_Afterlife_ is definitely not Colin Wilson's best book, but in it he recounts the tale of the "enormous" and "mountainous" young lady, Agnes Guppy.
Ms. Guppy was investigated by the skeptic Alfred Russel Wallace (as Agnes Nichols, prior to her marriage), who witnessed apports produced by her, including a "six-foot sunflower with a clod of earth round its roots."
Later, Ms. Guppy herself became an apport, vanishing from her dining room while doing her accounts and crashing down on a table at which four ardent spiritualists, "begging the spirits to vouchsafe some small manifestation," were seated, four miles away.
I was reminded of this while reading Ralph Blumenthal's _The Believer_, a biography of Dr. John Mack, owing to the obvious similarity to some of the "alien abductions" featured in Mack's research. (Note that Mack is reported to have "spoken" with a medium after his death in 2004, to make another connection.)
Owing to my own background, I can't help but consider the phrase "you create your own reality" when pondering these areas.
This is usually treated as a New Age slogan and written or spoken without attribution, but it came from Seth, the invisible being ("no longer physically embodied") Jane Roberts gave voice to. It's true that some of the books Seth dictated were published during the period known for the commercial marketing term "New Age" but Jane's Seth odyssey began in 1963, well before then, continuing until her death in 1984.
Seth provided quite a bit of detail on the topic but the days when his books (and later compilations of sessions published after Jane's death) were read by many have passed.
For anyone unfamiliar with Seth's teachings I recommend _Seth Speaks_, the first entire book that Seth dictated (earlier books included excerpts from sessions with Jane's text).
(There is also a search engine available these days for many of Seth's words: https://nowdictation.com/ .)
I became aware of this book the first time I ever meditated, "seeing" -- with my mind's eye -- a persistent image of the cover of the paperback version then in print after relaxing, taking a few long, slow deep breaths, closing my eyes, and allowing my thoughts to come to a stop.
Astounded, I stopped and hiked into Harvard Square, which at that time still had many bookstores, and discovered this was an actual book. (I'd taken Lawrence LeShan's short _How to Meditate_ with me into Mt. Auburn Cemetery and chosen steps leading to a pond from an impressive tomb upon which to glean what I could from the book before proceeding. I wasn't aware until long afterwards that the tomb housed the mortal remains of Ms. Mary Baker Eddy, founder of Christian Science, closely associated with the "New Thought" movement. I have no idea whether this had anything to do with my experience or not.)
No channeled material can ever be perfect as channeling involves a kind of translation and thus is much more of an art than a science, one that cannot exclude the mind of the channeler, but I would definitely rate the Seth material (the term used to refer to all of Seth's teachings, not to be confused with an early book by Ms. Roberts of that name) as most excellent.
"You create your own reality, individually and en mass" includes the idea of each of us creating a unique, personal "space continuum." Seth's version of _how_ we do this (with a particular emphasis on physical senses and beliefs) is somewhat more sophisticated than both earlier ("New Thought") versions and later attempts by those hoping to jump on Seth's bandwagon.
There is much more to the material, of course, while neither Jane nor Seth were philosophers of science -- I'd suggest the overall topic requires a careful reevaluation of the foundations of science, but I'm too old and under educated to accomplish that, at least in my present lifetime; heck, I'm wondering whether I'll even get through Andrew Jackson Davis's two autobiographies -- "turgid" is the appropriate word for his prose.
_Afterlife_ is definitely not Colin Wilson's best book, but in it he recounts the tale of the "enormous" and "mountainous" young lady, Agnes Guppy.
Ms. Guppy was investigated by the skeptic Alfred Russel Wallace (as Agnes Nichols, prior to her marriage), who witnessed apports produced by her, including a "six-foot sunflower with a clod of earth round its roots."
Later, Ms. Guppy herself became an apport, vanishing from her dining room while doing her accounts and crashing down on a table at which four ardent spiritualists, "begging the spirits to vouchsafe some small manifestation," were seated, four miles away.
I was reminded of this while reading Ralph Blumenthal's _The Believer_, a biography of Dr. John Mack, owing to the obvious similarity to some of the "alien abductions" featured in Mack's research. (Note that Mack is reported to have "spoken" with a medium after his death in 2004, to make another connection.)
Owing to my own background, I can't help but consider the phrase "you create your own reality" when pondering these areas.
This is usually treated as a New Age slogan and written or spoken without attribution, but it came from Seth, the invisible being ("no longer physically embodied") Jane Roberts gave voice to. It's true that some of the books Seth dictated were published during the period known for the commercial marketing term "New Age" but Jane's Seth odyssey began in 1963, well before then, continuing until her death in 1984.
Seth provided quite a bit of detail on the topic but the days when his books (and later compilations of sessions published after Jane's death) were read by many have passed.
For anyone unfamiliar with Seth's teachings I recommend _Seth Speaks_, the first entire book that Seth dictated (earlier books included excerpts from sessions with Jane's text).
(There is also a search engine available these days for many of Seth's words: https://nowdictation.com/ .)
I became aware of this book the first time I ever meditated, "seeing" -- with my mind's eye -- a persistent image of the cover of the paperback version then in print after relaxing, taking a few long, slow deep breaths, closing my eyes, and allowing my thoughts to come to a stop.
Astounded, I stopped and hiked into Harvard Square, which at that time still had many bookstores, and discovered this was an actual book. (I'd taken Lawrence LeShan's short _How to Meditate_ with me into Mt. Auburn Cemetery and chosen steps leading to a pond from an impressive tomb upon which to glean what I could from the book before proceeding. I wasn't aware until long afterwards that the tomb housed the mortal remains of Ms. Mary Baker Eddy, founder of Christian Science, closely associated with the "New Thought" movement. I have no idea whether this had anything to do with my experience or not.)
No channeled material can ever be perfect as channeling involves a kind of translation and thus is much more of an art than a science, one that cannot exclude the mind of the channeler, but I would definitely rate the Seth material (the term used to refer to all of Seth's teachings, not to be confused with an early book by Ms. Roberts of that name) as most excellent.
"You create your own reality, individually and en mass" includes the idea of each of us creating a unique, personal "space continuum." Seth's version of _how_ we do this (with a particular emphasis on physical senses and beliefs) is somewhat more sophisticated than both earlier ("New Thought") versions and later attempts by those hoping to jump on Seth's bandwagon.
There is much more to the material, of course, while neither Jane nor Seth were philosophers of science -- I'd suggest the overall topic requires a careful reevaluation of the foundations of science, but I'm too old and under educated to accomplish that, at least in my present lifetime; heck, I'm wondering whether I'll even get through Andrew Jackson Davis's two autobiographies -- "turgid" is the appropriate word for his prose.