In 1945 philosopher Aldous Huxley published a book with this title. The title is self-explanatory – it is about an idea that keeps on recurring through the ages. What is this idea? It is expressed in many different ways by various sages but the fundamental core is belief in a deity. This article was originally a book review but it was re-shaped at the suggestion of the editor as an article because it moved me to explore other writings on themes raised by the Seth dialogues. The book at its heart was Seth Speaks: The eternal validity of the soul, as channelled by Jane Roberts [Amber-Allen Publishing & New World Library, 1972, 454 pp. ISBN 1-878424-07-6]
This text is one of over two dozen books that are published as the thoughts of a mystical spirit called Seth, as channelled since the 1960s by the American author, poet and psychic Jane Roberts, a trance medium. The work is a treatise of spiritual guidance: it is a much more extended version of comparable channellings to be found, for example, in the Jeshua channellings to Pamela Kribbe, in Life in the World Unseen by Monsignor Robert Hugh Benson, channelled through Anthony Borgia; or from Stephen the Martyr to New Zealand priest Michael Cocks, which I have reviewed earlier. The material here is compiled by Jane’s husband Robert F. Butts.
Books such as these try to give us a glimpse of what our soul’s existence in the afterlife will be like, but also give us practical and spiritual guidance as to how we should live a spiritually worthwhile and satisfying life on Earth. The messages are familiar ones. Our present human life is but one of a number of lives our soul is likely to experience. The most satisfying life we can lead is one that is devoted to understanding and developing ourselves – our souls, and in so doing serving others – a life dedicated to providing inspiration to as many people as possible. Focusing on material things may make our earthly life more pleasant, and will offer us opportunities for spiritual development; it is our spiritual progression on Earth that provides us with greatest contentment and satisfaction in the afterlife.
If I list some of the topics covered in the twenty-two chapters it will give readers an idea of the scope of the book: “My Present Environment, Work and Activities; How Thoughts Form Matter; The Potentials of the Soul; The ‘Death’ Experience; Reincarnation, Dreams and the Hidden Male and Female Within the Self; The Meaning of Religion”. The treatment of these subjects will give the enquiring mind much to ponder.
I found the whole book uplifting and mentally stimulating, but the authenticity of the experience was confirmed for me in the opening chapter and by watching Jane speak as Seth on YouTube. Robert acts as scribe but as Seth has known him from previous lifetimes he refers to him as Joseph. Jane herself also has lived before as both male and female and is described by Seth as Ruburt and ‘him’. I was also drawn into the book early on (p.4) by the trenchant statement ‘Consciousness creates form. It is not the other way around’. A statement such as this from an old spirit endorses the views of contemporary rationalists found in books such as Mind Before Matter [reviewed earlier – can’t find it in back issues so new copy attached].
The printed pages of a book do not contain information – they transmit information (p.60), just as the notes in a manuscript score in themselves are merely symbols. It is only when the notes are played that they convey the feelings of the composer to the listener. (Skilled musicians of course can realise the sounds just by reading the score.) Similarly, it is our thoughts and feelings that create the material world we experience through our senses. Bishop George Berkeley is rarely read nowadays except by philosophers but his contention that esse ist percipi (to be is to be perceived) implies that material objects exist only in the consciousness of the perceiver. Our sense impressions, said Berkeley, are ideas in the mind of God. And if we interpret ‘God’ as Universal Spirit we get very close to twenty-first century scientific ideas as to the nature of consciousness. The deeply philosophical issue of the nature of those ‘material objects’ that give rise to our mental images is not discussed here.
Then there is affirmation (also p.4) that the soul lives on through many human lives: ‘you have each lived other existences, and that knowledge is within you though you are not consciously aware of it.’ The Bhagavad Gita tells us ‘You always are and you always will be’, which should reduce the fear of death for us all and it certainly has for me.
With deep perceptions like this of the meaning of life I hope it will be clear why I thought this book was worth working through. Chapter 4 deals with the controversial topic of the relativity of time – as space is relative and space-time form a continuum, time must also be relative: ‘time is not a series of moments’ (p.47). The idea of our successive yet simultaneous incarnations is presented using the allegory of a series of plays upon the stages of the world. The multi-dimensional self participates in all of these activities simultaneously, though we are unaware of this. Thus, when we reincarnate, it is simply the soul within a different body and a different play – the continuity of the soul is unbroken and there is no awareness of our having played a different role previously. I would suggest that the rationalist who may find this concept difficult read Anthony Peake’s ‘The Labyrinth of Time’. ‘The soul is not something that you have – it is what you are’ (p.70).
Chapter 11 deals with a subject that I have always found difficult – that we choose the life path we are to follow in each incarnation. As someone born with somewhat debilitating congenital abnormalities I found it difficult to accept this contention, though there are others who are far more disabled than I. Seth explains this with a clarity I had not found before: so often, the situation is either denied completely (as I used to do) or is dismissed glibly with “Well, it was your choice”. Seth explains how these successive incarnations, whether easy or difficult, build up the experiences for development of the soul.
Chapter 13 on the Hidden Male and Female Within the Self finds an echo in C.G. Jung’s concept of the animus and anima, aspects of male and female personality that are found respectively in every female and male. Just as Rupert Sheldrake has talked about the morphic field of universal memory and Ervin Laszlo described the akashic field of the Upanishads that shape our personalities and human consciousness we meet continually in this book ‘modern’ ideas that have permeated the human mind for at least ten thousand years.
We struggle now to find commonalities in the concept of deity between the religions of east and west. The next chapter describes the Multidimensional God that all religions quest after, whether overtly or not. When Einstein combined ‘time’ with the three dimensions of space into a space-time continuum, this was a revolutionary idea. The suggestion that there may be eleven or more dimensions could not have emerged before quantum physics. But here, Seth is describing convincingly (at least to me) a multidimensional universe: “The outer world is a reflection of the inner one” (p.324) or, as we have heard before, “as above, so below”.
The existence of what we call evil is often seen by religious adherents as incompatible with a loving God. But, as Seth explains in a very philosophical way, that good and evil are simply the opposite sides of human morality – just as the top and bottom of an apple are still parts of the same apple, or light and darkness (often associated respectively with good and evil) are simply the consequences of Earth’s universal situation with respect to the sun. So very many of the moral issues that torment us here on Earth are explained in simple terms by Seth in this presentation.
While I have great respect for the messages presented in these trance sessions and I found so much that was reassuring and challenging to me as a rational scientist I did find the notes and timings added by Robert rather irritating and a distraction from the message, especially when the more complicated issues arise. Overall, this is a very thought-provoking book with a comforting message of the immortality (or eternal validity) of the soul for those whose minds are open enough to absorb it. I find it encouraging and uplifting that sources both temporal and spiritual keep arriving at the same conclusion: that the happenings in our material world were initiated and are continuously overseen by a cosmic spiritual energy whose wisdom is slowly percolating down to the human world.
[1500 words]
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