All the Jane Roberts "Early Sessions" are now out on Kindle

...though I have to confess that I'm just beginning Book 4. (I read the soft-back versions a while back.)  One of the notable features of the Seth material is that you can read it over and over, yet come away thinking you've read it, again, for the first time--new facets jump out each time. Is a bit of Seth witchery? Or is just my early-onset Oldtimers?  (Probably both.)

My Seth re-journey has been slightly interrupted, however, by a very good book that I can happily endorse, even though I'm only half-way through it:  "Dreaming Of a The Dead: Personal Stories Of Comfort & Hope," by Marilou Trask-Curtain. It is, in a way, a very "quiet" book, but well-told. I found this book, surprisingly, while doing a search for infrared photos of cemeteries. I'm not entirely sure how this happened. Amazon.com has a (probably patented) method of serving up recommendations on what customers should read based on prior searches and purchases. Yet this book never appeared. If I had the energy, time, or inclination to wonder about this, I would.  For now, I'm just glad that I found it.

So how *do* I decide which books I recommend, or don't?  Really, it comes down to gut intuition, and personal experience. I know what Marilou Trask-Curtain writes is "true," because I've personally experienced the same thing.

Against my better judgement (Really!)

So I'm feeling better, and I decided to listen to a few paranormal podcasts.  We've all gone there and done that.  My findings thereon, to wit:

I listened to an interview (on an unnamed podcast) with Rosemary Ellen Guiley regarding her latest book, "Dream Messages From The Afterlife."  I bought the book, and Ms. Guiley's interview was good.  She is always good, though the attentive reader will remember that she did have a problem with guilt-by-association with Phil Imbrogno on their Djinn book.  I did not buy that book, because I'm not sure that I believe in the Djinn, and I'm not interested in the subject anyway.  Nonetheless, I respect Ms. Guiley, and while her podcast did not tell me anything I didn't already know (she quoted liberally from "Messages: Signs, Visits, and Premonitions from Loved Ones Lost on 9/11" by Bonnie McEnearey, which I think is one of the best books on the subject), I enjoyed it.

So Rosemary Ellen Guiley was the gateway drug back to the paranormal.

Next podcast was someone I had never heard of, an apparently well-known abductee named Derrel Sims. Mr. Sims struck me immediately as bogus.  Readers of this blog will note that while I was once a believer in "abductions," I'm now an ardent skeptic (or, more correctly, disbeliever), and I automatically reject any traditional abduction narrative--particularly contemporary ones.  (And I speak as an experiencer.)  After about thirty minutes, I terminated the podcast.  To the credit of this particular show, the consensus of this show's forum posters is that Sims is (quote) "full of it," "a clown," and "self-aggrandizing."   Which causes me to wonder why this particular show features this individual and has interviewed him several times.

Whilst browsing this same forum, I saw a mud-slinging between the show's primary host and "a former pay-per-listen podcast host and present-day blogger" who had accused the host of lying about a conversation several years ago involving employment at a radio station.  Well, intrigued at all this, and suspecting this offending blogger's identity, I went Googling to find it.  Which I did.  And while I do not agree with Jeremy Vaeni on a few things, he is capable of writing a splendid insult, so his take-down of Stan Romanek (who I'm not very familiar with anymore) as well as the podcast host was well worth the search--as well as being a timely reminder (as if we needed one) of the perils of too-close an association with the paranormal.  (I was one of those who, a while back, donated money to this podcast host.  I remember doing a Google Streetview of what he said his residential address was, in one of his then incessant pleas, and it was clearly a shot of one of those strip mall store areas.)

So, I'm not sure where I'm going to go from here.  I am at a point in life, however, where I'm happy to view the paranormal  largely as entertainment, viewed from a distance.  A safe distance.

Currently reading...

"Miraculous Journey," by Anne and Whitley Strieber. It's actually quite good, and the best I can muster right now, after enduring a polar vortex that sent snow and ice this way. Three days without electricity or heat due to trees falling on power lines. The 'net is still down but AT&T promises to repair the downed lines by Saturday ("we apologize for the delay").  My ancient iPhone (plus a grandfathered-in unlimited date plan) has been my tether to civilization. I'm re-thinking my desire to become Amish.

"Miraculous Journey" is a different kind of NDE book, and Anne Strieber has already made an observation that I consider to be quite fascinating. After her NDE, she went through an intense "psychic" phase where she became aware of all the "synchronicities" that she observed governing the world around her. I think that I have an understanding of what she's describing and what it means. Lately I've focussed on Seth's argument that we perceive only a "slice" of reality. We form our cause-and-effect formulations based on a selective interpretation of what little we perceive--with the brain as the reducer. However, per Seth, this is a "distorted" and limited interpretation of reality.  A brain injury would, theoretically, expand our perception of reality--it would remove the filters. How a brain-injured person perceives "reality" can give us important clues about its true nature.  I already know, experientially, that the current scientific model is inadequate to explain what we define as reality--but I don't know--yet--a better model to use. NDE accounts like Anne Strieber's are very important in informing our view of the "greater" reality, because they have glimpsed another model, and have come back to tell us what it might be.

The Early Sessions: Book 7 out on the Kindle

I'm still on Book 3. Book 3 is a tough read. Anyone who thinks that Jane Roberts "free-associated" this material ought to take a gander at this book. I can imagine Robert Butts patiently and somewhat bemusedly transcribing Seth's intricate discussions of atoms, inner and outer realities, idea construction, the existence of the physical body within multiple realities. You cannot make this stuff up. This will be a book that I will have to re-read (again) much later. However, Book 3 does introduce a seminal and (in my opinion) important idea: that an electrical counterpart to our physical universe exists "nearby."  This electrical plane is the described as the closest non-physical reality to ours and in fact intermingles with the physical. Per Seth, our physical manifestation of electricity is a weak echo of the actual power of this reality; the electricity that we've managed to harness in our world is merely a shadow of the electrical realm. It is this realm that is the most immediate after-death state.  Dreams are electrical in origin, and their electrical signature is "translated" into images that we recall as a dream.

I regard this as a significant idea because it is theoretically testable; unlike vague ideas of an "astral realm," the idea of an "electrical realm" is one that we can (somewhat) wrap our minds around; and it may explain a very some puzzling paranormal phenomena, one that I've experienced all my life: street lights (and other lights) turning off when I approach... As well as the frustrating problem that I had as a child of not being able to wear a mechanical watch without it dying. It also explains the apparent ease with which the newly dead and the earth-bound are able to record voices on our electrical equipment, turn on and off lights, radios, doorbells, fire alarms, and even, occasional, power televisions even when unplugged. A simple idea, to be sure, but one that I've never seen discussed anywhere else.

A temporarily suspension of my self-imposed exile from"Coast"

I visited the "Coast" website, but it was for a good cause: Joe McMoneagle, who was interviewed by the estimable George Knapp. I discovered this by accident on McMoneagle's blog. I'd Googled "The Ultimate Time Machine" to see if I could figure out why my blog entry on the book keeps getting hits. Basically, 90% of my readership is due to my mentions of Joe McMoneagle or David Paulides. I suspect that this is because both gentlemen are infinitely more interesting than I am.

Well, what have I missed on "Coast"?  Let's see.... Rosemary Ellen Guiley discussed dream visits from the dead. She's good. Who else? Carla Wills-Brandon discussed deathbed visions. I might give her my first listen.  And there's also Richard Bach.  A few good shows, scattered here and there.  The rest is dreck.

The universe as a mathematical simulation

An interesting scientific article. It's my personal belief that our perceived universe is actually created / crafted / designed, rather than simply a product of a random number generator. Leaving out all the baggage that's associated with creationism--for any scientist, now, to posit such a possibility is quite a shift. Is it just me, or is this huge?  I grew up in a world with an unbridgeable gulf between the religionists, on one side, and the objective scientists on the other.  One of the touchstones of traditional science is that while it's okay to admire a creation, speculation about who created the creation was streng verboten (arguably, for good reason, what with religionists blowing up their enemies at the slightest provocation).

My personal opinion, based on experience and research, is that, yes, our world is created, but it would be more accurate to say that it's co-created. To paraphrase Robert Monroe, "someone, somewhere," laid down the template, but there is something within us that throws up the drywall, the nails, installs the carpet and roof.

The fact that I'm seeing an increasing number of mainstream scientific articles that happen to agree with my mystical viewpoint suggests a pendulum swing. It makes me glad to have stuck around long enough to be vindicated somewhat.

Does mental illness exist?

I can't help noting an article published by The Guardian and linked at unknowncountry.com questioning, in general, whether "mental illness" is a valid clinical diagnosis. The gist of the unknowncountry commentary is that, no, there isn't really such a thing. People aren't mentally ill; they're just creatively different.

As I've opined extensively in the past, this is the 800-pound gorilla in the paranormal room: people who fit the clinical diagnosis of mental illness tend to appear on sites and talk radio shows devoted to the paranormal (and the right-wing).

My personal experience is that there IS such a thing as the classic diagnosis of mental illness, and that those who are mentally ill truly are unable to function in our consensus reality. At all. They can't communicate; they can't work; they can't perform even the most elemental tasks of self-sufficiency.

If anything, the United States lives in profound denial of the problem of mental illness. And we see the consequences daily: in our leagues of homeless, in our mass homicides, in our exploding prison population.

On a less consequential level, mental illness-denial contaminates any discussion of metaphysical topics and prevents any serious, rational investigation into what (I believe) to be valid, extraordinary experiences.  Scientists won't touch it, and I don't blame them.

The mentally ill are people who truly warrant our help, support, and treatment. Not, necessarily, our belief.