Today, I learned that Robert Butts died some time ago. Butts is primarily known for the fact that he recorded the so-called Seth sessions. Seth was an entity channeled by his wife Jane Roberts from 1963 on. Much of the ideas that became part of the New Age as it evolved in the 1980s were introduced in the books channeled by Seth. One of the most important themes in this corpus is that you can actually create your own reality. This idea was used within the New Age community primarily by Shakti Gawain. Nowadays, you can find it also in self-help books as The Secret.
Jane Roberts always maintained that as soon as she slipped out of trance, she had no recollection of what happened. She didn’t know what Seth said through her and as a result Robert Butts wrote the entire conversation in short-hand. Before a session, they wrote down the questions they would like to ask and the main direction of the session. However, some sessions were entirely devoted to writing. That is, Seth dictated and Butts wrote. The first book produced in this fashion was Seth Speaks, others followed.
The relationship of medium and scribe is a common one in the esoteric/occult world. For instance, magician and mathematician John Dee couldn’t come into contact with other beings through his crystal. Instead, he used Edward Kelly to gaze into a crystal. Kelly asked the questions to whichever beings he saw in his crystal. In the nineteenth century, Emma Hardinge Britten related she had been a crystal gazer for a secret occult society group as a young girl.
Tags: Emma Hardinge Britten, Jane Roberts, John Dee, New Age, Robert Butts, Seth, The Secret
