Paul Cunningham's "original" paper, The Problem with Seth's Origin

[Deb]

As promised, this is something that just recently turned up due to my recent involvement in the Seth Research Project. I'll be sharing these on Mary's website, References page, mid April so you're the first to see these.

A friend of Mary's, who lives in Europe, emailed me asking if I knew what Rob was talking about in Dreams, Evolution 1, at the end of Session 881 (09/25/79):

"Recently we received an excellent, rather lengthy paper about our work in which the writer, a psychologist, discussed among other things the import of Seth's material, as well as various explanations of his origin. We think about those subjects too, but in order to have the sessions on a week-to-week basis we concentrate upon the simple creative achievement embodied in each session itself, and let go of the larger implications. Those implications are usually in the background of our joint awareness, however."

It sounded to me like Paul Cunningham's paper, "The Problem of Seth's Origin: A Case Study of the Trance-Possession Mediumship of Jane Roberts" which can be downloaded on the internet. But that PDF has a creation date of 11/22/10. So I emailed Paul asking if he was the psychologist Rob mentioned in Session 881, and was that an earlier version of the current paper?

He said yes and hadn't realized Rob mentioned his paper until he'd read the book himself. I told him if he still had his original papers, letters, etc., Yale would probably accept them for Jane's collection. From Paul:

"The original manuscript "The Problem of Seth's Origin: A study of Trance Possession" has gone through many incarnations and the 2011 version that you reference in your email is likely one of them. Ultimately, the paper has been re-worked so many time that its original expression has been lost as I became trained as an academician and learned to write like one (I eventually received my PhD in General/Experimental Psychology from the University of Tennessee (Knoxville) in 1986."

So, below is a link to a scan of his original, hand-typed paper, with some highlights and notes of his own. Also a link for a souvenir booklet from Elmira containing photos from the flood of '72. Attached are Paul's initial letter to Tam Mossman asking how to contact Jane, Tam's response, Paul's letter to Jane, and Jane's letter to Paul with hand-written note from Rob. I saved these at 100 dpi (a little higher than screen resolution of 72 dpi) so they are easier for you to read. Jane  did eventually send Paul contact info for a couple of other interested psychologists, and he tried to get his paper published by three different psychical research groups, but they turned it down mainly because they were not familiar with Seth!

Paul is working on a new book, which sounds interesting but also over my head:

"I have just signed a book contract with Routledge (Taylor & Francis Group) to published a textbook entitled "Introduction Transpersonal Psychology: Bridging Spirit and Science" which is expected to be published in early 2022 and that is inspired and informed by much of Jane/Seth's writings. I have decided to use Jane's original concept of Aspect Psychology as a way to communicate Seth's metaphysical hypotheses and psychological insights in a way that will be palatable to transpersonal psychologists and link it to Maslow's concept of a "transhumanistic" psychology that is "centered in the cosmos rather than in human needs and interest, going beyond humanness, identity, self-actualization, and the like" that Maslow wrote about in his 1968 book, Toward a Psychology of Being (p. iv). I believe that metaphysical hypotheses as Jane/Seth proposed have the potential of pointing out directions in which a scientific explanation might be found for some of the many exceptional (human) experiences and transformative capacities that Transpersonal Psychology studies as part of its content domain and may serve as an important impetus for the field's flourishing in the 21st century."

https://www.dropbox.com/s/yqbc2jimepc5lg9/SethOriginOriginal.pdf?dl=0

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0j753g9w3zz40fa/Elmira_Flood_book.pdf?dl=0

[jbseth]

Hi Deb, Hi All,

Wow, this is really interesting Deb. Thanks for posting it.

Now I understand what they were getting at when they talked about "The Problem of Seth's Origin."


I don't really think this "problem" was really any kind of problem for Jane, Rob or Seth. 
And I'm not surprised, that by June of 1979, Jane wasn't really all that interested in trying to prove anything to anyone about Seth.

I also suspect, that given what both Sue Watkins and Rich Kendall said about Jane and her worsening health issues over the years, she probably didn't want to bother with any of that anyway.

-jbseth

[Sena]

It sounded to me like Paul Cunningham's paper, "The Problem of Seth's Origin: A Case Study of the Trance-Possession Mediumship of Jane Roberts" which can be downloaded on the internet.

Deb, thanks for drawing our attention to the Cunningham paper. An important point made in this paper is that Jane went into a trance when channelling Seth. Other mediums do not go into trance, and the material they produce is of much poorer quality. Here is a quote from the Cunningham paper:

"On December 8, 1963 an entity that called himself Seth emerged under the auspices of a ouija
board to take possession of the body of a woman named Jane Roberts of Elmira, New York with
the expressed purpose of dictating information about the nature of reality beyond the five senses
in a trance-possession mediumship that lasted for 21 years. The mediumship of Jane Roberts is
termed a "trance mediumship" because it occurred in a "sleep-like state" with characteristic
dissociation, amnesia, and excursion of the ego (Sher, 1981, p. 108) in contrast to "mental
mediumship" that "occurs in a conscious and focused waking state""

Cunningham refers to the work of parapsychology researcher Emily Williams Kelly. Kelly is a co-author of a book entitled "Irreducible Mind". Here is a quote from that book:

"It is worth noting here also that most of the best mediums studied extensively in the
late 19th and early 20th centuries were trance automatists. Although mediumship
has in recent years become a topic of interest to the general public, and hence the
media, few of to day's mediums seem to go into an altered state, much less a "trance"
or alternate personality state. On Myers's theory, the abeyance of the supraliminal
is conducive, if not absolutely necessary, for the emergence of subliminal mentation,
whether from one's own mind or from that of a deceased person. This notable
difference between mediums of today and the automatists of the past may explain
why, in my view, the material produced by today's mediums is generally of far lower
evidential quality."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreducible_Mind

[Deb]

few of to day's mediums seem to go into an altered state, much less a "trance"
or alternate personality state.

That seems to have changed since the book was written, a lot, if not all, people who present themselves as "channelers" today have some sort of ritual they use to indicate they are going into trance. I think that was totally inspired by Jane/Seth.

[Deb]

Not long ago Paul had a paper accepted to the "Journal of Psychology" in another attempt to get the Jane/Seth Phenomenon be recognized and studied. Copy attached.

He also has a book out, Introduction to Transpersonal Psychology, Bridging Spirit and Science, which "draws upon the aspect psychology writings of Jane Roberts" (his words in an email to me). The book is available on Routledge (written for the layperson as well as part of a course for graduate students on transpersonal or humanistic psychology), and there's a free Student Materials downloads link on the page. It's also available on Amazon. If it wasn't priced like a college textbook I'd add it to my collection. 

https://www.routledge.com/Introduction-to-Transpersonal-Psychology-Bridging-Spirit-and-Science/Cunningham/p/book/9781032051093

https://smile.amazon.com/Introduction-Transpersonal-Psychology-Bridging-Science/dp/1032051132/ref=sr_1_1

[Sena]

He also has a book out, Introduction to Transpersonal Psychology, Bridging Spirit and Science, which "draws upon the aspect psychology writings of Jane Roberts"

Deb, thanks for finding this book. Paul Cunningham has amazingly made a 240 page pdf of his book available free on his website:

https://www2.rivier.edu/faculty/pcunningham/Research/A%20Primer%20of%20Transpersonal%20Psychology.pdf

An extract from the book:

Miracle at Medjugorje: A Transpersonal Interpretation

In June, 1981, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Jesus the Christ, began appearing to a group of young
people in a remote mountain village in Yugoslavia. How would such an event be interpreted from a
transpersonal perspective?

It is through the rather conventional Catholic image of the Virgin Mary that they have interpreted whatever manifestations their own psyche may have presented themselves with. The problem that is forever upon us is in making the symbolic personifications literal (for has not science taught us that only the literal fact is true?). The problem is never looking behind the symbolism of the communication, beyond the personification of the inner morality play that is the ―Miracle at Medjugorje for Catholics world-wide, for the greater meanings beneath.

As Jung clearly understood, the ―Virgin Mary personality is a symbol (or archetype) for other dimensions of our own personality. Its language is not literal truth in limited positivistic true or false terms. The symbols of the Medjugorje vision are a reality in an inner order of events that can only be stated symbolically in our own three-dimensional physical world of space and time. There is an inner and outer order of events.
The vision of the six youths of Medjugorje presents some very private information from that inner order.

But like a round peg trying to fit a square hole, the resulting translation gives us events squeezed out of
shape to some degree, as the six youths superimpose one kind of reality over another, interpreting one kind of information from the inner order in terms of the outer one, with all of its quite conventional beliefs, symbols, ideas, and images, altering it to some extent. The experience of these six youths become tinged with the entire bag of concepts and beliefs they hold, influenced by the religious and cultural beliefs of our time.

[Deb]

Deb, thanks for finding this book. Paul Cunningham has amazingly made a 240 page pdf of his book available free on his website:

Thank you! This must be an early version of the book, as it's dated 2011 and the book just came out December 29, 2021. The book is 376 pages, but regardless, it's probably over my head. But I love how into Jane/Seth he is and after decades has not given up on drawing attention to Jane by the psychology and parapsychology fields.

[chasman]

thank you Sena,

 I've read a little bit of the free download.
and super love it.