08:59 
Well, I'm sure, I'm sure I am. I'm probably more aware of it. By the dark forces, meaning, how 
many illnesses of society do I choose to ignore, do I do nothing about? I think that when we see 
an injustice and we do nothing, that's true evil. When we see someone kicking a dog and we 
don't jerk the person's head off, we are just as evil as he is. Or if we see a hungry child and we 
don't attempt to feed that child, we are evil. So, in that respect, I think I'm being controlled 
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because I'm, I get ambivalent about a lot of it, much of the time. And I think that if evil has a 
face, ambivalence is, and indifference is the face. 
 
Katherin Hervey  09:54 
The idea that you can't feed every hungry person that you see in the street-- 
 
Saranel Binyon  09:58 
It's a cop-out, it's a cop-out. And I think that, that that's where evil lives, therefore nothing ever 
gets done because it's too much trouble or whatever. 
 
Katherin Hervey  10:09 
Do you think all women should learn how to shoot a gun? 
 
Saranel Binyon  10:20 
Hmm, not necessarily. I think all women should at least have martial arts to know that they do 
have control over their body. A gun is just an extension of that. Actually, I'm kind of against 
guns, period. It just happens to be something that I was taught. Good for me. I wouldn't hesitate 
to shoot if I needed to. And this, I know without a shadow of a doubt. Whether all women need 
to know that or not, I don't think so. I do think that they need to learn to control their minds and 
their bodies. 
 
Katherin Hervey  11:04 
In what way?  
 
Saranel Binyon  11:06 
To defend themselves against whatever comes in. And I said minds and bodies, so not only do 
we need to defend ourselves physically, we also do emotionally. You know, how many times do 
we let people say ugly things to us and not come back at them. If we could shoot, we'd probably 
shoot them. Since we don't really need to do that, we can do it in other ways. But I think we do 
need to know that we can do it. And again, that sticks to the anger. 
 