Seth Material Explained

The Seth Material is a collection of writing dictated by Jane Roberts to her husband from late 1963 until her death in 1984. Roberts claimed the words were spoken by a discarnate entity named Seth.[1] The material is regarded as one of the cornerstones of New Age philosophy, and the most influential channelled text of the post–World War II "New Age" movement, after the Edgar Cayce books and A Course in Miracles.[2] Jon Klimo writes that the Seth books were instrumental in bringing the idea of channeling to a broad public audience.[3]

According to scholar of religion Catherine Albanese, the 1970 release of the book The Seth Material "launched an era of nationwide awareness... [of c]ommunication with other-than-human entities... contributing to the self-identity of an emergent New Age movement".[4] Study groups formed in the United States to work with the Seth Material,[5] and now are found around the world, as well as numerous websites and online groups in several languages, as various titles have been translated into Chinese, Spanish, German, French, Dutch and Arabic.[6]

John P. Newport, in his study of the influence of New Age beliefs, described the central focus of the Seth Material as the idea that each individual creates his or her own reality, a foundational concept of the New Age movement first articulated in the Seth Material.[7]

History

In late 1963, Jane Roberts and her husband, Robert Butts, experimented with a ouija board as part of Roberts's research for a book on extra-sensory perception.[8] Roberts and Butts claimed that they began to receive coherent messages from a male personality on December 2, 1963, who later identified himself as Seth. Soon after, Roberts reported that she was hearing the messages in her head. She began to dictate the messages instead of using the Ouija board, and the board was eventually abandoned. For 21 years until Roberts's death in 1984 (with a one-year hiatus due to her final illness), Roberts held regular sessions in which she went into a trance and purportedly spoke on behalf of Seth.[9]

According to Roberts, Seth described himself as an "energy personality essence no longer focused in physical matter"[10] who was independent of Roberts's subconscious, although Roberts expressed skepticism as to Seth's origins,[11] frequently referring to Seth's statements as "theories".[12] Roberts claimed that Seth indicated he had completed his earthly reincarnations and was speaking from an adjacent plane of existence. The Seth personality described himself as a "teacher",[13] and said: "this material has been given by himself and others in other times and places, but that it is given again, in new ways, for each succeeding generation through the centuries."[14]

Unlike the psychic Edgar Cayce, whose syntax when speaking in trance was antiquated and convoluted, Roberts's syntax and sentence structures were modern and clear when speaking as Seth. Roberts often sat in a rocking chair during sessions, and she would occasionally smoke cigarettes and sip beer or wine. Afterwards, she claimed to not remember the contents of the session, and she would often read the transcript or ask what Seth had said.[15]

Summary

The core teachings of the Seth Material are based on the principle that consciousness creates matter,[16] that each person creates his or her own reality through thoughts, beliefs and expectations,[5] [17] [18] [19] [20] and that the "point of power" through which the individual can affect change is in the present moment.[18]

It discusses a wide range of metaphysical concepts, including the nature of God (referred to as "All That Is"[19] [21] and "The Multidimensional God");[22] the nature of physical reality;[22] the origins of the universe;[21] the nature of the self and the "higher self";[18] [20] the story of Christ;[23] the evolution of the soul and all aspects of death and rebirth, including reincarnation and karma, past lives, after-death experiences, "guardian spirits", and ascension to planes of "higher consciousness";[18] [20] [23] [24] the purpose of life; the nature of good and evil; the purpose of suffering;[20] multidimensional reality,[25] parallel lives;[5] and transpersonal realms.[18] [24]

Nature of the self

According to the Seth Material, the entire self or "entity" is a gestalt consisting of the inner self, various selves that the entity has assumed through past existences (physical and non-physical), plus all the currently incarnated selves and all their probable counterparts.[5] Reincarnation is included as a core principle.[24]

Wouter Hanegraaff, Professor of History of Hermetic Philosophy, University of Amsterdam, says that these ideas have been influential to other new age authors (some of whom use the term "higher self" to refer to the same concept), and that Roberts's terminology has been adopted by some of those authors.[26] Hanegraaff says that Seth uses various terms to refer to the concept of the "self", including "entity", "whole self", "gestalt", and "(over)soul".[26]

Reality

The Seth Material says that all individuals create their own circumstances and experiences within the shared earthly environment, similar to the doctrine of responsibility assumption. This concept is expressed in the phrase "you create your own reality",[20] which may have originated with the Seth readings (although Nietzsche wrote some 90 years earlier, on the subject of "Becoming who you are": "We, however, want to become who we are—human beings who are new, unique, incomparable, who give themselves laws, who create themselves!"). The inner self, or inner ego, is responsible for the construction and maintenance of the individual's physical body and immediate physical environment, and the unfolding of events is determined by the expectations, attitudes and beliefs of the outer ego, that portion of the self that human beings know as themselves.[18] "If you want to change your world, you must first change your thoughts, expectations, and beliefs."[27] Or, more succinctly: "You get what you concentrate upon. There is no other main rule".[28]

The books discuss the idea that a living network of panpsychism constructs and maintains the physical environment via the inner selves of the individual occupants (including both living and inert matter).[29] The inner selves project, en masse, a pattern for physical reality that is then filled with energy, as needed, by each individual. All events are also produced in the same manner.[20]

Complete writings of Jane Roberts

See main article: Bibliography of Jane Roberts.

Books:

Short stories and novellas:

Poetry:

Seth Material-related works from other authors:

Relationship with Christianity

According to the Seth Material, Jesus Christ exists as part of the Christ entity, a highly evolved entity who exists in many systems of reality. At the time of Christ, the Christ entity incarnated as three individuals: John the Baptist, Jesus of Nazareth, and Paul or Saul of Tarsus.[30]

Other authorship claims

Other authors have written material they claimed was channeled from Seth, especially after Roberts's death. These included Thomas Massari, who founded the Seth-Hermes Foundation and said he had channeled Seth as early as 1972; and Jean Loomis, director of the Aquarian Center in Connecticut.[31] However, in the introduction to the first book written about Seth, he is said to have conveyed that "communications will come exclusively through Ruburt [Seth's name for Jane] at all times, to protect the integrity of the material". In The Seth Material, Roberts wrote: "Several people have told me that Seth communicated with them through automatic writing, but Seth denies any such contacts."

Criticism

Charles Upton in his book The System of Antichrist, argues that the reason Jane Roberts multiplies the self in many ways is due to a fear of death, and that the Seth texts are based on a misunderstanding of both Christianity and Eastern religions.[22] The implied influences of Eastern mysticism and philosophy are also highlighted in Astrology and Psychic Phenomena by Terry Holley, E Calvin Beisner and Robert M Bowman Jr, who say, "Husband Robert Butts admitted that similarities exist between Seth's ideas and those of various religious, philosophical, and mystical doctrines from the Near, Middle, or Far East . . . and we've done a little reading on Buddhism, Hinduism, Zen, and Taoism, for example, not to mention subjects like shamanism, voodooism, and obeah."[32] According to Robert C. Fuller, Seth filled the role of guide for what Fuller called "unchurched American spirituality," including the topics of reincarnation, karma, free will, ancient metaphysical wisdom, and "Christ consciousness."[33] James Alcock wrote "there seems little need to consider the involvement of any supernatural agency."[34]

Psychologist Paul Cunningham of Rivier University, New Hampshire, analyzed the case of Jane Roberts in his 2010 paper "The Problem of Seth's Origin", concluding that "fraud and cryptomnesia are highly improbable explanations" and suggesting that to "emphasize and expect fraud and trickery ... is essentially a misleading, though culturally expectable, response" to such cases.[35]

See also

External links

Notes and References

  1. Roberts, Jane. ESP Power. 2000; Stack, Rick. Out-Of-Body Adventures. 1988; Hathaway, Michael R. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Past Life Regression. 2003, p. 208; Watkins, Susan. Conversations With Seth, Book 2: 25th Anniversary Edition. 2006.
  2. Talbot, Michael. The Holographic Universe, 1991; Hanegraff, Wouter J. New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought, SUNY Press, 1998, pp. 122 - 126; Hammer, Olav. Claiming Knowledge: Strategies of Epistemology from Theosophy to the New Age. BRILL, 2004, p. 342; Upton, Charles. The System of Antichrist: Truth and Falsehood in Postmodernism and the New Age. Sophia Perennis, 2005, pp. 169 - 173.
  3. Klimo, Jon. Channeling: Investigations on Receiving Information from Paranormal Sources. North Atlantic Books 1998, p. 22.
  4. Albanese, Catherine L. . Yale University Press 2007, p. 501.
  5. Larson, Bob. Larson's Book of World Religions and Alternative Spirituality. Tyndale House Publishers, Inc. 2004, p. 484.
  6. News: Kestenbaum. Sam. 2019-10-29. Till Seth Do Us Part (Published 2019). en-US. The New York Times. 2021-03-08. 0362-4331.
  7. Newport, John P. The New Age Movement and the Biblical Worldview: Conflict and Dialogue. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing 1998, p. 165.
  8. ESP Power, by Jane Roberts (2000) (introductory essay by Lynda Dahl).
  9. Other Lives, Other Selves: A Jungian Psychotherapist Discovers Past Lives, by Roger Woolger (1988).
  10. Chapter 1, Session 511, Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul, by Jane Roberts (1972).
  11. Book: Klimo, Jon . Channeling: Investigations on Receiving Information from Paranormal Sources . North Atlantic Books . 1998 . 30 . 1-55643-248-8.
  12. Chapter 10, The Seth Material, by Jane Roberts (1970).
  13. Chapter 1, Session 511, and Chapter 2, Session 514, Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul, by Jane Roberts (1972).
  14. Book: Roberts, Jane. The Seth Material. 1970. Prentice-Hall. 0-13-807180-2. 7.
  15. Book: Tyler, Paula J.. Fran Stagg. New Age Metaphysics: An Introduction for Young Adults. 1987. 40. 0-9617920-0-0 . Ozark Mountain Publishing.
  16. Chapter 1, Seth Speaks, by Jane Roberts (1972); "Consciousness creates form. It is not the other way around".
  17. Book: Clarke, Peter Bernard . New Religions in Global Perspective . limited . Routledge . 2006 . 25 . 0-415-25748-4.
  18. Book: Leskowitz, Eric D.. Transpersonal Hypnosis: Gateway to Body, Mind, and Spirit . limited . 107, 163, 173. CRC Press. 1999. 0-8493-2237-5.
  19. Book: Bruce, Alexandra . Beyond the Bleep: The Definitive Unauthorized Guide to What the Bleep Do We Know!? . The Disinformation Company . 2005 . 116–117 . 1-932857-22-2 .
  20. Book: Wolf, Joachim . Understanding the Grand Design: Spiritual Reality's Inner Logic . Trafford Publishing . 2003 . 136–7,163,176–8 . 1-55395-567-6.
  21. Book: Hanegraaff, Wouter J. . New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought . 122–4,125,126 . SUNY Press . 1998 . 0-7914-3854-6 .
  22. Book: Upton, Charles . The System of Antichrist: Truth and Falsehood in Postmodernism and the New Age . Sophia Perennis . 2005 . 169–173. 0-900588-38-1.
  23. Fuller, Robert C. Spiritual, But Not Religious: Understanding Unchurched America. Oxford University Press 2001, p. 60.
  24. Book: Neff, Joanna Neff. Soul Retrieval: Return to Wholeness . 2003. Trafford Publishing. 59, 63. 1-4120-1613-4.
  25. Book: Brennan, Barbara Ann. Hands of Light . limited . 243. Bantam. 1987. 0-553-34539-7.
  26. Book: Hanegraaff, Wouter J. . New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought . 214 . SUNY Press . 1998 . 0-7914-3854-6 .
  27. Book: Roberts, Jane. The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events. registration. 1981. Prentice-Hall. 978-0-13-457259-8. 295. Notes by Robert F. Butts.
  28. Book: Roberts, Jane. The Nature of Personal Reality: Specific, Practical Techniques for Solving Everyday Problems and Enriching the Life You Know. 1994. Amber-Allen. 978-1-878424-06-8. Notes by Robert F. Butts. 45.
  29. Session 610, The Nature of Personal Reality, by Jane Roberts (1974).
  30. Book: Hanegraaff, Wouter J. . New Age Religion and Western Culture: Esotericism in the Mirror of Secular Thought . 215–216 . SUNY Press . 1998 . 0-7914-3854-6 .
  31. Fuller, Robert C. Spiritual, But Not Religious: Understanding Unchurched America. Oxford University Press, 2001, p. 187; Newport, John P. The New Age Movement and the Biblical Worldview: Conflict and Dialogue. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing 1998, p. 165; Klimo, Jon. Channeling: Investigations on Receiving Information from Paranormal Sources. North Atlantic Books 1998, p. 62
  32. Kole, Andre; E Calvin Beisner, Robert M Bowman Jr, Terry Holley Astrology and Psychic Phenomena Zondervan Publishing House 1989 p.51
  33. Fuller, Robert C. Spiritual, But Not Religious: Understanding Unchurched America. Oxford University Press 2001, p. 60.
  34. Kole, Andre; E Calvin Beisner, Robert M Bowman Jr, Terry Holley Astrology and Psychic Phenomena Zondervan Publishing House 1989 p.52
  35. Paul F. Cunningham, Ph.D., Rivier University, New Hampshire, "The Problem of Seth's Origin: A Case Study of the Trance-Possession Mediumship of Jane Roberts" https://web.archive.org/web/20210318002027/http://www.rivier.edu/faculty/pcunningham/Research/Problem_of_Seths_Origin.pdf

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