Review: The Nature of Personal Reality

Reading at least one of the “Seth books” by Jane Roberts is almost a requirement if you have any interest in metaphysical books.  Her books are often mentioned in others, and many more authors were probably influenced by them.  Given that, it’s surprising it took me so long to begin reading them.  But it was probably better that I did wait because of the complexity of the material.

I am not reading this series in the order they were written.  I seldom do.  Once I become interested in a particular author, I usually check the local library to see which books they have available and pick the one that appeals to me most.  The Nature of Personal Reality was the first one I read, so I decided I would review it, instead of any of the others.  If you have no decided preference, The Seth Material might be a better first choice.  That one introduces the basic concepts, and the style is somewhat easier to read.  It blends direct quotes from Seth (the channeled entity) with interpretation of the material by Jane Roberts.

As each new book was published, the style gradually changed to focus almost exclusively on the material directly from Seth, with comments by Jane Roberts’s husband being added in italics.  This was distracting, especially since many of the notes were irrelevant to the topic being discussed.  These asides usually broke my train of thought and interfered with my comprehension of the concepts.  Eventually, I became better at skimming over or skipping entirely all these unnecessary notes.  Oddly enough, the different approach used in The Nature of the Psyche, which inserted most of the notes at the end of each chapter, wasn’t much better, since many of those notes were relevant to the material and helped clarify certain points being made.

These books were originally published in the Sixties and Seventies.  Although this was a time when many people embraced radical ideas, they still must have been quite shocking to most people.  Even from a present day perspective, some of the content is pretty extreme.  There is sufficient diversity in the topics covered—religion, health care, crime, science, aggression, history, etc.—to upset or offend just about everyone.  In fact, I can’t imagine anyone ever agreeing with, believing, or even understanding everything in these books.

Many of the concepts are both difficult to fully comprehend and impossible to prove or disprove.  Take for instance the comments made about time throughout all the books.  According to Seth, “time” is used so we can experience the physical world, but everything is actually occurring simultaneously.  There is no past or future.  Yet, many of the ideas are presented in a time-based context.  Although that’s probably the only way we can have any understanding of them at all, it still creates difficulties due to what seem to be contradictory statements.  How can we learn from past lives if we are currently living all our lives?  Even if it’s true, I don’t think we can truly understand this concept or all its implications from our physically-oriented perspective.

This book focuses on how we create our own reality.  “You form the fabric of your experience through your own beliefs and expectations.  These personal ideas about yourself and the nature of reality will affect your thoughts and emotions.”  In other words, reality becomes whatever we believe it to be and is experienced in a self-confirming circular pattern.  The structure of our lives is based on core beliefs, which then collect subsidiary beliefs that support them.  The goal of the book is to help us understand how it works and also to recognize what our core beliefs are so that we can keep the ones that are beneficial and change the ones that aren’t.  If we can change the core beliefs that create negative results, the subsidiary beliefs supporting them will drop away.

Various types of commonly held beliefs are explored in detail.  Some of the most interesting ones to me were about crime, punishment, and guilt, and about aggression versus violence.  Current events suggest that a better understanding of these would be of value to the entire world.  Other topics focused on in the book include dreams, health, and the “Point of Power” (which is the present, obviously, since neither the past nor the future exist).

Ironically, the most disappointing aspect of the book was the lack of specific steps for discovering and changing one’s beliefs.  I don’t know why that should bother me, since I hardly ever follow that kind of advice.  But I felt like they were promised to me and when they were eventually revealed throughout the book, they seemed vague and un-emphasized to the point where I almost missed them.  Even now, I’m not sure I made notes of them all.  Yes, there are some suggestions.  Just don’t expect there to be a 12-step program you can follow, or in my case, ignore.

The Seth books are fascinating, the ideas in them intriguing.  The fundamental concept that we are creating our own reality is found in many other books, especially those dealing with the Law of Attraction.  But the Seth books go way beyond the simplicity of those other books.  Although some of the material is definitely too far “out there” for me, I found them thought-provoking and mind-expanding—well worth the time reading and even re-reading them.  I have read several, so far, and plan on reading several more, if not all of them.

Book Review: Perigee Moon – by Lynn Schneider

When I started doing reviews, I only wanted to get the word out about the quality indie books I found. It was a natural that I would read our fellow Boomers and Books stories, but I did not intend to review every one of them. What a delight then, when I opened a book by the last of our author members I had not read and knew from the first paragraph I would enjoy it.

In Perigee Moon, our hero, Luke, is just the sort of decent, likeable guy who should end up married to a nice girl and they have a nice family and live happily ever after. He should do that, but he doesn’t. Instead a girl who is not very nice gets her hooks into him and won’t let go. She uses her feminine wiles to catch him up in her dream, tricking him into marriage. Her dream becomes his nightmare and he finds himself at middle age wondering how it is he has allowed himself to come so far away from who he is.

Having not led a conventional life with just one job or one career for thirty or so years, I have often admired those who can do that. This book makes me glad of my choices, well chronicling a nice guy plodding along and doing the jobs expected of him, producing three kids and a dog, a job in IT he no longer cares for, and a dead marriage.

Luke begins escaping by taking up astronomy. He buys a telescope, walking late at night, gazing at the moon and stars and somehow finding meaning in them. One night he decides to stay up and watch a Perigee moon. A Perigee full moon appears much bigger than a normal full moon and this is a Supermoon, an irregular phenomenon with occasionally over a decade between occurrences. He asks his wife to join him, knowing she would not but hoping for it anyway.

That night something changes in Luke and he resolves it is time to end the marriage. But as much as the reader is cheering him on and would like to see him take immediate action, indeed sometimes shouts at him to grow a pair already, he determines he will wait until his youngest daughter leaves home. He begins studying the deep philosophical questions and that gets him through the remaining years.

When the break does finally come, Luke goes on for a while in his dead-end job until one day he finally snaps and just packs up and leaves. He falls into a new job which keeps him outside and working with his hands and slowly he begins to pick up the pieces of his life.

Throughout the book, Luke has been thinking back to a girl from school named Abby he once had a crush on; star-crossed lovers who seem always destined to be apart. He finally meets up with her at a school reunion and discovers the spark is still there. But his ex has broken up with her latest fling, and his precious youngest daughter has always harbored thoughts of her parents reuniting. She encourages the ex to reunite with Luke. Luke is conflicted.

You will have to read the book (and I highly recommend you do), to discover if Luke finally ‘grows a pair’, or will he drift back into old habits because he wants to please his daughter and it would be the easy thing to do…

The author has a unique writing style all her own which I rather enjoyed. The first half of the book plods along, paralleling the pace of the first half of Luke’s life, and is written in third person, past tense. The last half flows smoothly into third person, present tense. This artifice worked very well for the story.

This is the second book in a row I read which was written by a woman with a male lead, not an easy feat but well done in both cases. Kudos to the author.

All in all a satisfying coming-of-middle-age Boomer book which would be enjoyed by all ages.

Spiritual Self Help Books

When it comes to spiritual self help books, the underlying message is usually similar, but the form is strongly affected by the person sharing the information.  So the real challenge is finding those that you can best relate to.  I have chosen three prominent authors in this genre to provide a comparison.  They are all essentially saying the same thing, but each has their own slant and their own valuable insights.

I really wanted to like Dr. Wayne W. Dyer’s books.  He’s very knowledgeable and seems genuinely sincere in his desire to share what he knows and to help others.  But it’s a struggle for me to finish his books.  I’ve now reached the point where I’m trying to figure out why I keep losing interest in them.  It’s not the content, although it does feel like a bit of a rehash of other people’s thoughts.  Certainly, his frequent quotes and references to others don’t create a feeling of originality.  Still, he does share some ideas and thoughts that expand the topic in ways I hadn’t considered before.  It’s also not the clarity or the writing.  Everything is clearly presented, and his books are easy to read.

One problem I have is I don’t find Dr. Dyer’s books particularly thought-provoking.  He presents a goal—a “sacred” one, in fact—and makes it sound impressively special and eminently desirable.  Unfortunately, deep down, I don’t seem to desire it.  Not only that, I feel a little guilty for not desiring such a praiseworthy, and even exalted, goal.  He then gives you all the steps to take to reach this preordained goal.  There seems to be no room for reflection or different perspectives.

A second problem is the way he describes the journey one has to take to reach “the promised land.”  The focus is on all the problems one faces and how hard it will be to overcome them.  His books are filled with phrases like “try to,” “make an effort,” and “attempt to.”  The feeling created from these word choices is that it will be a long, arduous journey to reach a place that I’m not sure I want to go.

In contrast, the Abraham-Hicks series of books brushes aside “problems” as if there aren’t any real ones.  Everything is easy, if you allow it to be.  What a wonderfully appealing idea that is!  If your life is going badly, all you have to do is stop doing those things that are blocking the good life and start heading in the direction you want to go.  The explanations of what you’re doing currently and how to change everything are amazingly clear and simple to follow.

These books were a refreshing change from most of the others I’ve read in this genre, and I have reviewed one of them—Ask And It Is Given.  Not only that, I do happen to believe that when you’re on the “right” path for yourself, then life is easier.  Things have a tendency to fall into place.  And this type of easy reading, easy answers may be exactly what you’re looking for, especially if you’re not into all that mystical stuff (assuming you can overlook the one tiny flaw of these being “channeled” books).

So what’s the catch?  Well, it’s all too facile, too superficial.  The books lack a spiritually satisfying depth.  Everything is outwardly focused.  Even the source of the information is an external “group of beings” called Abraham.  And all the information and techniques given are aimed at changing the life you are leading in this physical world.  It’s all about creating abundance, health, great relationships, satisfying work, etc.  Perhaps creating a good life experience is the whole point of us being here.  Yet, it’s hard to ignore that niggling feeling of “Is that all there is?”

If you want spiritual depth and thought-provoking ideas, there’s always Deepak Chopra.  His books presents many different perspectives, religious and spiritual, blending Eastern and Western philosophies, with a special emphasis on health.  Like the other authors, he has read widely and distills the knowledge he has gained from his reading and from his personal experience for the benefit of the reader.  But he does not portray himself as the grand teacher and knower of all things.  Thinking and questioning are definitely encouraged.

Because of that, I really enjoy his books.  They are meant to be read slowly and reflected upon, which is my preference when it comes to these kinds of books.  And the main reason I haven’t reviewed any is because I haven’t been able to pick just one out of the many he has written.

But there’s no real “action plan” given.  So for some people, they may be too philosophical to do any good.  Understanding is valuable, and sometimes that alone will “solve” a problem.  However, more often than not, people need a hint of what to do next.  No matter how profound something may be, there needs to be some kind of practical application for it, if it’s going to affect our everyday lives.

All of these authors share the belief that we have “creative control” over our lives, which is accomplished through the amazing power and focus of our consciousness.  Even if a person can’t embrace this concept in its entirety, our thoughts and beliefs do control the way we experience our lives.  Therefore, any book that helps us to understand ourselves and our thinking processes and helps us use this information more effectively is of value.

Which of these books a person chooses to read really depends on whether one prefers the problem-solving approach of Dr. Wayne Dyer (a result of his psychology background) or the simplicity and practicality of the techniques in the Abraham-Hicks books (shaped by their business background) or the intellectual style of blended philosophies provided by Deepak Chopra (influenced by his upbringing and life which combined Eastern and Western beliefs).  Of course, if you are searching for answers and understanding like me, you’ll probably read books by more than one of them because each will help you expand your perspective and add to your self-knowledge.  And even though their answers may not be exactly right for you, they still might help you find your own.

There is one other thing these books tell us.  The authors were able to find their answers—ones they were confident enough in to share with other people.  And there’s no reason we can’t find our own answers, just as they did.  So the search continues.