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The Magical Approach: Seth Speaks About the Art of Creative Living
The Seth books are world-renowned for comprising one of the most profound bodies of work ever written on the true nature of reality. In this brand new volume of original material, Seth invites us to look at the world through another lens #150;#150; a magical one. Seth reveals the true, magical nature of our deepest levels of being, and explains how we have allowed it to become inhibited by our own beliefs and conventional thinking.
The Magical Approach teaches us how to live our lives spontaneously, creatively, and according to our own natural rhythms. It helps us to discover and tune into our natural, instinctive behavior. By applying the principles in this book, readers will learn to trust their impulses and discover the highest expression of their creativity.
We are indeed dealing with two entirely different approaches to reality and to solving problems #150;#150; methods we will here call the rational method and the magical one. The rational approach works quite well in certain situations, such as mass production of goods, or in certain kinds of scientific measurements #150;#150; but all in all the rational method, as it is understood and used, does not work as an overall approach to life, or in the solving of problems that involve subjective rather than objective measurements or calculations. The magical approach has far greater weight, if you use it and allow yourselves to operate in that fashion, for it has the weight of your basic natural orientation.#8221;
192 pages, Paperback
First published January 17, 1995
139 people are currently reading
701 people want to read
About the author
Jane Roberts
293 books399 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.
Roberts was born in Saratoga Springs, New York. After attending public schools, she attended Skidmore College. She wrote in a variety of genres: poetry, short stories, children’s literature, and novels. When she was in her 30s, she and her husband began to record what she said were messages from a personality named "Seth", and she wrote several books about the experience.
Roberts was born in Saratoga Springs, New York. After attending public schools, she attended Skidmore College. She wrote in a variety of genres: poetry, short stories, children’s literature, and novels. When she was in her 30s, she and her husband began to record what she said were messages from a personality named "Seth", and she wrote several books about the experience.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
December 10, 2007
This book is so small, and each chapter is a single session with notes - which I don't read anyway. Usually. Yet, this book is so great because I can read just a select page or two and feel invigorated. Really feel like life is a canvas to which I paint, and prove it to myself by manifesting my desires more consciouslly, more artistically.
September 5, 2010
Excellent book, speaks to the subconscious. A must have on any psychologist's bookshelf.
October 16, 2012
Not as explosive as Seth Speaks or The Nature of Personal Reality, but still worth reading. One can easily finish this in a day or two, and apply the knowledge for years to come.
January 15, 2015
Jane/Seth's books never fail to provide life-changing material.
October 1, 2020
After having read through three of Seth–Jane Roberts–Robert Butts books, I can say with confidence that these works do not bring anything useful to our learning and self-development. Seth just rambles on with complex language about nothing in particular; or he is all over the place. 40% of the book is taken up with Butts’ own commentary on their day to day life and Seth’s comments affecting their private lives.
But none of these books give you anything groundbreaking or inspirational with regards to techniques or intricate studies of various aspects of the mind. They are just high-horse, condescending ramblings with flowery language.
Seth does sprinkle the importance of belief here and there. But we didn’t need mammoth sessions from an ET to know that when we have so many non-channelled human teachers explaining it clearer over the centuries.
But none of these books give you anything groundbreaking or inspirational with regards to techniques or intricate studies of various aspects of the mind. They are just high-horse, condescending ramblings with flowery language.
Seth does sprinkle the importance of belief here and there. But we didn’t need mammoth sessions from an ET to know that when we have so many non-channelled human teachers explaining it clearer over the centuries.
March 7, 2011
Good material on rational vs. intuitive mind. A lot about Jane's own battle with illness.
July 22, 2014
It opens my mind to what could be.
June 19, 2017
Important, but denser than Abraham and less-readable. This is mostly due to details Seth discusses that we need the backstory to. If you're a fan, you won't mind. If you want to be a fan, but the obscurity puts you off, try Abraham first.
August 23, 2019
While most Seth books are an easy 5/5, this one felt like a 2 page idea stretched into a book.
November 8, 2021
Misleading.
November 21, 2021
The audiobook version is well-performed, with voice actors for Jane Roberts, Seth, and Robert Butts, along with 2 other voice actors for smaller parts. This was an ingenious approach that clarifies who is responsible for what information. All voice actors are good.
In other of Jane`s books, she has mentioned a part of her psyche that is crystalline-cold emotionally and is likely the part of her responsible both for her great productivity and her painful demise. By "part of her psyche," I`m not referring to a split personality as in schizophrenia, but a component of a many-faceted psyche that together comprises her identity. This part of her is rigid in its demands that she focuses all her energies on work. I suspect that many of us have a similar element at work within us, those who are ambitious and driven to produce at all costs. This part of her psyche likely interfered with other parts of her psyche that could have led to a longer and happier life.
In The Magical Approach, Seth simplifies his description into two basic approaches: the Rational and the Creative. The rational approach is largely mechanical in nature, best applied to repetitive tasks, logic, reasoning, and scientific study. The Creative Approach is non-linear, non-repetitive, insightful, and playful in nature. While both approaches can and should be applied to daily life, the creative approach can have the most beneficial results in living a well-rounded, happy, and self-aware life.
In other of Jane`s books, she has mentioned a part of her psyche that is crystalline-cold emotionally and is likely the part of her responsible both for her great productivity and her painful demise. By "part of her psyche," I`m not referring to a split personality as in schizophrenia, but a component of a many-faceted psyche that together comprises her identity. This part of her is rigid in its demands that she focuses all her energies on work. I suspect that many of us have a similar element at work within us, those who are ambitious and driven to produce at all costs. This part of her psyche likely interfered with other parts of her psyche that could have led to a longer and happier life.
In The Magical Approach, Seth simplifies his description into two basic approaches: the Rational and the Creative. The rational approach is largely mechanical in nature, best applied to repetitive tasks, logic, reasoning, and scientific study. The Creative Approach is non-linear, non-repetitive, insightful, and playful in nature. While both approaches can and should be applied to daily life, the creative approach can have the most beneficial results in living a well-rounded, happy, and self-aware life.
July 7, 2022
woof!
It’s not as if I don’t value this book, for I do. And I’m glad I read it but I was able to get through it only by scanning. I appreciated “Seth’s “ words. I loved Jane’s poem published at the very beginning of the book. I found the rest to be tedious to read and frankly of little eg no interest to me. I am curious about her book on developing ESP which I think will help open me up.
It’s not as if I don’t value this book, for I do. And I’m glad I read it but I was able to get through it only by scanning. I appreciated “Seth’s “ words. I loved Jane’s poem published at the very beginning of the book. I found the rest to be tedious to read and frankly of little eg no interest to me. I am curious about her book on developing ESP which I think will help open me up.
December 13, 2022
This is the first Seth book I’ve ever read. Many other books I read have made reference to the Seth materials. Had I read this back in the 80s or 90s, I would have found it more intriguing. Now it seems commonplace to me. I didn’t appreciate all the notes around each trance by Rob Butts. It was intrusive at times the way it was handled and footnoted. Made it a chore to sort out as I was reading it.
July 21, 2020
Interesting, but ultimately unsatisfying. The book promises a lot of information, but then sort of ends abruptly. I'm afraid this has to do with Jane being very sick.
December 31, 2020
Thank you Sylvia Tobin!
July 4, 2024
30% Robert Butts's dreams and interpretations thereof
30% discussion of Jane Roberts's exercise regimen and (lack of) well-being
30% professional woes of the New Age writer
10% classic Seth phrases that open doors of Utter Selfhood
Based on these ratios, one might label this, one of the final Seth books, for completists only. But it is true that the more mundane topics are supposed to be employed as analogies for the broader thought. That's how it has been in many of the books--so much discussion about which house Robert and Jane should decide to buy!--Just here, in this latter-period book, it is the example material proliferating while the message delivery shrinks.
As a biography of this fascinating couple, this title can't be missed (but it should come near the end). It has some personal moments, some shocking reveals, and that kind of late-stage self-explanation that makes a body of work honest, even if you know the glory days are way past on these pages.
Interesting that this book brings back the tone of the first books, when they were fooling around with a Ouija board, just gabbing with Seth, so forth... the white heat came in the middle of the book cycle: Seth is dictating entire books as a finished draft right off the cuff. They say hello, then Seth Speaks. But in the first few books, their style was not so refined. There were Q&A's, stuff that felt like chit-chat, and not as much material per book.
And that is the feeling here--Jane refers to them as "maintenance sessions" in this book: Not formal dictation, not private stuff for Robert and Jane, but something more like isolated analogies and what you might call the unenumerated rights of Consciousness. Fun but not too challenging. Really it should be subtitled "A Companion to Dreams, Evolution, and Value Fulfillment" as that is constantly mentioned as "the book Seth is currently working on."
The companion volume element provides some behind-the-scenes richness. Pain and understanding (And you know what this is, right--a being above linear time visiting short-sighted mortals near their end, saying, "Your portion, your color in the tapestry of all existence, has reached its narrow, fading tip at this point. But I'm still right here like I was at the 'beginning.'") It feels like being at your own funeral, then realizing you are actually still present in every second of the life you thought you left.
Much love to Jane and Robert. These books are totemic, exceptional sources of this subtle energy that is the paragon of potential energy, the perfection of the written word to exist as the source of some imminent action by those who read it. That action is changing the mind. An understanding that snaps mortal life into a new joyful habit, an infinite direction.
The only thing was the cover. It was so bad, like a birthday card from grandma, that I had to modpodge my own new cover on there. If you buy this book, please modify or remove the cover before you start reading it, otherwise any dignified information within will have a cloying flavor.
30% discussion of Jane Roberts's exercise regimen and (lack of) well-being
30% professional woes of the New Age writer
10% classic Seth phrases that open doors of Utter Selfhood
Based on these ratios, one might label this, one of the final Seth books, for completists only. But it is true that the more mundane topics are supposed to be employed as analogies for the broader thought. That's how it has been in many of the books--so much discussion about which house Robert and Jane should decide to buy!--Just here, in this latter-period book, it is the example material proliferating while the message delivery shrinks.
As a biography of this fascinating couple, this title can't be missed (but it should come near the end). It has some personal moments, some shocking reveals, and that kind of late-stage self-explanation that makes a body of work honest, even if you know the glory days are way past on these pages.
Interesting that this book brings back the tone of the first books, when they were fooling around with a Ouija board, just gabbing with Seth, so forth... the white heat came in the middle of the book cycle: Seth is dictating entire books as a finished draft right off the cuff. They say hello, then Seth Speaks. But in the first few books, their style was not so refined. There were Q&A's, stuff that felt like chit-chat, and not as much material per book.
And that is the feeling here--Jane refers to them as "maintenance sessions" in this book: Not formal dictation, not private stuff for Robert and Jane, but something more like isolated analogies and what you might call the unenumerated rights of Consciousness. Fun but not too challenging. Really it should be subtitled "A Companion to Dreams, Evolution, and Value Fulfillment" as that is constantly mentioned as "the book Seth is currently working on."
The companion volume element provides some behind-the-scenes richness. Pain and understanding (And you know what this is, right--a being above linear time visiting short-sighted mortals near their end, saying, "Your portion, your color in the tapestry of all existence, has reached its narrow, fading tip at this point. But I'm still right here like I was at the 'beginning.'") It feels like being at your own funeral, then realizing you are actually still present in every second of the life you thought you left.
Much love to Jane and Robert. These books are totemic, exceptional sources of this subtle energy that is the paragon of potential energy, the perfection of the written word to exist as the source of some imminent action by those who read it. That action is changing the mind. An understanding that snaps mortal life into a new joyful habit, an infinite direction.
The only thing was the cover. It was so bad, like a birthday card from grandma, that I had to modpodge my own new cover on there. If you buy this book, please modify or remove the cover before you start reading it, otherwise any dignified information within will have a cloying flavor.
July 1, 2014
The Seth books were recommended by a friend and I have this one and also The original one... which I'm hoping is more direct and not so rambling. A lot of commentary and analysis of Jane's physical state and not a lot of what the magical approach is, or about creative living.
October 26, 2009
hard to follow.
Read
December 13, 2013Excellent
Read
December 13, 2013Excellent
Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews