You Create Your Own Reality: The Fallacy of Death in the Seth Material Paradigm

Abstract

You create your own reality. Such a compelling statement might appear to derive directly from Transcendentalism, the self-reliant, idealist religious movement championed by Ralph Waldo Emerson early in the nineteenth century; or, its origin could lie in the pragmatist tradition advocated by William James. Instead, the popular cliché “you create your own reality” was coined by the disembodied spirit or “energy essence personality” named “Seth” who was channeled through the mediumship of Jane Roberts (Seth/Jane) during the years 1963–1984.¹ It was during these years that Roberts, along with her husband Robert Butts, authored thirty-eight Seth/Jane related books concerned with the nature of reality, time and space, death, reincarnation, and spiritual development.² Roberts’s first book The Seth Material (1963), where Seth/Jane first tells us that we create our reality, launched what can be considered a modern mystical trend within contemporary expressions of metaphysical or New Age spirituality.³ New Age spirituality includes many strata of belief and practice that draw from a variety of religious traditions, but often privileges self-transformation and social reform through healing as well as access to esoteric knowledge through channeled teachers, ascended masters, meditation, visualization, and dream work.⁴