Seth Speaks

Seth Speaks was one of the most important and interesting books I read in my life.   This book simply resonated with me.  Prior to its publication, I was reading every Edgar Cayce book I could get my hands on.  Cayce's work also resonated with me, but Jane Robert's Seth books were easier to read as the syntax was more modern and less convoluted. I purchased this book more than once.  I would read it over and over and when it somehow disappeared, I would buy another copy.

Seth was a non-physical personality who spoke through Jane Roberts.  In other words, Jane Roberts channeled Seth. Seth spoke about topics I was interested in: the power of belief, life after death, karma, reincarnation, God, the nature of reality, so on and so forth.  I can't remember anything that Seth said that did not resonate with my own beliefs.  I think I was attracted to the Seth series of books as they validated my own thoughts and ideas.

I read one Seth book after another, but Seth Speaks was my favorite.  I also enjoyed The Education of Oversoul 7 which is a novel and the first book of a trilogy.  The Oversoul 7 Trilogy is a work of fiction in which Roberts attempts to demonstrate the concepts she channeled in story form.

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"The human personality has no limitations except those which it accepts. There are no limits to its development or growth, if it will accept no limits. There are no boundaries to the self except those boundaries which the self arbitrarily creates and perpetuates." - Seth

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Book List

Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul

The Nature of Personal Reality: A Seth Book

The "Unknown" Reality, Volumes I & II

The Nature of the Psyche: Its Human Expression

The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events: A Seth Book

Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment, Volumes I & II

The Magical Approach

Lucifer's Redemption

Every now and then I think about Brett Dean McGibbon.  Brett is a self-published author who binds his books in leather and sells them on a street corner in Seattle, Washington. 


I was walking the streets of Seattle camera in hand. Click, click, click. I noticed a small restaurant that I liked, click, and then crossed the street. As I walked by, a guy at a table handed me a piece of paper. I usually try real hard to ignore these things as it seems everyone wants something; a dime, a quarter, a dollar; some thing. You can only give so much, you know? I took the piece of paper and looked at it. Words. I started reading them out loud. "..men and women who were raging with life, who looked within and wrestled with their beasts, who were engaged in mortal combat with what mattered and were not gonna let what mattered escape." I liked the words. I was attracted to the words. The guy drew my attention off the paper and pointed out that he was selling books and signing them (he was an author). I looked at him for the first time. I became conscious of this - I was so fascinated by the words that I never looked at him. I picked up a copy of the book, Lucifer's Redemption,  and started reading the Preface. He encouraged me on. After the Preface, the Introduction. I was hooked. I was also attracted to the physical form of the book. Apparently he prints the pages himself on a laser printer (that is explained by a character in the book). The pages are then hand bound in leather with (Irish-linen twine). It had a nice feel. I liked the font. Like an old fashioned typewriter. I liked the book. The sign said twenty bucks so I gave him twenty bucks. I wanted it. I asked him if I could photograph him. That night I read half the book in my hotel room. It hit, drew me in. Made me think. Made me ponder. Made me reflect. At times I identified with the main character, James. We share similar attitudes about some important things. I finished the book off in Seattle Tacoma International the following day. Toward the end I almost felt that it was written about me - the inner thoughts. Then I decided anyone who reads it probably feels that way. It stuck with me. It stuck in my mind for two days. It also occurred to me that I have not read a book in years. This was the first in years. And it somehow seemed that I was fated to read this book.

If you are ever in Seattle you might run into Brett.  I have talked to people who say he is still there.  I see a used copy of Lucifer's Redemption going for $70 on Amazon.  Not only a good read but a collector's item as well as each copy is unique.

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The Agony and the Ecstasy

"Art has a magic quality: the more minds that digest it, the longer it lives." - Irving Stone

While writing a review of Irving Stone's The Origin, Rob Alan Marsh reminds us, "Great books remain relevant for a reason – because they teach us something. They better us; broaden our understanding of the world and its many fascinating inhabitants. And for that reason they deserve to be re-introduced, from time to time, so they may find in this vast ocean of distractions, some few new fertile islets upon which to propagate."

Irving Stone wrote The Agony and Ecstasy after living in Italy for several years and visiting many of the historic places he would be writing about in the book. The Agony and the Ecstasy is a "biographical novel" based on the life of Michelangelo. In addition, it is a historical novel which brings the Italian Renaissance to life. Anyone with an interest in Renaissance Italy can gain quite alot of insight into it simply by reading this book. Although it is about the life and struggles of Michelangelo, the reader will learn about the art, wars, and religious and political atmosphere prelavant during this time period.

In order to make a living, Michelangelo was at the mercy of his patrons who were Popes, Cardinals and Political Leaders each with their own agenda. He was forced to create whatever works they desired and lived under the threat of being imprisoned if he chose to deny his services to the Vatican. His contemporaries included Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Martin Luther, Machiavelli, and Lorenzo de Medici among others.

"There are the Florentines – lusty, artistic, and wealthy; the Romans – dangerous, dark, self-involved; the Carrara – interdependent, suspicious, isolated; the Bolognese – joyous, hearty, uncultured. As Michelangelo travels and interacts with these different people, their cultures come to life and these too have lasting impact on Michelangelo’s works and methods." - Roofbeamreader Review.

Irving Stone had 495 of Michelangelo’s personal letters translated from Italian to English in order to help him write this book. It took Stone six years to complete the book. Stone spent much of this time living in Italy in order to research the book and visit the many historical sites that were part of Michelangelo’s life. The book is very factual and extremely interesting as it allows readers to experience this period of time from Michelangelo’s point of view.

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Raisin Bread Cosmology & Deja Vu

I took an astronomy class in junior college in order to satisfy the science requirement. I have never been very interested in studying science as it seems so dry. Sitting in a classroom which doubled as a planetarium seemed more interesting than studying the Periodic Table of Elements (which by the way, ended up being an important part of the study of astronomy).

 A major topic in astronomy class is The Big Bang Theory. This is a cosmological model which is said to explain the origin of the universe.

According to the Big Bang theory, a tremendous explosion occurred about 15 billion years ago causing the universe to expand. Prior to this explosion, all the matter and energy in the universe was contained in one point. After the explosion, matter and energy was thrust out into space in the form of particles rushing away from each other. We learned to visualize it as a loaf of raisin bread baking in an oven. It is a process that is still going on with the universe continuing to expand. We also learned that the universe may someday stop expanding and begin to collapse until it is once again one single point containing all matter and energy. And then, guess what, another Big bang may occur repeating what happened before.

This made me start thinking about Deja Vu. This is the feeling that what you are experiencing has already happened before. I started wondering if every time the Big Bang occurs everything happens exactly as before.

A couple of weeks ago I read The Strange Life of Ivan Osokin by P.D. Ouspensky. Ivan is given a chance to relive his past as he has a desire to correct his mistakes. He meets with a magician who sends him back in time warning him that although he will be fully aware that he is reliving his life in order to change it, he will do everything exactly as he did it before.

As it turns out, the concept of eternal recurrence is a major theme in Ouspensky's teachings and writing. The Strange Life of Ivan Osokin was published in 1915 and explores the idea that even given the free-will to make changes in our lives, the same events will occur regardless of our free will.

The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche often wrote about the concept of eternal recurrence in his works. It is first mentioned in section 341 of The Gay Science

"This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain and every joy and every thought and sigh and everything unutterably small or great in your life will have to return to you, all in the same succession and sequence—even this spider and this moonlight between the trees, and even this moment and I myself. The eternal hourglass of existence is turned upside down again and again, and you with it . . ."

If the universe should ever collapse in upon inself ( The Big Crunch) and start over again with another Big Bang, I suppose there is a possibility that everything can reoccur as before, which would explain Deja Vu. But why would this happen and what purpose would it serve????


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Mental Radio

Upton Sinclair is a Pulitzer Prize winning author who wrote over one hundred books including the classic novel The Jungle. Sinclair had a deep interest in psychic phenomena and wrote a book called Mental Radio documenting a series of tests he conducted with his wife, Mary Craig Kimbrough, in order to understand her self-claimed telepathic abilities. Sinclair devised a series of 300 tests that were said to prove the reality of mental telepathy and remote viewing while revealing untold powers of the mind.


Sinclair is said to have sat in one room drawing a picture and then placing it into a sealed envelop while Mary, who was in another room, would "tune in" and draw what she perceived. In other tests, Mary would write out a message sent from someone "far away." Her accuracy rate was said to be astonishing ruling out random chance as an explanation. The couple conducted these experiments for a period of three years. They conducted 290 trials consisting of 65 (23%) successes, 155 (53%) partial successes and 70 (24%) failures.

Sinclair used radio broadcasting as a metaphor to explain how telepathy works. One person's brain sent out a mental "vibration" that the other brain picked up. Sinclair concluded that telepathy is real, uneffected by distance and can be trained, verified and scientifically studied.

Mental Radio documents these experiments and includes Mary's instructions on how to learn the "art of conscious mind-reading." William McDougall, known as the "Dean of American Psychology" at the time, was inspired by the Sinclair's work. McDougall went on to establish a parapsychology department at Duke University. Parapsychology is a discipline that seeks to investigate the existence and causes of psychic abilities and life after death using the scientific method.

Mental Radio was originally published in 1930 and republished in 2001 as a part of Hampton Roads series Classics in Conciousness, edited by Russell Targ. The 2001 edition has an addendum containing an analysis of the raw experiment documentation by Dr Walter Franklin Prince of the Boston Society for Psychic Research. Albert Einstein wrote the book's Preface:



I have read the book of Upton Sinclair with great interest and am convinced that the same deserves the most earnest consideration, not only of the laity, but also of the psychologists by profession. The results of the telepathic experiments carefully and plainly set forth in this book stand surely far beyond those which a nature investigator holds to be thinkable. On the other hand, it is out of the question in the case of so conscientious an observer and writer as Upton Sinclair that he is carrying on a conscious deception of the reading world; his good faith and dependability are not to be doubted. So if somehow the facts here set forth rest not upon telepathy, but upon some unconscious hypnotic influence from person to person, this also would be of high psychological interest. In no case should the psychologically interested circles pass over this book heedlessly.

Albert Einstein - Preface - Mental Radio

In order to achieve a receptive state of telepathy and be able to distinguish between true psychic impressions and normal thoughts, Mary suggests, on page 105 of Mental Radio, that you "Give yourself a suggestion to the effect that you will relax your mind and your body, making the body insensitive and the mind a blank , and reserving the power to break the concentration in a short time. By making the body insensitive, I mean simply to relax completely your mental hold of, or awareness of, all bodily sensation. After giving yourself this suggestion a few times, you proceed to relax both body and mind. Relax all mental interest in everything in the environment; inhibit all thoughts which try to wander into consciousness from the subconsciousness, or from wherever else thoughts come." She adds,  "the way to relax is to let go. Let go of every tense muscle, every tense spot, in the body. This deep relaxation is important for if the body is tense it affects the thoughts in the mind. Likewise, if the mind is full of thoughts it will tense the body." More precise instructions are given on the following pages of the book.

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Are You Amused to Death????

While enjoying my morning coffee and browsing news headlines, one caught my eye. The headline read "Yoko Ono's Top Five Must Reads." I clicked on the link and browsed the list. The title of one book especially appealed to me - "Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business, by Neil Postman.
A quick trip to Amazon shows its available in paperback or as an audiobook. The paperback is out of print and there were only 28 copies available. I suspect that number will soon change. According to the product description, Amusing Ourselves to Death "Examines the ways in which television has transformed public discourse--in politics, education, religion, science, and elsewhere--into a form of entertainment that undermines exposition, explanation and knowledge. "

We, as human beings, are conditioned by our culture, society, parents, religion education, peer groups and anything else that influences our thinking and beliefs. A brief visit to Wikipedia brings up the following definition of social conditioning:

"  Social conditioning refers to the sociological process of training individuals in a society to respond in a manner generally approved by the society in general and peer groups within society. The concept is stronger than that of socialization, which refers to the process of inheriting norms, customs and ideologies. Manifestations of social conditioning are vast, but they are generally categorized as social patterns and social structures including education, employment, entertainment, popular culture, religion, spirituality and family life. The social structure in which an individual finds him or herself influences and can determine their social actions and responses. Social conditioning represents the environment and personal experience in the nature vs. nurture debate. Society in general and peer groups within society set the norms which shape the behavior of actors within the social system. A work of literature that helps show this is "Brave New World" by Aldous Huxley."
In order to grow and evolve as individuals and a race, it is important to understand how we are conditioned so that we can break free and liberate ourselves of conditioned patterns that hold us back and stunt our growth.

Although I have not personally read this book, it looks like the author wrote in an an attempt to help people gain an awareness of how we are conditioned by pop culture via the entertainment business.

Barron Laycock, who reviewed the book on Amazon, writes, "Postman binds your interest by illustrating and documenting how the rise of the elecrtonic media and its manipulation of what you see in way of news and entertainment has inexorably changed the meanings,purposes and ultimate uses of politics, economics, and technology. As Huxley himself warned, totalitarian societies need not arise through violent overthrow of the democracies using brutality, cruelty and violence, but can also occur whenever the citizenry is successfully deluded into apathy by petty diversions and entertainments, as well."

In another review, Ben Barczi writes, "Postman's thesis in this brief but articulate book consists of two tenets: (1) The form of communication, to some extent, determines (or is biased toward certain types of) content; (2) Television, as our modern-day uber-form of communication, has biases which are destructive toward the rational mind. TV teaches us to expect life to be entertaining, rather than interesting; it teaches us to expect 8-minute durations of anything and everything (anything else is beyond our attention span); it teach us to be suspicious of argument and discussion, and instead to accept facts at face value. Furthermore - and, by far, the most important discovery Postman makes in this book - TV teaches us to live a decontextualized life."

Barczi later states, "It certainly is true that the vast majority of Americans are perfectly happy not to develop any sort of framework or philosophy; life is simply life, and one doesn't need to consider it. Even today's elite students, who are certainly able to integrate lessons and perform well academically, have fallen to this malady; as David Brooks pointed out in his searingly accurate article, "The Organization Kid," (Atlantic Monthly, April 2001) top-notch students no longer attempt to build any sort of moral or philosophical structure from their studies; a life lived in a context, makes no sense to the student who has grown up watching the decontextualized television screen."

Amusing Ourselves to Death inspired Amused to Death, a concept album by Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters, which was released in 1992. According to Wikipedia, Amused to Death explores Waters' disillusionment with modern Western society, focusing specifically on the influence of television and the mass media.
In an interview published in the L.A. Times in September 1992, Roger's is quoted as saying, "So I became interested in this idea of television as a two-edged sword, that it can be a great medium for spreading information and understanding between peoples, but when it's a tool of our slavish adherence to the incumbent philosophy that the free market is the god that we should all bow down to, it's a very dangerous medium. Because it's so powerful."

The song "Perfect Sense" inspired John Isaak Alpert to analyze the lyrics on Water's album. "Roger Waters's "Perfect Sense" from the album, Amused to Death, questions why we view the world in terms of profit instead of human life. For me it opened up the question of how we value things. " Discussing the song "What God Wants, Part I, Alpert writes, "The second song "What God Wants, Part I" starts by telling us how the will of the controllers of the mass media is imposed on the individual. This is made very clear by the repetition of key lines. "  You can read the entire piece on Water's website. 

Both the album and the book sound like they contain an important message. Maybe its time to turn off the media and learn to think for ourselves.
　
　

　

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The Last Way Station

One of the most thought provoking books I have read in the recent past is The Last Way Station: Hitler's Final Journey by James Reisfeld. I am not ordinarily attracted to, or interested in, anything to do with Adolph Hitler or Nazi Germany. I am not sure how this book came to my attention or what possessed me to buy it and read it.

The Last Way Station: Hitler's Final Journey is a very imaginative novella in which the author describes what happens after Hitler pulls the trigger and finds himself in the afterlife. "... the Führer finds himself mysteriously transported to a numbingly cold, solitary holding cell in the afterworld. There, he meets his caseworker, a supernatural being tasked with helping him face, and work through, his sins. The caseworker explains that Hitler will remain in solitary confinement indefinitely, as he prepares his soul for eventual return to the material world. The method, Hitler learns, involves seeking enlightenment through physically embodying his victims and then personally reliving the atrocities committed against them in his name."

In order to evolve as a soul and eventually reincarnate again as a human being, Hitler has to first experience what each and every soul he harmed, directly or indirectly, experienced. This is a time consuming task as he does not get it. All he can focus on is himself and his desire to go down in history as all powerful. His "caseworker" has infinite patience however and they keep working through it. Hitler incarnates over and over again into alternative realities which allow him to witness and experience the same pain and sorrow he has caused others. He has just about exhausted the millions of opportunities he has been given to learn how his actions have harmed others when...

I don't want to give the ending away but can tell you it is worth the read. Although we do not know what happens in the afterlife, what the author suggests in this book is something to really think about and contemplate. Suppose we have to witness and experience all of the pain and sorrow we have caused others through our thoughts and actions?  

　

The Evolutionary Journey of a Soul - Anne Boleyn

Threads - The Reincarnation of Anne Boleyn by Nell Gavin is a fantasy which combines elements of historical fiction, metaphysics and eastern religion into one very interesting tale.  Threads "opens with Anne's execution. Her fury at her husband's betrayal has enough momentum to survive centuries, but in Threads she learns that she has been assigned a hard task: she must review their history together through a number of past lives, and find it within herself to forgive him." (Amazon book description).  At the time I came across this book I was studying Evolutionary Astrology which delves into reincarnation and describes how one's past life experiences influence one's current life.  Threads struck me as an Evolutionary Astrology book minus the astrology.  It was a perfect example of the theory behind what evolutionary astrologers are taught - what happens after death, how past lives are the cause of the current life and how the soul determines what it needs to experience in future lives. In other words, this book was about the evolutionary journey of a soul.

Threads is written in the first person.  It is Anne Bolelyn telling her own story.  "Death is not as I had expected from hours, months, and years of religious instruction, nor is it the dark and frightening place of lore. There are neither harps nor terrifying images. I sprout neither wings nor horns. It is not as I had imagined, nor is it as I had feared. Yet it is what I had known it to be, deep within me, like words I had once memorized long ago, but forgot until now when I am from a lifetime of unconsciousness."  (Gavin, Nell (2011-07-29). Threads: The Reincarnation of Anne Boleyn (p. 11). Book and Quill Press. Kindle Edition).

After reading the book I contacted the author, Nell Gavin, and asked her if I could do her astrology chart from an Evolutionary Astrology perspective.  I was curious, was Nell the reincarnation of Anne Boleyn?  It almost seemed so based on the story she told in Threads.  After finishing her chart and sharing what I found with her, Nell and I discussed both her chart and her book via a series of emails.

Nell wrote, " It pretty much nailed me on the head. To give you a brief overview, I was born "knowing" I had to write a book. I just never knew what that book was supposed to be about, and I didn't WANT to write a book, so I never wrote anything, except five creative writing papers in English 101, and years and years of business correspondence. I also kept a journal, which is why I write in first person. When I tried to write (because I was "supposed to") it was awful, so I never got far with it."

Nell continued,  "The day we got our first computer was the day I was "inspired" to begin to write. I just sat down and did it. Like I said earlier, I hooked into the "portal" and drew the story down. Sometimes it came with entire pre-written paragraphs I only had to type - that was very odd. I had the sense that I was being taught to write, and as I got further into it I got less and less support. I rewrote everything that came through, except for The Voice - I left her every word just as I received it. "

We can only speculate in regard to whether or not Nell is a reincarnation of Anne Boleyn or a writer who was chosen to channel Anne's story, or whatever.  In any case, Nell did a fantastic job of telling Anne's story in a way that makes one look at Anne Boleyn in an entirely new light.  Most history books and works of historical fiction portray Ann Bolelyn as a less than likeable character.  Threads gives Anne's story a new spin, one that portrays her as a a normal person simply living her life and caught up in an experience that was meant to help her evolve as a soul.

"The first memories that come to me are of my life, the life just past. From birth to death they pass in a rush, but are unblurred as if time is compressed. I see the entire span of my life without recriminations, but also without rationalizations. There is no escape from the things I had done, no opportunity to right wrongs or explain things away, or even to look in another direction to avoid seeing. My thoughts and actions lay before me harsh and real. I then go back again and watch myself from infancy, more slowly and lingeringly. I examine the relationships within my family. I follow the course of my music. I watch my educational and spiritual development and my emotional decline. Like separate threads all crazily woven into the whole, I see my friends and then my enemies, and myself in tangled interaction with them all."  (Gavin, Nell (2011-07-29). Threads: The Reincarnation of Anne Boleyn (p. 12). Book and Quill Press. Kindle Edition).

Book Reviews Wanted

The publishing industry is surely changing.  Prior to the digital age, an author had to submit his or her manuscript to a publisher and hope that someone would even read it, let alone publish it.  These days anyone can publish their own book.  All you have to do is take the time to write it and format it.  The more saavy authors pay a professional editor to go through it and make improvements.

Self published books range from "not so good" to "very good."  I have read quite a few really good self published books, books that I would not have ever guessed were self-published.  The only reason I would even suspect a book might be self-published is if I start reading it and it becomes apparent that it was not properly edited.  Other than that, I can't distinguish self-published from a book released by a publishing house unless I look at the price.  The price often, but not always, is the dead give away.  With that said, it is obvious to me at least, that if done properly, it does not matter who publishes a book.  The important thing is the content and the editing.

That brings me to book reviews.  Just about any good on-line book dealer or book site allows readers to rate and review the books they read.  This is one of the best services they provide as a few good bad reviews can save you from spending money on a dud.  Earlier I did a Google search on "book reviews wanted" as I am trying to help a friend get her book "out there."  I was surprised to see how many sites are soliciting book reviews!  In the pre-digital day it was hard to get a book reviewed.  The author would have to send copies out to newspapers and magazines and hope and pray that anyone would read and then review his or her work.  There just weren't enough reviewers to read and write about all of the books that were submitted.  Another thing, the people who did read and write about books were usually paid.  Not anymore!  It seems that just about anyone can sign up to be a book reviewer.  He or she can simply send book reviews in or in some cases read and write about books that are sent out to him or her.  In the second case. getting to keep the book is part of the compensation.  The other part is "seeing your name in print" - online or off.

There are still outlets like the NY Times Book Review which employ professional book reviewers.  It is still an honor to get mentioned in publications such as these.  Is this good for the industry  or does it hurt the industry?  I don't think it matters.  The old way still works and the new way simply brings more books into public awareness.