A novelist named Jane Roberts became a spirit medium channeling a spirit named Seth. Jane went into trance in front of people, and began speaking in a different voice, a masculine voice, as Seth. Her husband took notes. They published the results in a series of lots of books. In the introductions to those books, Jane Roberts usually commented that she didn't know who the hell Seth was, and maybe Seth was part of her own subconscious, but what the fuck, as they say in France.

Seth, for the Biblically minded, was the name of Abel's little brother. After Abel was whacked by Cain in a jealous tantrum, Eve had Seth. Not that there's a connection.

First of all, I don't think Jane Roberts and her husband are con artists. That's a big step. That's a very significant conclusion to come to. Because I could write better books than Jane Roberts did, and I can't channel a frog. I could pretend though.

I accept the premise that some entity outside Jane Roberts communicated through her, with her. I think that Jane had a lot to do with what was said. Seth admits that anyway. He is using Jane's knowledge of English. He's not communicating in English to her, necessarily. Whatever he's communicating is filtering through Jane Roberts. If his channel was a rap singer, his dictation would come out in rhymes and with words like shizzle and flizzle.

Hey, that gives me an idea. The Snoop Dogg Seth book.

I'm interested in any communication from the great beyond. If you were married to my wife you'd be looking for intellectual stimulation elsewhere too.

The problem is, the combination of Seth and Jane Roberts is boring and obtuse. Opaque. Nebulous. Of little value. It's like panning for gold. You sift all the muddy water through your container, work it around, hope to find some shining stuff at the bottom, and you never do. A lil piece here or there.

It would be so much better if I got to interview Seth rather than just listening to the old windbag.

He says some things that really need development. He throws ideas out there but then just leaves them there. One of his themes is that time is an illusion, sequence is not what we think, the past does not precede the present, it all coexists at the same "time", and you are right now living all your incarnations in all your centuries. Huh? That's nice, but huh? I think we could all come up with a few questions to nail Seth down on that point, clarify a few things.

He says that the "soul" includes us in all our incarnations and is greater than the sum of its parts. So while my soul contains Lennie it also contains my other incarnations (Napoleon, Mata Hari, Stalin, the meerkat Flower).

I'm giving you the best here. These are the best of his ideas. Not bad. Realize that you have to wade through a lot of stuff that is boring and meaningless to me.

So my main complaint is that Seth is a windbag, and my second main complaint is that there is no cross examination, no follow up questions, Seth is just allowed to go on and on without any interaction about what he's saying.

Just look at the title. Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul. What does that mean, exactly? Eternal validity. Validity. What does that word have to do with anything? I'm not connecting to it. Validity? What are you talking about? I don't care about validity. I don't even know what you mean.

Anyway I don't discount the possibility that Seth is real, a real ghost of a sort, telling us truths. I kind of like the image of a soul that contains me and other people who it incarnated into. Those other people would have strengths that I don't have. And it is kind of a compliment that this soul picked me to join the team.