Friday, February 5, 2010
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Religion
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Seth
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In 1963 an author by the name of Jane Roberts, who lived in Elmira, New York, decided to write a book about ESP. As part of the research for the book, she and her husband borrowed a Ouija board and started experimenting with it. The first two or three sessions brought no results, but after that they started to get coherent messages from the board. After a few more sessions, Roberts started to hear the words in her head as they came off the board, and shortly after that she started to speak them spontaneously. That initiated her career as a psychic and trance medium. But who was talking through her? The speaker eventually identified himself as "Seth". He said that he had known Roberts in past lives, that they were related on a spiritual level, and that Roberts had the necessary psychic abilities to speak for him. He said that the truth about man's existence is given to every generation, and that it was his task to give it to the current generation.
Roberts continued to speak for Seth for about twenty years. A pattern of sessions developed in which she went into a trance and spoke for Seth two or three times a week, with the sessions lasting one to three hours. She sat in a rocking chair to deliver these "readings", and her husband, Robert Butts, wrote it all down in longhand and, eventually, shorthand. Over those two decades, Seth answered every major question that people have had about their existence. He explained who God is, and even told us something about God's beginnings. He described the Creation (not at all like the Christian version). He explained how the Earth was made, and what our relationship to physical reality is. He talked about every aspect of human existence and psychology, including sexuality. The totality of the Seth readings are referred to as the "Seth Material".
(Note: Seth referred to God as "All That Is" throughout the readings because the term "God" can have negative connotations from other religions. As I explain below, God is a gestalt of everything in the universe, and the term "All That Is" conveys that. However, Seth also said that his readers could refer to All That Is as God if they preferred. I prefer the term God because it will be more meaningful to many readers, who are accustomed to the term. It should also be noted that Seth did not want the Material to be turned into a religion, but in my view the Material is religious in scope. If not religious, then it certainly can be said to be spiritual or metaphysical.)
What makes the Seth Material so different from other psychically produced material is the sheer quality of it. It is not pompous or pious or vague. It is not filled with platitudes or "happy talk". Rather, it is consistently intelligent, insightful and wise. Seth never contradicted himself, which was quite an accomplishment given the volume of the readings. The world view that Seth put forth was both original and intriguing. He introduced many new concepts to mankind's discussion about religion, concepts and theories that had never been considered before. The readings, taken together, constitute their own complete theology.
The most remarkable aspect of the Material is that it sets forth a "theory of everything" which ties together religion and science, and which explains things which were previously incomprehensible. For example, Seth connects evolution and creationism and explains how they can coexist. He also explains how pantheism works (that's the concept that God and the universe are the same thing). His explanation of pantheism is almost scientific; he takes the concept out of the realm of mystics and gives it some credibility.
The readings couldn't have been faked. Jane Roberts and Robert Butts conducted the sessions in a very open and transparent way, with many witnesses. Roberts' own writings have a very different style and quality from Seth's. The view of the universe that Seth set forth was so unique and detailed that it couldn't possibly have been fabricated. If the ideas in the Seth material had belonged to Roberts herself, she simply would have presented them to the world as her own. Indeed, one of the reasons that the Seth Material doesn't get more respect and recognition is that it was delivered by a psychic. (Society at large, and especially scientists, have no respect for psychic phenomena.) If Roberts had presented Seth's ideas to the world in the guise of a philosopher, she would have become famous as a brilliant theorist.
Here are some of the things that Seth said:
- Our physical universe is just one of a multitude of universes (or "planes of existence") within a much greater universe that we are unaware of. Each universe has its own natural laws (Seth called them "root assumptions"), and only some universes are physical in nature. The number of universes or "planes" is essentially infinite.
- Our natural state is a mental or spiritual one, and we assume different forms in order to live in different environments and universes. Thus, we assumed physical form in order to live on the Earth. The essence of every living thing is its mind, and it is our minds that survive death. (This is an over-simplification; our relationship with our bodies is very complex.)
- We reincarnate, but we do not reincarnate endlessly. The number of incarnations can vary from two to a great many, depending on the preferences of the individual. Seth didn't put a number on it, but in an informal conversation he once indicated that ten or fewer lives is the norm. After we have learned all that we can from this reality, we move on to other planes of existence. Seth made it clear that we choose to reincarnate. Just as a person might commit to four years of college, each of us has made a commitment to reincarnate in a series of lives in order to learn what we can from this world.
- In addition to reincarnational lives, we have "probable" lives. There are other "probable" universes out there in which other versions of ourselves exist. This allows any possible or probable event to occur. For example, if in this life you couldn't decide whether to study medicine or architecture in school, and you eventually settled on medicine, in some probable universe you have an alternate self who chose to study architecture, and who is now an architect. This is a concept that is similar to one put forth in quantum mechanics in which all possible or probably actions must play themselves out. When our probable selves are taken into account, our reincarnational lives do run into the hundreds or thousands.
- We don't remember our past lives for several reasons (actually, Seth said that children do remember them to some extent, but those memories fade as children get older). First, mankind is in a materialistic phase of his development, which makes such memories unacceptable to our world view. Second, a clear memory of our past lives would not allow us to start fresh in each life. We regain all of our memories when we 'die'.
- Time and Space are "root assumptions" of this universe, and thus are illusory to some extent. In the greater reality, there is no time and no physical space (but there is mental or psychological space). Since there is no time, everything exists simultaneously. Thus, all our lives actually occur at the same time, though they seem to come one after the other.
- Each individual is part of a larger grouping of souls. The greater soul, or what Roberts referred to as the "oversoul", is like a family of souls that functions as one individual. Besides our reincarnational selves, each of us has an inner self from which all the reincarnational selves sprang. Our inner self is an aware individual with its own identity. It could be said that the inner self gave birth to the reincarnational selves so that it could experience physical reality (which it experiences through us). Having been created, however, we (the reincarnational selves) now have independence as individuals.
- God or "All That Is" can be likened, at his core, to a great mind or spirit, but is actually much more than that. God is composed of mental energy, "mental" because the energy itself has consciousness and awareness. The mental energy of God floods the universe and forms all things (including all sentient beings like ourselves). Physical matter is also formed from God's mental energy. Atoms, which are composed of energy particles (neutrons, protons and electrons), are a means by which God's mental energy can be made into objects.
- As God's energy floods the universe, forming all things, it carries God's consciousness with it. Thus, God's consciousness occupies all things, including all individuals. God knows himself as Himself, but also knows himself as each individual and each thing in the universe. (God is not a male, of course; I use such terminology because it is our normal convention.)
- Since God's consciousness permeates all things, it can be said that there is only one individual in the universe -- God -- and that all other individuals and things are part of God. (This is the concept of "pantheism" that I mentioned above.) God, then, represents our highest self, and it is through God that we are related to everything else in existence. Since everything in the universe is formed from God's energy, and since God's consciousness occupies all things, God IS the universe, and the universe IS God.
God is actually a gestalt of everything in existence. A gestalt is a whole which is greater than the sum of its parts. Everything in the universe, taken together, constitutes the whole, but there is a consciousness which transcends all the parts. Likewise, the soul of each individual is a gestalt of lesser souls.
- Creation is ongoing and has never stopped. It occurs as the universes within God grow and expand, and as new ones come into existence. God does not create everything directly. Rather, the individuals who constitute God (or who are contained within God) do most of the creating, but God's consciousness spreads into every newly created thing.
- There was an initial Creation, but it is nothing like the Christian version. In God's formative stages, the universe existed as "dreams" in God's mind. The initial Creation occurred when God learned how to give his dreams actuality and independence. When God realized how to actualize his dreams, the Creation occurred in a flash. Actually, the creation is an ongoing thing that never stops. Our physical universe is being created moment by moment as it continually emerges from the mental universe into materiality. (It is necessary to discuss these things in terms of time; otherwise they would be impossible to understand.)
- The independence that we gained during the initial Creation is absolute: God cannot control us or determine our actions. We have true free will. However, God remains the source of our life, since the energy that forms us flows from God, and provides us with a universe in which to live. God also determines the nature of existence. Conversely, our decisions about how we live our lives affect God. In this way, God and his creations are interdependent.
- God knows only himself and knows of no other like himself. Thus, God always looks inward, living through his creations. God has a desire to experience existence in all its possible forms and manifestations, so the multitude of universes that exist within God contain an unimaginable variety of life.
- As I said, God knows of no other like himself. However, the possibility exists that there is a race of Gods, each God knowing only himself. Seth also said, compellingly, that God does not know why there is existence instead of non-existence. In God's formative stages, he used the same test of his existence that Rene Descartes used: "I think, therefore I am."
- Since we are made of God's mental energy, we have the same essential nature as God (thought, emotions, action), including God's creative powers. However, in this physical existence those powers are masked. By experiencing such things as helplessness, pain, sickness, etc., we are able to learn things that we would otherwise find difficult to learn. We actually retain our creative powers during physical life, but they function in a way that is not apparent to us.
- Perhaps the most important message Seth had for human beings is that we create our lives according to our beliefs, thoughts and emotions. "You create your own reality" is a phrase that he often used. We exist in a kind of feedback loop in which our beliefs and attitudes are transformed into reality by our inner selves. If, for example, you are chronically angry at the world and believe that you always get "the short end of the stick", then the events of your life will unfold in a way that seems to confirm that. On the other hand, if you are basically happy and feel that the world is a fair place, you are more likely to experience good things and to find success.
- Despite this "you create your own reality" principle, in each life we have certain challenges or goals that we have set for ourselves, and even a happy person will not be able to escape suffering if suffering is necessary in order to deal with those larger issues. Of course, the greater challenges and goals are not necessarily negative. Sometimes the challenge is to achieve one's greatest potential.
- Seth also said that existence is primarily a subjective matter, and that the objective reality that we live in is not really objective at all. True knowing comes from within, not from without. The inner self of each indivual is actively involved in creating not just the physical body of the individual, but the individual's physical surroundings. Thus, if you have four people sitting in a room around a coffee table, each individual will create his or her own version of the table, and will also create his own version of the bodies of the other individuals, and of everything else in the room. The only objective constant in our physical lives is the pattern for reality which is agreed upon and projected en masse by our inner selves (including the inner selves of the animals, insects and presumably the plants).
- Prior to the materialistic phase of development that mankind is presently in, we had the ability to communicate telepathically, and we could also project our consciousness to distant places. Thus, man did not need language and did not need to travel physically. We also had the ability to project our consciousness into objects, into parts of our own body, and into other individuals and animals, so that we could experience those things directly. Language became necessary when we lost our telepathic abilities, and it was with the advent of language that we began to record our history. Seth said that mankind will regain some of those spiritual abilities towards the end of this century.
- All portions of God are immortal. Thus, we are immortal. We exist in one environment after another, choosing each environment before we enter it according to our needs and preferences (each of those environments is a portion of God). In our spiritual state, we do not feel exhausted or overwhelmed, so there is never a desire to die. According to Seth, nothing that exists, or has ever existed, will cease to exist. There is no heaven or hell; there is only continued existence. Nor is there a final judgement, beyond the judgements that we make about ourselves.
If you are searching for a religion or greater spiritual understanding, and if you can't relate to the unsophisticated, antiquated concepts of the ancient religions (see my post about the Bible below), the Seth material is something you should investigate. The books to start with are The Seth Material, Seth Speaks, and The Nature of Personal Reality, in that order. The first of those books was written by Jane Roberts with generous excerpts from Seth, and the other two books were dictated directly by Seth. Some of Seth's later books are quite dense and hard to read, but those earlier books are very interesting. If you can't find them in your local book store, they are available here: www.sethcenter.com (I am not associated with that site.)
Jane Roberts died in 1984. Her death was a very unpleasant one (her body froze up with severe arthritis towards the end, and eventually she lost the will to live). Many people (including me!) have questioned why Seth wasn't able to help her. The answer is that Seth and Jane Roberts were separate individuals, and Roberts made her own choices. Roberts had a lot of emotional problems stemming from a strict Catholic upbringing and a manipulative mother. Also, to some extent, Roberts felt put-upon by Seth, and it was important to her to maintain her own identity. She didn't like being the mouthpiece for a "ghost", as she sometimes called him, and as a result she often resisted Seth's attempts to change her. Seth could not force her to deal with her emotional issues.
Because she's been dead for 30 years, some people may consider the Seth material to be out of date. But deep spiritual truths never go out of date. If that were true, Christianity would have been out of date by 60 A.D.
Roberts continued to speak for Seth for about twenty years. A pattern of sessions developed in which she went into a trance and spoke for Seth two or three times a week, with the sessions lasting one to three hours. She sat in a rocking chair to deliver these "readings", and her husband, Robert Butts, wrote it all down in longhand and, eventually, shorthand. Over those two decades, Seth answered every major question that people have had about their existence. He explained who God is, and even told us something about God's beginnings. He described the Creation (not at all like the Christian version). He explained how the Earth was made, and what our relationship to physical reality is. He talked about every aspect of human existence and psychology, including sexuality. The totality of the Seth readings are referred to as the "Seth Material".
(Note: Seth referred to God as "All That Is" throughout the readings because the term "God" can have negative connotations from other religions. As I explain below, God is a gestalt of everything in the universe, and the term "All That Is" conveys that. However, Seth also said that his readers could refer to All That Is as God if they preferred. I prefer the term God because it will be more meaningful to many readers, who are accustomed to the term. It should also be noted that Seth did not want the Material to be turned into a religion, but in my view the Material is religious in scope. If not religious, then it certainly can be said to be spiritual or metaphysical.)
What makes the Seth Material so different from other psychically produced material is the sheer quality of it. It is not pompous or pious or vague. It is not filled with platitudes or "happy talk". Rather, it is consistently intelligent, insightful and wise. Seth never contradicted himself, which was quite an accomplishment given the volume of the readings. The world view that Seth put forth was both original and intriguing. He introduced many new concepts to mankind's discussion about religion, concepts and theories that had never been considered before. The readings, taken together, constitute their own complete theology.
The most remarkable aspect of the Material is that it sets forth a "theory of everything" which ties together religion and science, and which explains things which were previously incomprehensible. For example, Seth connects evolution and creationism and explains how they can coexist. He also explains how pantheism works (that's the concept that God and the universe are the same thing). His explanation of pantheism is almost scientific; he takes the concept out of the realm of mystics and gives it some credibility.
The readings couldn't have been faked. Jane Roberts and Robert Butts conducted the sessions in a very open and transparent way, with many witnesses. Roberts' own writings have a very different style and quality from Seth's. The view of the universe that Seth set forth was so unique and detailed that it couldn't possibly have been fabricated. If the ideas in the Seth material had belonged to Roberts herself, she simply would have presented them to the world as her own. Indeed, one of the reasons that the Seth Material doesn't get more respect and recognition is that it was delivered by a psychic. (Society at large, and especially scientists, have no respect for psychic phenomena.) If Roberts had presented Seth's ideas to the world in the guise of a philosopher, she would have become famous as a brilliant theorist.
Here are some of the things that Seth said:
- Our physical universe is just one of a multitude of universes (or "planes of existence") within a much greater universe that we are unaware of. Each universe has its own natural laws (Seth called them "root assumptions"), and only some universes are physical in nature. The number of universes or "planes" is essentially infinite.
- Our natural state is a mental or spiritual one, and we assume different forms in order to live in different environments and universes. Thus, we assumed physical form in order to live on the Earth. The essence of every living thing is its mind, and it is our minds that survive death. (This is an over-simplification; our relationship with our bodies is very complex.)
- We reincarnate, but we do not reincarnate endlessly. The number of incarnations can vary from two to a great many, depending on the preferences of the individual. Seth didn't put a number on it, but in an informal conversation he once indicated that ten or fewer lives is the norm. After we have learned all that we can from this reality, we move on to other planes of existence. Seth made it clear that we choose to reincarnate. Just as a person might commit to four years of college, each of us has made a commitment to reincarnate in a series of lives in order to learn what we can from this world.
- In addition to reincarnational lives, we have "probable" lives. There are other "probable" universes out there in which other versions of ourselves exist. This allows any possible or probable event to occur. For example, if in this life you couldn't decide whether to study medicine or architecture in school, and you eventually settled on medicine, in some probable universe you have an alternate self who chose to study architecture, and who is now an architect. This is a concept that is similar to one put forth in quantum mechanics in which all possible or probably actions must play themselves out. When our probable selves are taken into account, our reincarnational lives do run into the hundreds or thousands.
- We don't remember our past lives for several reasons (actually, Seth said that children do remember them to some extent, but those memories fade as children get older). First, mankind is in a materialistic phase of his development, which makes such memories unacceptable to our world view. Second, a clear memory of our past lives would not allow us to start fresh in each life. We regain all of our memories when we 'die'.
- Time and Space are "root assumptions" of this universe, and thus are illusory to some extent. In the greater reality, there is no time and no physical space (but there is mental or psychological space). Since there is no time, everything exists simultaneously. Thus, all our lives actually occur at the same time, though they seem to come one after the other.
- Each individual is part of a larger grouping of souls. The greater soul, or what Roberts referred to as the "oversoul", is like a family of souls that functions as one individual. Besides our reincarnational selves, each of us has an inner self from which all the reincarnational selves sprang. Our inner self is an aware individual with its own identity. It could be said that the inner self gave birth to the reincarnational selves so that it could experience physical reality (which it experiences through us). Having been created, however, we (the reincarnational selves) now have independence as individuals.
- God or "All That Is" can be likened, at his core, to a great mind or spirit, but is actually much more than that. God is composed of mental energy, "mental" because the energy itself has consciousness and awareness. The mental energy of God floods the universe and forms all things (including all sentient beings like ourselves). Physical matter is also formed from God's mental energy. Atoms, which are composed of energy particles (neutrons, protons and electrons), are a means by which God's mental energy can be made into objects.
- As God's energy floods the universe, forming all things, it carries God's consciousness with it. Thus, God's consciousness occupies all things, including all individuals. God knows himself as Himself, but also knows himself as each individual and each thing in the universe. (God is not a male, of course; I use such terminology because it is our normal convention.)
- Since God's consciousness permeates all things, it can be said that there is only one individual in the universe -- God -- and that all other individuals and things are part of God. (This is the concept of "pantheism" that I mentioned above.) God, then, represents our highest self, and it is through God that we are related to everything else in existence. Since everything in the universe is formed from God's energy, and since God's consciousness occupies all things, God IS the universe, and the universe IS God.
God is actually a gestalt of everything in existence. A gestalt is a whole which is greater than the sum of its parts. Everything in the universe, taken together, constitutes the whole, but there is a consciousness which transcends all the parts. Likewise, the soul of each individual is a gestalt of lesser souls.
- Creation is ongoing and has never stopped. It occurs as the universes within God grow and expand, and as new ones come into existence. God does not create everything directly. Rather, the individuals who constitute God (or who are contained within God) do most of the creating, but God's consciousness spreads into every newly created thing.
- There was an initial Creation, but it is nothing like the Christian version. In God's formative stages, the universe existed as "dreams" in God's mind. The initial Creation occurred when God learned how to give his dreams actuality and independence. When God realized how to actualize his dreams, the Creation occurred in a flash. Actually, the creation is an ongoing thing that never stops. Our physical universe is being created moment by moment as it continually emerges from the mental universe into materiality. (It is necessary to discuss these things in terms of time; otherwise they would be impossible to understand.)
- The independence that we gained during the initial Creation is absolute: God cannot control us or determine our actions. We have true free will. However, God remains the source of our life, since the energy that forms us flows from God, and provides us with a universe in which to live. God also determines the nature of existence. Conversely, our decisions about how we live our lives affect God. In this way, God and his creations are interdependent.
- God knows only himself and knows of no other like himself. Thus, God always looks inward, living through his creations. God has a desire to experience existence in all its possible forms and manifestations, so the multitude of universes that exist within God contain an unimaginable variety of life.
- As I said, God knows of no other like himself. However, the possibility exists that there is a race of Gods, each God knowing only himself. Seth also said, compellingly, that God does not know why there is existence instead of non-existence. In God's formative stages, he used the same test of his existence that Rene Descartes used: "I think, therefore I am."
- Since we are made of God's mental energy, we have the same essential nature as God (thought, emotions, action), including God's creative powers. However, in this physical existence those powers are masked. By experiencing such things as helplessness, pain, sickness, etc., we are able to learn things that we would otherwise find difficult to learn. We actually retain our creative powers during physical life, but they function in a way that is not apparent to us.
- Perhaps the most important message Seth had for human beings is that we create our lives according to our beliefs, thoughts and emotions. "You create your own reality" is a phrase that he often used. We exist in a kind of feedback loop in which our beliefs and attitudes are transformed into reality by our inner selves. If, for example, you are chronically angry at the world and believe that you always get "the short end of the stick", then the events of your life will unfold in a way that seems to confirm that. On the other hand, if you are basically happy and feel that the world is a fair place, you are more likely to experience good things and to find success.
- Despite this "you create your own reality" principle, in each life we have certain challenges or goals that we have set for ourselves, and even a happy person will not be able to escape suffering if suffering is necessary in order to deal with those larger issues. Of course, the greater challenges and goals are not necessarily negative. Sometimes the challenge is to achieve one's greatest potential.
- Seth also said that existence is primarily a subjective matter, and that the objective reality that we live in is not really objective at all. True knowing comes from within, not from without. The inner self of each indivual is actively involved in creating not just the physical body of the individual, but the individual's physical surroundings. Thus, if you have four people sitting in a room around a coffee table, each individual will create his or her own version of the table, and will also create his own version of the bodies of the other individuals, and of everything else in the room. The only objective constant in our physical lives is the pattern for reality which is agreed upon and projected en masse by our inner selves (including the inner selves of the animals, insects and presumably the plants).
- Prior to the materialistic phase of development that mankind is presently in, we had the ability to communicate telepathically, and we could also project our consciousness to distant places. Thus, man did not need language and did not need to travel physically. We also had the ability to project our consciousness into objects, into parts of our own body, and into other individuals and animals, so that we could experience those things directly. Language became necessary when we lost our telepathic abilities, and it was with the advent of language that we began to record our history. Seth said that mankind will regain some of those spiritual abilities towards the end of this century.
- All portions of God are immortal. Thus, we are immortal. We exist in one environment after another, choosing each environment before we enter it according to our needs and preferences (each of those environments is a portion of God). In our spiritual state, we do not feel exhausted or overwhelmed, so there is never a desire to die. According to Seth, nothing that exists, or has ever existed, will cease to exist. There is no heaven or hell; there is only continued existence. Nor is there a final judgement, beyond the judgements that we make about ourselves.
* * *
If you are searching for a religion or greater spiritual understanding, and if you can't relate to the unsophisticated, antiquated concepts of the ancient religions (see my post about the Bible below), the Seth material is something you should investigate. The books to start with are The Seth Material, Seth Speaks, and The Nature of Personal Reality, in that order. The first of those books was written by Jane Roberts with generous excerpts from Seth, and the other two books were dictated directly by Seth. Some of Seth's later books are quite dense and hard to read, but those earlier books are very interesting. If you can't find them in your local book store, they are available here: www.sethcenter.com (I am not associated with that site.)
Jane Roberts died in 1984. Her death was a very unpleasant one (her body froze up with severe arthritis towards the end, and eventually she lost the will to live). Many people (including me!) have questioned why Seth wasn't able to help her. The answer is that Seth and Jane Roberts were separate individuals, and Roberts made her own choices. Roberts had a lot of emotional problems stemming from a strict Catholic upbringing and a manipulative mother. Also, to some extent, Roberts felt put-upon by Seth, and it was important to her to maintain her own identity. She didn't like being the mouthpiece for a "ghost", as she sometimes called him, and as a result she often resisted Seth's attempts to change her. Seth could not force her to deal with her emotional issues.
Because she's been dead for 30 years, some people may consider the Seth material to be out of date. But deep spiritual truths never go out of date. If that were true, Christianity would have been out of date by 60 A.D.
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