The Reincarnational Process and the Eternal Validity of the Personality
The following is excerpted from from Psychic Psychology: Energy Skills for Life and Relationships, published by North Atlantic Books.
We want to discuss an idea of reincarnation that we expect will be new to our readers. We find that this understanding places desire in a reassuring light and helps explain the very nature of our desires, allowing us to relax and be open to life as it is.
Most readers of this book can easily imagine that the soul exists eternally. Most readers then find it comforting that whatever they're suffering, all their experience has meaning for the soul. Some people, however, say, "No. What good does it do me, the personality? I suffer and die. My experience is used by my soul, but I am not there as Jack or Donna or whoever. How does it help me if the soul makes meaning out of my personal suffering?" While it does help you as a personality when the soul makes meaning of your suffering, answering that question would take us off track for this book. Instead, we address the underlying assumption that the personality ends at or shortly after death with the breakdown of the physical and psychic vehicles that composed the personality.
This assumption is, perhaps, universal amongst psychics and mystics, and it is consistent with much of what one sees clairvoyantly in watching the dissolution process after death when you look at the process along one direction of time. When you look in multiple directions you see something dramatically different.
Your soul doesn't gobble up the personality or strip it like a wreck for parts. Not only is the personality's experience gathered and embraced by the soul, the personality itself continues to grow after death, as itself, in the embrace of the soul and in the embrace of even larger consciousnesses than the soul. The personality continues to exercise its own will and uniqueness with recognizably human characteristics (though no physical body) even as it also grows in ways marvelously different from the embodied human consciousness or ego consciousness that we all presently know. The soul completely absorbs the experience of the personality and reorganizes that experience to be unrecognizable by the old personality. The concept that the personality could be ongoing in another direction to freely continue exploring, as itself, violates our normal notions that something can only be one thing at a time. Multidirectional time allows the personality's experience to go in multiple directions at once, and to exist in many forms at once-one form integrated unrecognizably in the soul, other forms as part of larger consciousnesses, and at least one recognizable as the personality as it knows itself.
Seth pointed to this continuation of the personality in a class Jane Roberts gave on May 15, 1971, in which he spoke about his own physical incarnations, detailing one incarnation in particular -- his incarnation as a minor pope of the Catholic Church around 300 CE. Seth indicated that he could not remember the details of his life as pope. He could, however, get a more accurate rendering of the details by checking with his past incarnation, the pope. Seth indicated that while getting the details was possible, it was not worth the effort at the time, since that pope, a past life of his/Seth's, was off doing other things. "But as I now recall them, without directly checking on our friend the pope, who has, you must understand, gone his own way...."
John remembers noticing this statement, as well as several others, in Seth Speaks, but the significance of Seth's clear indication that the personality continues didn't register for John until John observed the afterdeath continuation and extraordinary growth of someone he had known in life.
John's first observation of this continuation was in the early '90s and concerned a dear friend. In February 1976, John's friend and fellow Seth class member, Will Ives, committed suicide. In a meditation in the early '90s, John saw a beautiful violet ribbon of light. As he observed and interacted with the beautiful ribbon of light John noticed that it contained the consciousness of Will. It was Will, the old Will, just much happier. John had earlier observed that Will had already reincarnated twice, but this Will was not a later incarnation who had gobbled up John's friend Will -- this was Will with John's friend's memories and flavorings. This was the Will that John had known: wiser, with a deep serenity and joyousness, participating in something John couldn't then follow.
Over time John's communication with and perception of Will has expanded. Today John easily communicates with Will as Will. He also can perceive Will ecstatically participating in several gestalt consciousnesses: a few huge, a few small explorations, and at least one person-toperson, i.e., the one where Will communicates with John. In some way, while honoring boundaries, Will sees through and is affected by John's experience, and vice versa. Will became what we call a co-personality to John, which we will explain over the next few pages.
After Death
Here's what the authors see as the normal after-death process. Please understand that the creativity and multidimensionality of this process render all accounts simplifications. Physical death occurs and the personality moves into higher planes of energy. If this is the soul's final incarnation, the soul itself moves into a higher energy range than it had occupied, reconfigures itself with the last personality being vitally important, and engages in continued evolution. For example, the late Jane Roberts, who was the final life of her soul, has become an integral part of a large entity that acts as a guide (primarily in the dream state) for numerous people simultaneously.
If the deceased personality is not the soul's final incarnation, the personality gives a copy of all its experience to the soul. The personality has several additional avenues to pursue its own further growth. Even though the personality eventually loses all the earthly vehicles that had held it together and supported its individuality in life, the personality continues to be held together by at least three sources: its soul, by even larger beings, and by an individualized spark that it received from All That Is when it initially incarnated.
After death the personality continues to train with guides and explore its new environment. After engaging in various trainings and explorations, most personalities have a set of questions and challenges that they personally take back into the reincarnational process (again, without losing themselves in the incarnation, see below). For example, if the personality in physical life was narrowly intellectual and arrogant about its intellect, it might choose to explore a lifetime with less intellect to experience the validity of such a life and to learn how to live skillfully with having a lower status.
The personality will never again have another physical lifetime that is exactly like the physicality it once experienced. Instead there is an amazing way in which it becomes a co-personality in other incarnations, actively participating as itself, just a slight energy distance away from the energy field of the new physical incarnation. The personality collaborates with its soul, All That Is, and other larger beings, as well as some other personalities from its soul's other incarnations, to form a new "baby being." The baby being is comprised of its own spark of uniqueness from All That Is, of challenges and questions arising from the multiple past incarnations, and of projects bestowed by the soul itself and other larger beings that gave birth to it. From now on this being has its own spark and initiatives even while it is a part of others greater than itself. It, too, will live as a human and then continue eternally, both as itself and as a part of other greater energy gestalts, especially as a part of its soul. The baby being's psychic DNA is formed out of the desires that gave it birth. It will be motivated by those desires. In a way hard to understand given our existence in linear time, the baby being, through its own divine spark, gets to choose, in an important sense, the desires that give it birth. The nature of the baby being's creation and birth sheds light on the nature of desire and the challenges that all humans face.
The Co-Personality
Remember the narrowly intellectual and arrogant personality whose after-death adventure we proposed above. Let's call him Daniel. Daniel wanted to explore a life with less intellect and lower status in order to develop compassion and to learn a simple happiness. After death, Daniel consults with other personalities of the soul, with the soul itself, with guides, with other souls that may want to interact with him in his next incarnation, and with All That Is. Together they plan a new incarnation, a new baby being whom we'll call Beth. Daniel, who took part in planning the Beth incarnation, does not get lost in the Beth baby being but participates in the new incarnation from a nearby energy platform that's part of Beth's subconscious mind. He will be what we call a co-personality. Other personalities from his soul will also participate as co-personalities from an energy distance. Their environment will not be structured in simple linear time as is Beth's physical reality in her new incarnation. Instead, each past personality will experience a vibrant, engrossing, somewhat dreamlike environment. Each personality, like Daniel, will seem to be the center of his or her own experience. Daniel affects and is affected by Beth. And each has free will. One could say that the new incarnation of Beth's becomes an aspect of Daniel's reality, part of Daniel's subconscious mind, just as Daniel is an aspect of Beth's incarnation, an aspect of her subconscious mind. The new incarnation, Beth, will be fully free to accept, in part or in whole, or to reject altogether the sensory, emotional, and intellectual responses of her co-personalities, including Daniel.
Daniel will engage only the times in Beth's life relevant to his own unfinished, unassimilated experience. Eventually Daniel obtains enough experience to move to his next question, and the process is initiated again as a co-personality to a new incarnation. Again a new baby being is formed. Let's call him Christopher. And again Daniel becomes a portion of Christopher's subconscious; Daniel affects and is affected by Christopher, and each exercises free will in their respective energy vehicles. Eventually Daniel answers his questions sufficiently so that he moves forward to the stage that John's friend Will now experiences: nondual awareness.
Every personality is eventually redeemed through this process, even if its actions and physical life were cruel and repellent. In the case of extreme cruelty it could take a million years on another planet before the personality is redeemed, but eventually every personality is able to function fully in the realm of nondual divine play.
Returning again to Beth, the baby being created out of the questions of Daniel, it is the very nature of Beth to want to know how to be happy while being less intellectual and having a lower status than her soul's incarnations had in recent (earlier) lives. In multidimensional time, we, the personality, choose the life situation into which we will be born for the adventure it offers. This is hard to understand from our normal experience of time -- how can we choose before we exit? In multidimensional time we do choose before we exit, and we feel free to choose challenges, knowing that ultimately all our actions will be redeemed as we expand eternally as a personality. Understanding this helps us understand why we engage life as we do with the strength and weaknesses that we have, and reassures us that we can and eventually will experience a wholeness that every bit of prior experience contributes to in its own unique way.
A few personalities move, with minimal further training, fairly directly to the Unity level (where John's deceased friend Will is centered), which most personalities don't reach until much further along in their experience. The personality goes to the Unity level only if it has no major unfinished business.
For example, personalities who come at the end of a lengthy series of their soul's lifetimes (in which the soul investigated an issue in depth) might be relatively complete at death, even if the soul has other issues to investigate. An example might be a soul that explored issues of war and anger, having multiple lives as a combatant at various levels of rank, for various ideologies, and in various styles of combat; and also as a noncombatant affected by the wars, in some lives adversely, and in some lives by being liberated, as many slaves were in the Civil War, or other advantageous ways; lives as war hawks and others as doves; and many lives learning how to deal with anger in daily life, again sometimes as the aggressor and sometimes as the recipient. Perhaps the last life in this series could be one where the incarnated personality is especially good at addressing anger -- say, a hospital administrator confronting the turmoil of patients and their families and conflicts over insurance. Such a person might be relatively complete at the end of their life and ready to move rapidly to the nondual awareness of Unity.
Yet another type of person in our experience who goes relatively directly to nondual reality is someone who attains fearlessness in meeting the world as it is. John had a client who died of ALS (commonly known as Lou Gehrig's disease). He spent his last year or so in the world-famous healing community of John of God. A few months prior to his death he told his wife that he had never been happier. It took only about five years in John's time for this gentleman to make his way to the Unity level. His soul may still have many more lifetimes to complete, but this particular personality was ready to move almost directly to the Unity level.
Copyright © 2011 by John Friedlander and Gloria Hemsher, reprinted by permission of publisher.
Teaser image by Thompson sa, courtesy of Creative Commons license.
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Comments
Interesting...
but extremely complicated. I'm just curious how the authors came to these conclusions.
I suppose I should read the book.
author's reply
Interesting... but extremely complicated.
Thank you for your comment. You’re right, it is really quite complicated. And there are perspectives that are even more complicated, but which would not have added to the book. We worked to make the concepts as understandable as we could, while including enough detail that one can see how the personality can grow at the same time as the soul grows. They each grow separately, yet in eternal relationship with each other.
RedHawk: I'm just curious how the authors came to these conclusions.
We used a combination of clairvoyance and a channeled perspective with hints from Jane Robert’s Seth books. Subsequent to writing this book we were informed by someone who is an advanced Tibetan Buddhist practitioner that the high Tibetan lamas work directly with what we call a “co personality” though their objectives and consequently what they do with the co personality is very different from what we do in our own healing and meditation practice. We often find that healing the co personality brings great healing to us, our clients, and students.
Ontological issue
author's reply to Douglas Rosestone's ontological issue
You’re right, our point of view does disagree with other authorities about the continued existence of the personality, though I will discuss the question of ontology in a moment. We know of no one before Seth who ever spoke publicly about the continued existence of the personality. However, Seth makes it clear from his much larger perspective that includes multiple directions of consciousness in time and space, and outside time and space, that all life expands in all directions. Your soul expands in all directions and your personality expands in all directions. They stay eternally connected and have a subjective independent existence. We learned after the publication of the book that high Tibetan lamas work on the continuation of the personality that we have called the co-personality. Since they have very specialized objectives, they treat them differently than we do. So, we’re comfortable with letting this concept play out. It was described to us by our guides and it tracks our experience and those of other clairvoyants who have explored it. It has the practical effect of adding to the power of healings, and in the book, it is a part of an overall world view that directly aids one in finding meaning in all events. We find that world view makes it easier to value and embrace everyday life with skill, kindness, and generosity.I disagree with you on your characterization of Eastern philosophy as monolithic in its ontology. First, the word, ontological. In an effort to make the book material as accessible as possible, we have stayed away from terms like ontological, and the chapter the editors of Reality Sandwich chose is the most difficult of all the chapters in our book.
So, dealing with your concern in the way you've stated it, ontology is the study of the nature of being and existence, and the ontological position taken by a tradition such as Hinduism or Buddhism, for our purposes, is the position they take on whether the phenomena of experience are real in the sense of self existing. Within both Hinduism and Buddhism, different schools have different ontologies- dual and non-dual, and they also treat the various phenomena of existence as all real, some real, or none real. Importantly, your argument proves too much. In the west, the unit of consciousness that generates each individual incarnation and engages in the entire reincarnational process, growing with each incarnation, is called the soul. It is given great importance. Most westerners I know attach great importance to the soul. We certainly do.
Most Buddhists treat the soul as ontologically unreal. Famously, they talk of Anatman, meaning no self or no soul, because focusing on interdependent origination leaves the whole concept of soul as empty. And in this they are right from their very meaningful perspective. Nothing in manifestation has independent or permanent existence. So using their ontology as your authority would require that you get rid of the soul too as continuing. Buddhist ontology observes the impermanence of all phenomena.
We deal with the problem of existence, without mentioning it as an academic topic on page 174 of the book. It is true that nothing in the manifested world has independent or permanent existence, but we explain that meaningful self-organizing entities maintain a subjective coherence in their eternal expansion. The soul, the personality, and even much larger entities like mother earth continue to exist because they continue to expand in their subjectivity. It is this subjectivity of the personality that hasn't been publicly discussed and can't be observed in that linear energy range of human development that has been the focus of humanity for thousands of years. According to our guides, this limited focus is changing as we move into the Aquarian Age and genuinely new forms of human consciousness will emerge as discussed in Part 2 of our book.
Yeah none of this agrees
"""Your claim that the personality has ontological status flies in the face of everything East and West that I have ever come upon. Read Gary Zukav and one sees a personal understanding that is in keeping with Eastern philosophy. Read Edgar Cayce and there is a view contrary what you are putting forth. Reader beware."""
Yeah none of the original post agrees with the Holy Bible either. What's your point, exactly?
Yeah, none of this agrees- author's response
doesn't agree with Holy Bible--
The Bible is sublime and complex. Almost a quarter of Christians believed in reincarnation in 2009 according to a Dec. 10, 2009 report by the Pew Research Center.
What's your point anyway?
Our point is your life, this life, is sacred and meaningful in and of itself. Every human life, not just those of the rich, successful, saintly or enlightened, has an eternal validity. No human life gets lost or wasted, even ones in which a person makes poor choices.
Of course it's better to make good choices, but since all life expands in all directions, each life inevitably moves towards meaning and fulfillment whatever the detours. This is important because, when people are overly afraid of the consequences of bad choices, or when they tell themselves their life has no meaning unless they get the pleasures they want on the schedule they want, they end up shying away from a genuine encounter with their life and closing down their ability to calmly access more of their skillful, kind, and generous options.
In the larger framework of the book we explain how to develop and explore psychic awareness so that you can use it in everyday applications, how those abilities integrate with a big picture understanding of the nature of creating one's reality, and we explore applying those understandings in the ambiguousness and ambivalence which is often present in real life relationships.
My point
My point by Douglas Rosestone-author's response
You’ve raised a very important point that we deal with throughout our book, “What is the place of authority, what is the place of belief, how do you know what to believe, and how do you engage the world with imperfect knowledge?”In our book, we discuss the difference in kinds of authority. For example, scientific claims can justify a person taking the risk of, say, getting in a rocket and going to the moon because the evidence is external to the person conducting the experiment (for purposes of this discussion). Developing your perceptual abilities, wisdom, kindness, and generosity is an exploration situated in the person, and is best tested flexibly in everyday life, committing in the moment to your best understanding, but open to what you may learn in the next moment. In the exploration of consciousness, taking anything other than an experiential approach and testing information through your own experience can have disastrous outcomes. The Dalai Lama and all the other great Buddhist teachers I've had the privilege to observe stress that fact. The Dalai Lama even says that if someone could prove Buddhism wrong, he would accept that.
Again, we’re comfortable with letting the understanding of what happens to the personality after death in multi-directional time play out in people's experience. The description we shared was described to us by our guides and it tracks both our own experience and those of other independent clairvoyants who have explored the understanding. It has the practical effect of adding to the power of healings, and in the book, it is a part of an overall world view that directly aids one in finding meaning in all events. We find that world view makes it easier to value and embrace everyday life with skill, kindness, and generosity.
While we do cite Seth, who is widely respected by a whole generation of practitioners like Depak Chopra, we're not making claims to be blindly followed. People can learn to check this information out for themselves. About the time Psychic Psychology, Energy Skills for Life and Relationships was released, our publisher also released a 4 cd class Navigating The Seven Planes Of Consciousness that takes one through the venerable system developed by the Theosophists of the late 19th and early 20th century. Students learn to find for themselves each of the 49 "sub-plane" energies most relevant to human consciousness in the Theosophical system. While we use the western chakra system in our book as it works very well for developing psychic abilities and applying them in one's personal life, the Theosophical system, with some modern modifications that I've drawn from Seth (he never mentioned Theosophy), makes it relatively easy to find your co-personalities off "to the side" of the regular systematization of the seven planes.
Red Hawk's "interesting" comment--author response
Interesting... but extremely complicated.
Thank you for your comment. You’re right, it is really quite complicated. And there are perspectives that are even more complicated, but which would not have added to the book. We worked to make the concepts as understandable as we could, while including enough detail that one can see how the personality can grow at the same time as the soul grows. They each grow separately, yet in eternal relationship with each other.
RedHawk: I'm just curious how the authors came to these conclusions.
We used a combination of clairvoyance and a channeled perspective with hints from Jane Robert’s Seth books. Subsequent to writing this book we were informed by someone who is an advanced Tibetan Buddhist practitioner that the high Tibetan lamas work directly with what we call a “co personality” though their objectives and consequently what they do with the co personality is very different from what we do in our own healing and meditation practice. We often find that healing the co personality brings great healing to us, our clients, and students.
All That Is- author's reply
Thanks for your question. I’m following the usage of one of my two most important teachers, Seth. He was the being channeled by the first modern channel, the late Jane Roberts. He always referred to God as "All That Is.” He was attempting to help us avoid limiting concepts that flood in whenever we use the term God. Of course, whatever words we use will inevitably fall prey to whatever limits we consciously or unconsciously place on them, and the phrase "All That Is" is no exception. Still, I’ve been using All That Is for almost four decades, and I find that it helps me and others extend the limit of our imagination.
An additional advantage to the term “All That Is” is that it is the most inclusive and neutral term for anyone's beliefs I can imagine. What are your thoughts?All That Is- author's reply
I'm glad I asked for your response. I love your answer, and from my studies with Seth, that's just the kind of thing he repeated and tried to help us understand.
I plan to continue using the phrase "All That Is". Some mystics prefer to use theistic descriptors like the word "God", and some prefer non theistic descriptors like non-dual. No matter what kind of descriptor one uses, when it's used skillfully the ineffable will be implied. Through the centuries a consensus has grown that both the theistic and non theistic approaches will work and the question of which works best for an individual is a matter of temperament.
All That Is- author's reply
I'm glad I asked for your response. I love your answer, and from my studies with Seth, that's just the kind of thing he repeated and tried to help us understand.
I plan to continue using the phrase "All That Is". Some mystics prefer to use theistic descriptors like the word "God", and some prefer non theistic descriptors like non-dual. No matter what kind of descriptor one uses, when it's used skillfully the ineffable will be implied. Through the centuries a consensus has grown that both the theistic and non theistic approaches will work and the question of which works best for an individual is a matter of temperament.
howard 16's All That Is-author's additional response
You pointed out that God is everything that does happen, as well as everything that doesn't. Since Seth reports a universe in which everything happens, not just what we follow and experience as the real events; and yet newness is always being created, then Seth's All That Is also includes all that isn't. You also pointed out that God transcends the capability of human speech, and Seth agrees. All formulations inevitably trigger conceptualization, even the conceptualizations of emptiness and silence. Seth chose "All That Is" to help us step outside old conceptualizations, but even his language inevitably engenders conceptualization.
The Perpetual Development of the Personality
I have just two things to say:
First, the Damanhurians -- the Federation of Damanhur -- have a rare distinction of agreeing with you. They too argue passionately for the perpetual development of all personalities. They carry this along-side a system of reincarnation. Whether they got it from Seth Material or not, I don't know -- it could be, since they started in the 1970's. But there were people saying such things *before* the 1970's, ... Which brings me to my next point:
All theologies that are based in Resurrection: And here I mean now the Egyptians, the Jews, the Christians, and the Muslims: ALL of them agree. Because the vision is that the personsonality continues.
For example, look at the Catholic Encyclopedia entry on immortality ( http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/07687a.htm ) which states quite lucidly: "The doctrine of immortality, strictly or properly understood, means personal immortality, the endless conscious existence of the individual soul. It implies that the being which survives shall preserve its personal identity and be connected by conscious memory with the previous life. Unless the individual's identity be preserved, a future existence has relatively little interest." I believe that the online Catholic Encyclopedia is based in a 1910 edition of the Catholic Encyclopedia. Paul provides many arguments for perpetual development of the individual. CS Lewis at the end of the Narnia Chronicles describes this very lucidly as well, carrying over from the perpetual evolution of forms depicted in The Golden Key by George MacDonald.
Esoterically, I see you as completing the square: We cannot re-embrace the world and the body (after our distancing for the purpose of seeing the One) without also re-embracing the personality. It simply makes no sense otherwise. Where I/we run into trouble is the public embrace of death, as "a natural part of life;" Deep ecologists, once new-found allies, kick against the esoterics.
The Perpetual Development of the Personality-author's response
Thanks so much for your kind words and informative response. I wasn't familiar with the Federation of Damanhur. I've searched the net and they seem fascinating. I haven't been able to find anything on them concerning their belief in both reincarnation and the continuation of the personality. Is that information available to the public? If so, where?
RE, death being part of life, I'm not familiar with the ecologists you're disagreeing with. Are they saying that human life dies with the body?
The Perpetual Development of the Personality
Most Damanhurian esoteric thought is in Italian, and even what they publish in English is hard to get to, because you have to specially arrange overseas shipping.
However, there is an English book called Damanhur: The Story of the Extraordinary Italian Artistic and Spiritual Community (by Jeff Merrifield, himself not a Damanhurian,) and it has Chapter 12: Personalities Within - Structure of the Soul (following Chapter 11: God and Humanity as a Divinity.) I believe there are also descriptions in Alex Grey's book on Damanhur, but I can't remember for sure.
As for deep ecologists: The deep ecologists I have talked with about these ideas have kicked back to me. It may well be because I was arguing the case for resurrection. They said, "No, this is wrong on two counts. One, we don't have space for all the people -- the Earth (and that is our one focus) can't support it. Two, it's morally wrong because it is against nature. In nature, everything is born, grows, has an adulthood, and then dies. Everything needs to stop. I've made peace with death, why haven't you?"
I came to make a connection in my mind (right or wrong) that reincarnation fits so well with the contemporary schema, because it is nearly indistinguishable from "well then you die and then it is over." The idea that personality continues looks preposterous to the contemporary, because everywhere we look, we see people dying, but nowhere do we see people coming back to life, or being born with all memories of past lives intact. My sense is that you are looked at as being somewhat childish if you think that there is a continued existence after death.
Are they saying that human life dies with the body? I think that they are.
LionKimbro's perpetual development of the personlality-author's
Thanks, I'll look into it.
Re: deep ecologists. We agree with the ecologists that all form has its day - physical and spiritual forms also. Words fail here - there is "something" in the infinite play of All That Is that is at the center of all forms that is expanding in all directions. We explain in the book about how this something can forever expand even though forms are, as the Buddhists point out, impermanent and they arise interdependently with all other forms. So when we say that the personality has eternal validity, it is nevertheless true that eventually your personality becomes very different from the personality you know when you are in a physical body. Eventually your personality experiences non-dual awareness and ceases to grasp at forms.
The point we have been making is that its continuation is real though it no longer has a physical body. It isn't gobbled up by the soul, though in certain orientations of looking at it, it does indeed assimilate into and participate eternally in the larger consciousness of the soul. We are saying that in other directions in multi-directional time it knows itself as the personality you had when you had a body, but its own understanding of itself is far more dramatically expanded than any set of changes you go through while alive in a physical body. The personality eventually becomes magnificently free, creative, and busy exploring simultaneous realms of mind boggling dimensions. It gets to that place by further growth, learning as a co-personality and through other adventures. Eventually, all its resistances to "life as it is" are eradicated and it opens to the play of life unequivocally.
Interesting Perspective
The idea that other personalities make up aspects of our subconscious is very interesting. I'm reminded of Jung's #1 personality and #2 personality, which he considered much older and wiser than himself.
When I try and conceptualize these ideas (a fools errand perhaps) I always get caught up on the idea that time is no linear in the astral, non-physical reality - whatever you want to call it. So... aren't all of our incarnations happening simultaneously? Could I be the co-personality of a personality that is also my co-personality.
This author Robert Moss has an interesting account about how he had dream communication with a Celtic druid, or something of the sort. He later came to the conclusion that he and the druid were part of the same oversoul, and were able to learn from each other.
I really see time as an illusion, so in theory another personality of mine could be learning from me, this current personality, with the wisdom I have gained (or not) 50 years from now. Ahhh this stuff makes my head hurt. Also an interesting note is the ability to travel (through the lucid dreamstate, astral, OBE, whatever you want to call it) to your future self.
Interesting perspective by cOsmOnautt-author's response
Essentially yes. What I find so exciting as we explore Seth’s teachings that all consciousness expands in all directions is- it becomes more and more obvious that each consciousness is the center of an ever expanding universe and each consciousness is sacred and meaningful in its own terms. Each co-personality is thus an active center spontaneously and exuberantly expanding in all directions. Each personality that is a co-personality to a physical incarnation like you or me is deeply focused on the experience of the physically incarnated personality, but engages that experience with enormous flexibility. It is not limited in time or space, and so is engaged in its own surpassingly creative venture . Such a co-personality has every bit as much freedom and generativity as do we, the physically incarnated personalities. Each of us, the physically incarnated personality, and the co-personality, is enriched through the autonomous creativity of the other. We are at once independent and mutually interdependent .
the cult of the self
Are you at all concerned that your hypothesis may be catering to people's attachment to and (what already amounts to) "deification" of their personalities.
My understanding of the (word) "personality" is quite different from yours, being more or less synonymous with a false self - a bit like Thomas Anderson in The Matrix. I see it as largely a collection of learned reactions to a hostile environment, a defense system, if you will (Reich's character armor), and/or an amalgam of thought forms or astral fragments posing as a self. (See also Castaneda's last book, The Active Side of Infinity, on "the flyer-mind"). It's a complex question, granted, and even the idea of reincarnation I think is all-too appealing to the lower self and its delusions of grandeur in the cosmic scheme of things. A cockroach is sacred too, but if everything is sacred, then nothing is sacred, surely?
2) Channeled information is, to my mind, less of a pedigree than a "handle with care/approach with caution" sign. I know it's an old argument, but the assumption that discarnate entities aren't intent on deceiving us as much or more than they are on guiding us to freedom seems to me naive. All the evidence indicates that we live in a predatory universe, and that this extends to the energetic realm also. That didn't come out as a question, but perhaps you could respond to it as if it were?
3) Easy one: are you familiar with Anthony Peake's work, regarding the Daemon and the eidolon? If not, I suggest you check it out.
Lastly, I have recently been going over an old piece I co-wrote on reincarnation, also partly "channeled" (not by me but a former partner). It is quite a different view from your own, so if you'd like to see it, let me know.
www.aeoluskephas.blogspot.com
aeolus kephas' the cult of self--- author's response
please check below
The idea that other
aeolus kephas' the cult of self--- author's response
There are three blogs from aeolus kephas, oliverfox, and Peter Meyer, each with several fruitful points and/or questions I'd like to engage. I think my responses will be clearer and more interesting if I respond to all of them together, in a series of replies addressing particular issues they've raised, or that provide background that would give my answers more context. The first response will address where this information comes from and then how we look at the question of authority, how we look at the process of using new information skillfully. I hope to have one or more responses posted by late tomorrow.
Yes, I would like to see your material on reincarnation. You can contact me through Psychicpsychology.org.
author's response to aeolus' cult of self
We think much New Age doctrine, shallowly understood, seems to promise happiness through fulfilling your desires. Much other mystical practice counsels rising above your desires. Our approach is based primarily on a synthesis of Jane Roberts' Seth and Lewis Bostwick's psychic development training, both as a spiritual practice and the cultivation of pragmatic living and healing skills. To their work we add smaller but important contributions from many systems, especially an updated Theosophy and Alice Bailey, and Aurobindo and the Mother. We also add our own ever growing clairvoyant and channeled observations, practices and organization of the material growing out of a combined more than 80 years of active psychic/spiritual practice.
This system welcomes desire as a divine invitation to embrace life. We fully address, in Part 2 of our book Psychic Psychology, Energy Skills for Life and Relationships, pages 171 through 254, why the personality is valuable in and of itself even though it is subject to delusion. While we teach ways of perceiving and engaging energies from many dimensions and high states, our chief focus is on developing abilities to engage our personal world and relationships as they are, with their intrinsic play of order and chaos. This interplay of yin and yang, order and chaos, is what gives rise to newness, to the possibility of creativity. Embracing this personal world with authenticity, kindness and generosity bring meaning and reliable happiness.
Yes, interesting piece, but
Yes, interesting piece, but it doesn't exactly "cheer" me up in terms of our cosmic reality. Firstly, where does this co-personality come from? I never read where Jane Roberts talked about that concept. I know in Unknown Reality there was lots of talk about counterparts and alternate selves, but I don't remember anything about this co-personality. Not to mention baby personalities. Sorry, but that one sounds really kooky my friend.
And these baby personalities, where does this come from? Some other channel? I'm sure the cosmos is complicated but I can't imagine it's as complicated as this. But, who knows. In Nature of Personal Reality my head spun a little but I felt very empowered that I could transform my life. With Unknown Reality I felt things slipping away from my grasp.
If all these "aspects" of being--co-personalities, baby personalities, etc.... are parts of what you call the "soul" -- then what is the nature of the soul? Some machine that spits out little "baby" creators who ultimately aren't really "beings" at all but little copy machines (strange mechanical metaphor you use) transferring data bytes from one hard drive to another? Your view, however Sethian, really does smack of mechanistic models. And we, we look therein like ghosts in the machines.
oliverfox's Yes, interesting piece, but-- author's response
oliverfox's Yes, interesting piece, but-- author's response
oliverfox's Yes, interesting piece, but-- author's response
please see a partial resonse below
(Some) DMT entities as personalities
I confess to not having read much of the Seth material, but this article makes sense to me. I suspect that what the authors call the 'personality' and the 'soul' correspond roughly to what in Huna is called the 'middle self' and the 'higher self' respectively, though the perspective described by the authors is a lot more complex than what I have read of Huna (of course, there are probably secret teachings).
I regard as immortal the essence of our personal consciousness, which I could well equate with what the authors (perhaps following the gnostics) call "an individualized spark that it [the personality] received from All That Is" (call it 'God' if you like), but this essence is, as the authors make clear, not the same as the personality. I have no problem with the personality existing after death and even branching out into multiple realities 'simultaneously' so to speak.
It is a mistake to believe either that at death we cease to exist completely (which is what physicalists typically believe) or that at death we enter a realm which, though entirely 'spiritual', is not much more complex than the physical world we know when embodied. I suspect it is (a) far more complex than we can imagine and (b) can be known directly even before we die because it is the same as the world of the entities encountered upon smoking DMT, which world Terence McKenna termed "an ecology of souls".
That this world is objectively real has now been shown by hundreds of reports. And in fact I suggested in a section 'DMT and the Death State' of an article that was published in 1992 that that world is where we go upon physical death, in which case some (but not all) of those many (infinitely many?) entities would be discarnate personalities in the sense of the authors.
That world is definitely something to look forward to, not something to be feared.
Peter Meyer's (Some) DMT personalities-- author's response
There are three blogs from aeolus kephas, oliverfox, and Peter Meyer, each with several fruitful points and/or questions I'd like to engage. I think my responses will be clearer and more interesting if I respond to all of them together, in a series of replies addressing particular issues they've raised, or that provide background that would give my answers more context. The first response will address where this information comes from and then how we look at the question of authority, how we look at the process of using new information skillfully. I hope to have one or more responses posted by late tomorrow.
author's response to (Some) DMT entities as personalities
I'm not familiar Terence McKenna's ecology of soul, though I like the phrase a lot. When I look at the energy of the phrase I agree that it is likely a least some of what he's referring to is roughly what we are describing, all descriptions being intrinsically limited.
Why not make some direct observation?
Actually Terence's phrase was "ecology of souls", which I heard in conversation with him but I suspect he used it in several talks about the DMT experience. I believe by this he meant an objective reality containing an uncountable number of discarnate intelligences.
Rather than consider the energy of the phrase, why not take a direct look at the world of the DMT entities, then decide whether they are, or might be, the personalities that you speak of? A direct look is easily found by smoking a sufficient quantity of DMT (20-40 mg), assuming you can find it and have the courage to try it.
A lot of information is available on the web, but you could do worse than to start here.
response to Peter Meyer's why not make some direct observation
The Aristotelian philosophers of our time
John's reply is fair enough, and DMT is really only for intrepid psychonauts. Some people visit the world of the DMT entities (John's "personalities", as I suggested) and are so scared by the experience they never want to repeat it. Others have more courage and do repeat it, though as Terence McKenna said, "the further you go, the weirder it gets."
I am not aware of the possibility of visiting "other dimensions" without the aid of psychedelics ('hallucinogens' is often read as a pejorative term, and is usually used only by people who disapprove of them), except involuntarily (as in the case of epileptics) or due to unusual visionary powers (as in the case of people such as Hildegard of Bingen). And I am also not aware of any means except smoking DMT which puts one into immediate contact with a realm of multiple discarnate intelligent entities (as reported in many DMT trip reports).
Of course, no-one is obliged to enter the world of the DMT entities to confirm their reality, but when philosophers who claim to have an informed opinion about the nature of reality refuse to do so (and I suspect this includes almost all professional/academic philosophers) I am reminded of the Aristotelian philosophers of Galileo's time, who refused to look through his newly-invented telescope to observe the mountains on the Moon and the moons of Jupiter, both of which they denied because these (observable) phenomena were inconsistent with their prior assumptions.
Peter Meyer's Aristotelean Pholosophers...author's response
please look at my response to your note at the bottom of this blog
author's omnibus reply - Is clairvoyance knowledge
Gloria and I are both clairvoyant readers and healers and I am also a channel. We both give private readings/healings and teach classes. This posting addresses what that does and does not mean, and what part of what we perceive, if any of it, constitutes knowledge . I started my intentional studies of spirituality in 1969. I moved quickly to being a full time yoga meditator when I was in law school from 1970 to 1973. I traveled to India twice. Sometime this week it will be 39 years since I started reading Seth whom I'll discuss a little in one of my next few posts. I studied with Lewis Bostwich in 1973. He was a charismatic powerful clairvoyant who systematically taught clairvoyance and other psychic/spiritual abilities, something almost no one did back then. Part of what made and makes his system so wonderful is its embeddedness in and engagement of everyday life and relationships. I then moved to Ithaca NY in January of 1974 to study with Jane Roberts in her weekly Seth classes in Elmira NY. Jane and Lewis are the foundation of everything I've done since, though in today's world there is a smorgasbord of rich and wonderful information and skills to be explored. Today our work also draws importantly on the old Theosophical and Alice Bailey literature, Aurobindo and the Mother, and on interactions with great Buddhist and Hindu teachers. There are two high tulkus in Ann Arbor (where I live) alone.
Gloria grew up in clairvoyant household. She began her formal spiritual training in meditation in the early 70's with an even deeper immersion into yoga and ashram life than mine, becoming a passionate student of Muktananda, then his successors, particularly Gurumayi. Gloria and I met in 1992 when she began studying the synthesis of Lewis and Seth I was teaching. We collaborated on writing "Basic Psychic Development: A User's Guide to Auras, Chakras and Clairvoyance" which came out in 1999 and Psychic Psychology: Energy Skills for Life and Relationships" from which the chapter published here in Reality Sandwich, The Eternal Validity of the Personality, is taken. Gloria and I work and explore together every day.
Being clairvoyant is fun and exciting. Using the technical skills taught by Lewis Bostwick as a foundation and the universal vision of Seth and Jane to open our world, we are constantly growing. What we can see constantly grows, and our understanding both grows and changes.
No one, we believe, sees or knows all, we certainly do not. Not everyone means the same thing by the terms clairvoyance or psychic abilities. There are many different energy ranges and directions; more than any one person or group can exhaust. So psychics from one orientation will see things differently and maybe better in certain energy ranges than others psychics. The differences can be small or large.
So, then, whatever information we get, no matter how vivid and compelling, is always put into play in interactions with other professional psychics and students (many of whom are also professional psychic readers, healers and teachers) and most importantly, our information is put into play and tested in real life situations. We're often getting new information, sometimes clearly, sometimes dimly. We, and our friends and students explore it. Good information tends to grow and become ever more useful. Mistakes or misunderstandings become evident in time. Experience bring changes in our understanding. In the final analysis there is, for us, no final analysis. All life grows in all directions.
wow - multi level marketing at the soul level
all joking aside this seems like downward and lateral expansion at a continual level - well until Unity Consciousness is attained by one of the 'aspects' of Self, though the expansion process seems to continue on indefinitely. I'm thinking how cool would it be to meditatively sit in circle and receive direct guidance from the elders who are supporting each of the personalities or co personalities. Thanks for one of the most clear and concise approaches to the concepts put forth by Seth I've read. . .
Omnibus 2 - aeolus kephas' deceitful guides--- author's response
Gloria and I consider the beings I channel to be reliable and knowledgeable. She and I, and many of the people I channel to, see and feel energy with refinement. At least a few of us would notice it if the energy was from a deceitful source. Of course, we could all be wrong simultaneously. That is why we never take information at face value; we test all information slowly and carefully against real life experience. Sometimes new information works well, and our understandings and perceptions concerning this information grows in quality and clarity. Other information isn't durable. In other words, we don't primarily evaluate the entity, but of the real life value of the information.
Nevertheless, we agree that it is very important to learn to recognize the quality and integrity of the source, otherwise, at best, you're wasting your time. The most important skill for the careful channel is to be able to determine whether the "entity" is really an entity with its own creative consciousness or just a thought form. (Thought forms cannot really create anything, they have a rudimentary "intellect" that comes from the programming of their creators, programming which may or may not have been created intentionally or skillfully). Many channels, even some professional channels, in fact channel thought forms. This kind of channeling can trigger useful information, but it is just too likely to involve emotional and mental biases and to lack rich or subtle responsiveness to the questions addressed. We address discerning real entities from thought forms and checking your relationship with a guide in our channeling classes.
For people channeling real entities, the more serious concern is misinterpretation and losing touch with the entity and then you tend to inadvertently substitute your own standard interpretations and prejudices. This source of error cannot be eliminated completely. Any particular error will get worked and clarified through genuine open encounter with everyday life, though new errors always continue to arise as one explores one's boundaries.
We'll address the cult of personality comment in a later posting.
rajajuju's "high Tibetan lamas" -- author's reply
The Tibetan high lamas move them off to the side to simplify the personality, as would many practitioners in our line; but we embrace them as part of a Sethian perspective that I will try to address briefly below in another answer. I think several people have raised interesting issues that naturally tie together like aeolus kephas's false personality concern and oliverfox's comment on how complex and mind boggling the later Seth writing is. We use about 80 pages in Part 2 of "Psychic Psychology, Energy Skills for Life and Relationships" to address these issues and related issues, but it will be fun to try to address them in a few hundred words.
Very important
oliverfox's Yes, interesting piece, but-- author's response
I'm preparing an exploration into a number of questions and ideas raised by several people which I'm guessing will run about 1000 words. I hope that longer response will be ready no later than Tuesday, September 6.
This shorter response addresses one of your remarks that is best addressed individually. I'm not sure I understand your remark about our description of the soul as being mechanistic and the personalities as being ghosts. Perhaps you are saying our description is mechanistic in that I used the word copy in describing how the soul takes in the personality's experience. The personality copies the information flowing from its experience and gives that copy to the soul as it also retains its information for its own somewhat independent projects. That description is, of course, a metaphor, one used widely amongst psychics of our tradition because it is very useful in healing, in communicating to other people, and in communicating with your own individual soul.
In one direction of time, the usual direction observed by most psychics and mystics, the personality merges with the soul. All the information of its lifetime is absorbed into the soul. This is the usual description following linear time, and that observation has lead most observers to conclude the personality is ephemeral, that it dies shortly after the body. Our observation tracks multiple directions, not just the direction of linear time. Looking in multiple directions, one sees the personality as being engendered with a creativity that is so powerful that it expands in gestalts of self organizing creativity in infinite directions. One important direction has it eternally know itself forever as the personality, yet as a divine growing part of all that is. It is bursting, not just with the soul's creativity, but it's own. It is eternal, rather than an expendable momentary tool of the soul.
Further, our observation of the soul is that it is far more creative than we ever would have imagined. It operates with a exuberant creativity in innumerable directions. For most of us at the personality level, tracking one direction of life is as much creativity as we can currently imagine. For the soul, however, each single creative venture such as the creation of one of its innumerable human incarnations itself generates infinite creative ventures in infinite directions, and the soul is "always" engaged in innumerable creative ventures.
Omnibus 3-All life expands in all directions
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Oliverfox, I commiserate with you when you talk about how head spinning the late Seth books can be. I think that in the 70's most of us found the Seth books published after The Nature Of Personal Reality to be too difficult. In fact, in one of the most vivid of all the Seth classes I attended, Jane started talking about how disoriented her dream state had been the night or two before. She had awakened repeatedly from dreams in which she was grappling with the concept of probabilities. Apparently, Seth had been training her in her dreams so she would be able to understand the underlying processes and meaning of probabilities to prepare her to channel a deeper understanding of just what probabilities do. She was working, at the time, on her next book, The Unknown Reality.
An active discussion ensued. While we were a pretty adventurous bunch, I'd say most people there, myself included, felt probabilities were just too hard to understand. What use were probabilities? What did their existence imply about the lives we were leading? If other probable selves quite as real as we were and were taking different actions; who deserved credit? How could we deal with the fact that in some probabilities we were doing actions we wouldn't approve of? How could we deal with the fact that other probable selves were doing much better?
There were times in the Seth classes when Seth's energy became more intimate and personal, when he left theory, as exciting and useful as it was, and talked directly to us. Quotes don't capture the directness and sweetness that Seth often had when speaking to us. Over time, that directness and sweetness helped me understand that, though Seth's own reality went infinities past any human's, he nevertheless completely valued our personal humanity as we were now. This night was such an occasion. Jane's husband, Rob quoted what Seth said that night in Rob's own notes to Book Session 684 in Volume 1 of The Unknown Reality. p.85-86:
For those of you who do accompany me, I promise you an adventure, a creative alteration of consciousness, and experiences beyond those that you have known in your terms. You look at the world around you and are amazed at its richness and variety. Do you think that the inner world is not as rich, even more rich, more valid? Do you think there is but one kind of consciousness?
Your world is formed out of the vast unpredictability of consciousness. From it you form your own ideas of significance and of yourself... You must stop thinking in terms of ordinary progression. It is bad enough when you worry about keeping up with the Joneses. It is something else, however, when you start worrying about which kind of self [or consciousness] is superior to another kind.
Large numbers of us in the 70's were strongly influenced by Seth. Though many people who've come to spirituality after the 70's haven't read Seth, he is still widely respected as being foundational to much of today's spirituality. Seth is best known as the originator of the phrase, "You create your own reality according to your conscious beliefs". Many may also be familiar with his analysis of karma in light of the inner simultaneity of time. Under this analysis, karma is a set of beliefs to be encountered in current time rather than some mechanical cosmic book keeping. Some may also be familiar with his concept of probabilities. These concepts are set out in the early Seth books they are the concepts we grappled with in the 70's. They are what people seem to remember about Seth. The latter material was just too far from everyday experience.
As the decades passed, however, my understanding of what is most important and meaningful in Seth has changed. I thought back then I was being handed the keys to happiness by understanding that I create my reality. All tension, I foolishly believed, would be eliminated by merely fixing my beliefs. I quickly learned that the unknown is always part of every moment no matter how much one knows. Without there being an unknown there can be no creativity. I learned that while we create our own reality, we do not and cannot control it. Life, through our engagement of the unknown, always gives us back more than we put into it, it always presents spontaneous ungovernable creativity that cannot be squelched.
It is through engaging the later Seth and his hints at radically different ways of organizing consciousness that my own understanding of Seth has become re-centered. Now, what seems most important is not some promise of getting all my dreams fulfilled, but this deceptively simple thought; all consciousness expands in all directions. If that is true, then ordinary judgments we make about whether a particular direction is worthy are replaced with an embrace of all life. The fundamental value is experience itself. Since we live in a world with pleasure and pain, and since we are all always and already interconnected with wise and deep consciousnesses, all our wanderings have meaning and all our errors and self-delusions are ultimately addressed.
I will try to briefly address how this is so in one or more additional postings.
Expansions
Hi John, interesting ideas. Those early Seth classes are legendary and you're lucky to have been there. I guess that probable you that was there is the lucky one. :) I read the Unknown Reality books and found them fascinating but almost as if they were addressed to some future humans. And Rob's endless notes really made wading through the material difficult and boring. I think Rob let his desire for "authorship" obscure his better judgement here. The 2nd volume should be about 75 pages lighter.
My feeling is that Nature of Personal Reality is the masterpiece. It has every element of Seth's teachings and all of the seeds and echoes of the later teachings are there--about probabilities, alternate selves, and the nature of time. True, much of the book covers individual life creation but the latter part does take off into the unknown. If the teachings in there were applied by even a small part of this world I can't imagine what it would transform into. My suspicion is that of those who've read it seriously only a small number have truly done the belief--and emotional--work.
With the UR books you truly lift off the ground. But into where? Probable selves, counterparts, consciousness units, etc. Fascinating to be sure. But how much of this can you apply--to one's growth, to one's spiritual understanding, and to one's peace of being? How much can it help to contemplate "infinite yous" ? I didn't see it helping me. I can understand other selves, in other times, but with a never ending series it turns into a blur. I'm not sure if I buy that. Maybe it's just me and others are using that material in creative ways. Maybe you are.
P.S.
A couple more things: You say "Many may also be familiar with his analysis of karma in light of the inner simultaneity of time. Under this analysis, karma is a set of beliefs to be encountered in current time rather than some mechanical cosmic book keeping." I think this idea of Seth and karma may be more complex than your statement implies. Check out this lady's post here: http://silkroadvisions.wordpress.com/2011/02/02/seth-and-jane-roberts-cr... She's got some interesting ideas on Jane and how she may have interpreted her material.
And I don't see quite how "all consciousness expands in all directions" necessarily is related to "all our wanderings have meaning and all our errors and self-delusions are ultimately addressed". The "endless" expansion of consciousness doesn't have to lead to our own growth here--now. If our mistakes and strayings can deepen our life, they should do it now--in this life. The point of power is in the present. Right, John? This...present... now.
please delete
Peter Meyer's Aristotelean Philosophers...author's response
Even though I didn't take you up on it, I enjoyed receiving your encouragement to try DMT. In that spirit I offer you a different possibility back. You've said altered states are limited to exceptional people like Hildegarde Von Bingen. Two comments, first even she engaged in preparation to support her altered states; and second, today, it is ever easier to achieve altered states without drugs. While the focus of our teaching remains a psychic/spiritual encounter with everyday life and relationships, we engage and teach plenty of other dimensional work. There is a free downloadable course at our web site, Psychicpsychology.net that starts at a late beginner/intermediate level and easily takes one into meaningful and useful other dimensions. Importantly, since going to those other dimensions is a learnable skill, one gets better and better with practice, one finds more ways to use those states for physical, emotional and spiritual healing.We have continuing classes in which quite ordinary people get more and more skilled and integrated. This kind of psychic work is initially a little harder for men and for those with a heavy academic background, but both those descriptions apply to me. While those attributes may have initially slowed my perceptual growth, I've manged to find a deeply satisfying practice. Since the energy pictures you have been showing me in our correspondence concern your DMT work, it's a little hard to read just how easy you will find this different relationship of dimensional exploration. Our new book, Psychic Psychology, Energy Skills of Life and Relationships refers on page 6 to specific aids for those few who have a hard time jumping in a psychic/spiritual practice that uses perception to explore both everyday and other dimensional realities.
Re: The Aristotelian philosophers of our time
I suggest that there are a few significant differences between the methods you teach (for accessing non-ordinary reality) and the (simple) method of smoking 20-40 mg of DMT (which is not to say that one is better than the other). Your psychic work requires a certain degree of time, effort and mastering of psychic skills. Smoking DMT (though it doesn't always happen) can instantly propel one into such a bizarre world, full of obviously intelligent independently-existing entities, that any assumption one previously had that ordinary physical reality is the only reality there is, is irrevocably shown to be false. Once you know, you are never the same, even if the visit to the DMT world is made only once. I don't recommend this method to everyone, but I do recommend it to those many academic philosophers who hold and teach the false view of physicalism, since it will immediately show them that their view is untenable. They do not even have to leave their academic armchairs in order to enlighten themselves, though I suspect few will do so.
author's response to oliver Fox's expansions
These are all good questions. It's hard to discuss in detail this kind of question in a few paragraphs, especially when you have little context for what our writings include and address. Except for the nature of karma and Jane Roberts' health problems, your questions are addressed explicitly or implicitly in Part 2 of our book Psychic Psychology, Energy Skills for Life and Relationships, pages 171 through 254. I will be shifting my attention to other writing projects (see thank you note below). As one of what is likely to be my last two responses on Reality Sandwich, let me hint at the richness that can come in exploring Jane's inability to deal with her own health issues. You cited a web site that proposed that the reason Jane couldn't heal her own health was that she had "conventional karma" not amenable to mere belief work. I agree with the author of that web site that Jane herself did not find an approach to her own illness that was focused enough. I would not agree, if this is what the author meant and I'm not sure she did, with the idea that conventional karma is not also analyzable as beliefs.
There are always multiple explanatory schemes for any physical phenomena. Old understandings of karma can "explain" Jane's difficulties, as can Seth's analysis of beliefs. In our practice, we easily switch between these two systems and others depending of the technical ability of the client and how their issues arise. Of course Jane had karma she didn't address but could have had she taken that direction. I prefer analyzing her difficulties in terms of beliefs (including the belief that she had the answer and psychic approaches were naïve). A belief approach illuminates rigidities and lack of insight that she, and we, her students and readers had. I would argue that all systems have limitations, and those were hers/ours.
Sometime in the next several months, I plan to explore on our web site what I believe were the rigidities of Jane and the rigidities of the 70's understanding of Seth. As I do so, I will share my opinion that her work will stand for centuries and be constantly reinterpreted as all great work is; and that her humanity and fallibility are, paradoxically, essential to her greatness. I hope you'll get our book. I think it would offer a path you could follow experientially to find the sacredness of all life including your own and I hope you'll look in on our website, www.psychicpsychology.org.
Author's thanks to all who have shared and commented
Gloria and I appreciate each of your responses to the chapter from our book, Psychic Psychology, Energy Skills for Life and Relationships. We will be turning our attention to other writing projects and may not respond to any more of your replies, though we will read them. Alternatively, if one of your responses is of general interest, we might respond on our web site. We invite you to visit www.psychicpsychology.org where there are currently two free courses available for download. We will be addressing people's questions and concerns from time to time, we hope at least monthly. We also invite you to explore our work in context in our book itself. The Chapter 14 excerpted here in Reality Sandwich discusses important observations of what happens after death which in the 350 page book serves to support an overall understanding of why our personal lives are sacred and meaningful in themselves. But the chapter by itself does not give one a strong sense of what we teach and practice.
The book has three parts which can be read by themselves. Together they provide an accessible system of psychic development which will allow you to become more aware of your thoughts, feelings and interpersonal interactions (Part 1); understand the big picture of the nature of human consciousness, the part your personality plays in your life and in the hereafter, how you create your reality but do not control it, and how to cultivate a reliable happiness (Part 2); and how to bring practical wisdom to a world that always contains irrepressible surprises and ambiguities (Part 3).
On page xxvi of the introduction we say, "
"Hindu iconology portrays life as an ecstatic, chaotic dance. The world of psychic psychology takes us directly into a skillful engagement with that dance. Engaging that dance is the most authentic of spiritual journeys. Our spiritual state grows through and is most powerfully reflected in our responses to everyday life-- a baby crying, the demands of work, an unexpected promotion, a parent's death, a wedding, heavy traffic, grocery shopping, a baby laughing. If the everyday life of a human weren't deeply meaningful and enriching, we would never incarnate in the first place. The opportunity to know oneself more authentically and more joyfully is present in every breath.
Our goal is to engage life with practical wisdom and a sense of adventure, to know that life is a spiritual journey, and to know that each of us (and no other) holds the key to our own happiness. Seeing life as an adventure and staying open through its ups and downs with authenticity, practical wisdom, kindness and generosity is a reliable way to cultivate happiness.
exactly so, thank goodness!!