After reading Brian Weiss's book on reincarnation, I simply had to get another book on alternative thinking about reality. It had to be well-written, though, and not about alien cities in the caves of the Moon. Kindle Books is always kind enough to track my reading, which gives some thoughts to paranoia, but it helps, even as I am pigeon-holed. On scanning, up came the usual suspects, and there among them were the Seth books by Jane Roberts.
For some reason, I associate the name "Seth" with demonic beings, and for that reason felt insecure about reading any of the series, although I did one a year or so ago and presented it here in the blog. But they, the books in the series, are very well written and not goofy at all - except perhaps for some of the root ideas presented. The take the last book I read had on Christ was a little startling and, I might add, goofy. But there was some good stuff in that one, too, so I punched the "buy" key for the one titled "The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events." As an anthropologist, that's just my line!
So far, at 70% read, I have not been startled by any of the information. That we, as humans in general and as an interrelated set of societies in particular, share a group mind is nothing new to me. I first noticed this back in the raging 60's, where not only slogans were shared among we baby boomers - those are easy to spread - but also core values and ideas that were considerably different from our parents. It was as if a mental force had run through us all and created a current, much like a springtime flood, that would sweep away much of the old. And it was true, and it did, for better and for worse. But history will never show how this occurred - it will instead only patch together certain things - the Vietnam War, the drug culture, the new post-war wealth and surge of births - to come to a foregone and objective conclusion, in hind-sight.
But Seth understands. For those of you not familiar, Seth is the being, or energy, that Jane channels while in a trance, while her husband dictates. It is not as voo-doo-y as it sounds, however; they recognize that this force might be the inner Jane, or something else entirely. They just don't know and admit it. And the info that Jane-Seth gives is at times very deep and, to me, convincing.
In the world of Seth, life and death are co-continuous constructs from soul matter. For humans and our world, this soul matter is constituted by choice in another dimension (I use this term loosely) instructed (from a higher dimension) to pattern our manifested, or physical, reality. Our reality, then, is a projection or continuation in our limited sphere of a much higher meaning - which is, in itself, a continuation of a higher meaning. When we focus only on the material level, then, we are missing the greater point of our own existence, and often miss the workings of the world that have been prepared for us at the higher level. In this "deeper" world, we find that: we do have choice; that the world is made and directed towards the good; and that we have great opportunities to reconstitute this reality, to fulfill the higher agenda of the higher level, if we can only see further past the thinness of the material level.
I hope that wasn't too confusing, but let me put it to more practical use: in mass movements, thoughts ARE bundled by many individuals to create a new reality, again, for the better, but in the short term, often for worse; and for the individual, the possibilities in this life - that we might understand and even change our reality by going past the social-mind structure - are, in this context, nearly infinite.
I will narrow some of these broad ideas a bit more in another blog, but what stood up immediately to me after reading last night was that the answer to the question, "if God is good, why is there suffering in the world?, was given by Seth. While standard theologians tackle this usually through the concept of choice (free will), Seth goes further by proclaiming that suffering is not what we think it is. According to Seth, we choose our suffering (everything is a choice at the higher level concerning the material level) for specific purposes that lead to the good - to further growth on a spiritual level. Child dies? He had wanted to, often because his inner soul felt that it was time to move on. You become a victim of genocide? You have decided, along with the others, to die - for both personal reasons, and to change the reality of your kind in the perceived present.
In the end, though, life and death are simply different phases of existence, much like sleep is to waking, or night is to day. We continue, as Seth says, living and dying simultaneously, each state of existence informing the other according to the dictates of both personal and cosmic growth. In the end, there is no suffering and tragedy; in the greater sphere, all is going to the good, even the bad, if we could see a little deeper. In reflection, this is not all that different, really, from the true believer of the Christian God, for, when all other arguments wither, he is told simply that the thoughts of God are not the thoughts of men. And so it is; but for Seth, they could be.
In trying to explain the general tenure of the book, I feel that I have failed in relaying many of the little gems that sparkle through the text. This is not as good as the last Seth book, as the material is rather thin; but it does do one thing that I believe is of utmost importance - it gives the reader the sense that there is much more to the world than we know, and that every life has deep and great meaning; and if we are willing, the frontiers of knowledge - not just the dry book kind - become limitless, and the discoveries astounding and wonderful. FK
For some reason, I associate the name "Seth" with demonic beings, and for that reason felt insecure about reading any of the series, although I did one a year or so ago and presented it here in the blog. But they, the books in the series, are very well written and not goofy at all - except perhaps for some of the root ideas presented. The take the last book I read had on Christ was a little startling and, I might add, goofy. But there was some good stuff in that one, too, so I punched the "buy" key for the one titled "The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events." As an anthropologist, that's just my line!
So far, at 70% read, I have not been startled by any of the information. That we, as humans in general and as an interrelated set of societies in particular, share a group mind is nothing new to me. I first noticed this back in the raging 60's, where not only slogans were shared among we baby boomers - those are easy to spread - but also core values and ideas that were considerably different from our parents. It was as if a mental force had run through us all and created a current, much like a springtime flood, that would sweep away much of the old. And it was true, and it did, for better and for worse. But history will never show how this occurred - it will instead only patch together certain things - the Vietnam War, the drug culture, the new post-war wealth and surge of births - to come to a foregone and objective conclusion, in hind-sight.
But Seth understands. For those of you not familiar, Seth is the being, or energy, that Jane channels while in a trance, while her husband dictates. It is not as voo-doo-y as it sounds, however; they recognize that this force might be the inner Jane, or something else entirely. They just don't know and admit it. And the info that Jane-Seth gives is at times very deep and, to me, convincing.
In the world of Seth, life and death are co-continuous constructs from soul matter. For humans and our world, this soul matter is constituted by choice in another dimension (I use this term loosely) instructed (from a higher dimension) to pattern our manifested, or physical, reality. Our reality, then, is a projection or continuation in our limited sphere of a much higher meaning - which is, in itself, a continuation of a higher meaning. When we focus only on the material level, then, we are missing the greater point of our own existence, and often miss the workings of the world that have been prepared for us at the higher level. In this "deeper" world, we find that: we do have choice; that the world is made and directed towards the good; and that we have great opportunities to reconstitute this reality, to fulfill the higher agenda of the higher level, if we can only see further past the thinness of the material level.
I hope that wasn't too confusing, but let me put it to more practical use: in mass movements, thoughts ARE bundled by many individuals to create a new reality, again, for the better, but in the short term, often for worse; and for the individual, the possibilities in this life - that we might understand and even change our reality by going past the social-mind structure - are, in this context, nearly infinite.
I will narrow some of these broad ideas a bit more in another blog, but what stood up immediately to me after reading last night was that the answer to the question, "if God is good, why is there suffering in the world?, was given by Seth. While standard theologians tackle this usually through the concept of choice (free will), Seth goes further by proclaiming that suffering is not what we think it is. According to Seth, we choose our suffering (everything is a choice at the higher level concerning the material level) for specific purposes that lead to the good - to further growth on a spiritual level. Child dies? He had wanted to, often because his inner soul felt that it was time to move on. You become a victim of genocide? You have decided, along with the others, to die - for both personal reasons, and to change the reality of your kind in the perceived present.
In the end, though, life and death are simply different phases of existence, much like sleep is to waking, or night is to day. We continue, as Seth says, living and dying simultaneously, each state of existence informing the other according to the dictates of both personal and cosmic growth. In the end, there is no suffering and tragedy; in the greater sphere, all is going to the good, even the bad, if we could see a little deeper. In reflection, this is not all that different, really, from the true believer of the Christian God, for, when all other arguments wither, he is told simply that the thoughts of God are not the thoughts of men. And so it is; but for Seth, they could be.
In trying to explain the general tenure of the book, I feel that I have failed in relaying many of the little gems that sparkle through the text. This is not as good as the last Seth book, as the material is rather thin; but it does do one thing that I believe is of utmost importance - it gives the reader the sense that there is much more to the world than we know, and that every life has deep and great meaning; and if we are willing, the frontiers of knowledge - not just the dry book kind - become limitless, and the discoveries astounding and wonderful. FK
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