Am well into another book, although that reading has been temporarily halted by March Madness. As a UConn alum, all must stop for the mighty Huskies! In any case, the book is one of the Seth series, by Jane Roberts, "Seth Speaks," written, purportedly, through Jane. Seth is a disembodied entity that has found a medium in Jane. He has been on earth as a human many times, so the entity is more than familiar with our reality. The comments - on reality in general and ours in particular - are surprisingly complex and thoughtful.
Surprisingly, I say, because the Seth series began in 1970 and was probably one of the first New Age books following the flower child wave of the mid and late 60's. Much of what was written then was pop-shallow wishful thinking and immature, but this is not. I will point out the main thrust of the book as read so far in a moment, but first the reason that this book was not read by me earlier. It has to do with mediums and the "ghosts" that they bring down (or in).
I have published an essay before in this site on Marc, a friend who inexplicably joined the Allistor Crowley witch coven in New York City. Crowley was known in the 19th century as an innovative researcher of the occult, but also as a demonic figure who used magical methods to achieve selfish - often very selfish - ends. His name carries the stench of evil. Those who have read the essay know - Marc died of a bizarre suicide after becoming paranoid - schizophrenic, driving a stolen limousine into a truck while in pursuit by the police. Before all this, he had been a philosophy PhD candidate at UMichigan - not exactly in the mold of an evil madman.
There are now umpteen books on magic of all sorts, most selling it as a way to responsible personal discovery. They often involve dealing with ghosts. In both cases, I find most of the authors are playing with fire. For one thing, ghosts are known to be either the psychic fragments left by of those once living - and thereby of little use for knowledge - or lost souls who for some reason cannot evolve or move on to whatever awaits most of us after death. By this logic, they would more than likely be the more disturbed among us. Seth is supposedly not such a creature, but a highly evolved teacher come to help us out of our spiritual crises. That may well be, and the book is proving to be enlightening in certain respects.
But how would I choose my entity, say, if I decided to become a medium?
Mediumship is like magic in general - most of us, myself included, have no reliable map to the alternate realities or spaces where such voices or power come from. In my way of thinking, dabbling in magic is like driving a car without knowing how to steer or use the breaks. One MIGHT get a nice ride from it, but chances are, one would end in a damaging car wreck. This applies to more than what we consider magic. All those who begin serious exploration of spiritual places, through meditation and study or prayer - are always warned by the authorities in those fields to have an experienced guide. If the reader has never explored non-ordinary reality, either by choice or by chance, he might find this conversation strange. But most, I think, would agree - it is so odd at times that we have no experiential background for it. There might well be potential danger in even the simplest attempts to get beyond ordinary reality.
But most of us also know know prayer and simple meditation. We seldom stray with those techniques too far afield for too long. But a medium? This is being taken over, at least in consciousness, by another force. Even if it is only a deeper part of the personality, its dominance could have great disorienting affects, to say the least. And so Seth has come to me to mean something spooky, and perhaps evil.
But from what I have read so far, it is nothing of the sort. I will leave it to Ms. Rogers to give herself to the entity, but Seth's words to date hold no evil or potential for evil, and in most ways are more philosophical than magical. The greatest thing said so far - something that has been echoed for decades in all manner of alternative reality studies - is that consciousness is not a by-product of creation, but creation itself. And, more to the point, that all that IS created is a symbol of something higher - that is, something reflecting and pointing to something of greater potential depth. Such has been my own inner experience, and it is, I think, irrefutable. While we may measure our objective reality with objective tools and envision it as dead or inert, this cannot be the case. It was fathered (and mothered) into creation by something else, and as in all cases of parenting, our reality must carry the genetic imprint of the parent. That imprint is in everything - if we know how to read it. So far, the Seth book is aiding in that reading. It seems safe and serious. Still, I for one will not be calling the spirits down to take over my personal consciousness. As the old maps used to say of unexplored areas, "Here Monsters Be." FK
Surprisingly, I say, because the Seth series began in 1970 and was probably one of the first New Age books following the flower child wave of the mid and late 60's. Much of what was written then was pop-shallow wishful thinking and immature, but this is not. I will point out the main thrust of the book as read so far in a moment, but first the reason that this book was not read by me earlier. It has to do with mediums and the "ghosts" that they bring down (or in).
I have published an essay before in this site on Marc, a friend who inexplicably joined the Allistor Crowley witch coven in New York City. Crowley was known in the 19th century as an innovative researcher of the occult, but also as a demonic figure who used magical methods to achieve selfish - often very selfish - ends. His name carries the stench of evil. Those who have read the essay know - Marc died of a bizarre suicide after becoming paranoid - schizophrenic, driving a stolen limousine into a truck while in pursuit by the police. Before all this, he had been a philosophy PhD candidate at UMichigan - not exactly in the mold of an evil madman.
There are now umpteen books on magic of all sorts, most selling it as a way to responsible personal discovery. They often involve dealing with ghosts. In both cases, I find most of the authors are playing with fire. For one thing, ghosts are known to be either the psychic fragments left by of those once living - and thereby of little use for knowledge - or lost souls who for some reason cannot evolve or move on to whatever awaits most of us after death. By this logic, they would more than likely be the more disturbed among us. Seth is supposedly not such a creature, but a highly evolved teacher come to help us out of our spiritual crises. That may well be, and the book is proving to be enlightening in certain respects.
But how would I choose my entity, say, if I decided to become a medium?
Mediumship is like magic in general - most of us, myself included, have no reliable map to the alternate realities or spaces where such voices or power come from. In my way of thinking, dabbling in magic is like driving a car without knowing how to steer or use the breaks. One MIGHT get a nice ride from it, but chances are, one would end in a damaging car wreck. This applies to more than what we consider magic. All those who begin serious exploration of spiritual places, through meditation and study or prayer - are always warned by the authorities in those fields to have an experienced guide. If the reader has never explored non-ordinary reality, either by choice or by chance, he might find this conversation strange. But most, I think, would agree - it is so odd at times that we have no experiential background for it. There might well be potential danger in even the simplest attempts to get beyond ordinary reality.
But most of us also know know prayer and simple meditation. We seldom stray with those techniques too far afield for too long. But a medium? This is being taken over, at least in consciousness, by another force. Even if it is only a deeper part of the personality, its dominance could have great disorienting affects, to say the least. And so Seth has come to me to mean something spooky, and perhaps evil.
But from what I have read so far, it is nothing of the sort. I will leave it to Ms. Rogers to give herself to the entity, but Seth's words to date hold no evil or potential for evil, and in most ways are more philosophical than magical. The greatest thing said so far - something that has been echoed for decades in all manner of alternative reality studies - is that consciousness is not a by-product of creation, but creation itself. And, more to the point, that all that IS created is a symbol of something higher - that is, something reflecting and pointing to something of greater potential depth. Such has been my own inner experience, and it is, I think, irrefutable. While we may measure our objective reality with objective tools and envision it as dead or inert, this cannot be the case. It was fathered (and mothered) into creation by something else, and as in all cases of parenting, our reality must carry the genetic imprint of the parent. That imprint is in everything - if we know how to read it. So far, the Seth book is aiding in that reading. It seems safe and serious. Still, I for one will not be calling the spirits down to take over my personal consciousness. As the old maps used to say of unexplored areas, "Here Monsters Be." FK
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