Let me tell you about Harry’s library. He has a room in his house, which would normally be a bedroom, but which Harry had converted into a library. There are shelves lining three of the walls, with a couch along the fourth wall, a coffee table, and a recliner in the corner next to the window.
There is a small stereo with a collection of CDs and cassette tapes. In the corner opposite the recliner is an artificial tree adding a touch of green to the room.
In amongst the bookshelves are historical and cultural artifacts of various kinds. There are Native American items – North American, Mayan, Olmec, Inca, Aztec. There are European and Mediterranean objects – Greek, Etruscan, Roman, Egyptian, Phoenician, Celtic. And there are Asian objects – Persian, Assyrian, Chinese, Hindu, Japanese. I may have missed some, but he had most of the major cultures represented in one form or another.
One day in June I spent a Saturday afternoon in Harry’s library, pulling books off the shelves and settling into the recliner. Harry had put on some music for me and then left the house to run some errands. I told him to take his time, and he did – he was gone at least four hours, during which time I scanned dozens of books, examined some of his many artifacts, and caught another glimpse into the mind of Harry Phillips.
Most of the books were religious or spiritual in nature. There were shelves for each major religion, as well as smaller sections for lesser known (to me) spiritual paths. In addition to Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, and Taoism, there were also volumes of works on some of the more esoteric branches of these religions – Gnosticism, Sufism, Cabbalism, Zen, and many others.
One shelf was full of books on subjects I had never even heard of. I spent the last hour before Harry returned looking through the books on this particular shelf. Most fell into what you would call the “New Age” category. Books about reality, metaphysics, psychic abilities, etc. I was most intrigued by a number of books that were apparently channeled. I had heard of channeling, but I didn’t really know what it was.
I pulled a few of these particular books off the shelf and plopped down in the recliner. The music was soft and meandering, mostly piano and stringed instruments. Sun streamed through the window, falling on my legs and the books on my lap. I opened the first one and saw that it was channeled by someone named Jane Roberts. According to the book, Jane was a woman who lived in Elmira, New York, and during her life she had channeled an entity named Seth. Harry had a number of books written by her and her husband, all supposedly channelings of this Seth.
What intrigued me most about these books was that Harry had them in his library. Lots of them, in fact. As I said, he had an entire shelf full of New Age materials – a hundred books or more. I was curious as to why Harry had so many of them, and what they were all about.
I scanned through the Seth book and the others on my lap over the next hour. I found the whole premise hard to believe. These people were supposedly going into a trance somehow and allowing people, dead people I suppose, to speak through them. Or type through them. And then these “channelers” were taking the material and publishing it. And people like Harry were buying and reading it.
At first, I was astounded that Harry was reading this stuff. My impression of this sort of thing had always been one of skepticism. I had played around with a Ouija board as a kid, and I had memories of sleepovers during which my friends and I lit candles and pretended that we were talking to ghosts. It was all very spooky and fun, very much in the spirit of Halloween.
Normally I would have dismissed books like these as whacky New Age games and delusions. But I had come to respect Harry, probably more than anyone I had ever known. And the fact that he had dozens of books supposedly written by channeled entities confused and intrigued me. I had to find out what this was all about. I intended to ask him about it when he arrived back home, but in the meantime I wanted a taste of what was in these books.
I read several chapters of the Seth book, and despite what I viewed as a ridiculous premise – that these books contained communications from dead people – I was astounded by what I read. Not only was the information “down to earth”, but it was fascinating. This Seth character was describing how we “create” our reality, and he was doing so in extremely precise terms. There was a logic and cohesiveness to the material that caught me off guard.
I had been expecting more of what I had always heard from psychics – predictions, the future, one’s “destiny”, the Age of Aquarius, things like that. But this Seth book contained nothing of the sort. It was about how we create our reality. According to Seth, we create what we concentrate on. Somehow, our thoughts and our attention are configurations of energy, and this energy somehow coalesces into our physical reality and our experiences.I found the first book thoroughly engrossing, and I intended to take it home to finish reading it. I scanned through several more books and materials from a number of other non-physical entities – Elias, Kris, Tobias, Saint Germain, Kuthumi, Emmanuel, Aaron, Abraham (not the one in the Bible), and many others. I freely admit that I was still quite doubtful these writings were actually coming from dead people. The premise was absurd, and I wondered why people would go to such efforts to publish books claiming to come from such a source. And yet there they were, an entire shelf full of them, from sources of all kinds, written by all sorts of people, many of them with PhD’s after their names. The whole thing intrigued me, and by the time I heard Harry come in the front door, my curiosity was at full pitch.
“Harry,” I yelled when I heard the front door open. “Come back here.”
In a moment, Harry appeared in the doorway. “What?” he asked.
“What’s with all these books from dead people?” I asked.
Harry smiled and turned back toward the kitchen. “Books from dead people,” he said with humor in his voice as he walked back down the hallway. “What about them?”
I stood up and carried the stack of books I had been holding on my lap out into the hallway.
“They’re not really from dead people, are they?” I asked. I walked into the kitchen, put the stack of books on the table, and opened the one on top. “This one says it’s from someone or something called “Oneness”. What the hell is “Oneness”?
Harry laughed. “Don’t expect me to explain everything to you. Some things you have to figure out for yourself.”
“But why do you have all these books?” I persisted. “Did you read all of these?”
“I did,” Harry answered as he put away groceries.
“Why?”
“Because they’re interesting to me.”
“But do you believe that they came from dead people?” I was incredulous that Harry actually took these books seriously.
“I doesn’t matter what I believe,” Harry answered, “It matters what you believe.”
I shook my head. “There’s no way I can believe that people are able to channel dead people. Please tell me you don’t believe they can.”
“Why not?” Harry asked.
I was shocked by the question. This was Harry talking, perhaps the most rational, balanced person I had ever met.
"Well,” I said, “Because they’re dead. Dead people don’t talk. They don’t move their mouths. Their vocal chords are decayed. They’re under ground. Come on, Harry. Be honest.”
“I am being honest,” Harry said sincerely. “You have to decide what you believe. I can’t tell you what to believe. I’ve read all of those books in there, many of them more than once. And I got a lot out of them.”
I thought for a moment, then said to him, “So you don’t really care whether or not the writers of these books are making the whole thing up?”
“Nope.”
I was baffled.
“Look, Paul,” Harry continued, “I’ve learned that the information itself, and what I get out of it, is far more important than where the information comes from. It could have come from a frog, for all I care. If I get something out of it, then it has value to me. Regardless of where it supposedly came from.”
I nodded. “I guess I can see that. But the premise of the whole thing just seems absurd to me. Why would people go to the trouble of pretending that their books are coming from dead people? I don’t get it.”
“Well, my friend,” Harry said, “then you have a dilemma. You have come upon something that your rational mind won’t accept.”
“Exactly.”
“And yet you won’t just let it go.”
“I won’t just let it go because you have a bookshelf full of books by people claiming to channel dead people. And you don’t seem to have a problem with that.”
“Why would I have a problem with it?” Harry asked. “It’s my bookshelf!”
“Oh, I give up!” I said finally. I was frustrated.
“Good,” Harry said with a smile. “Cause you’re not getting anywhere anyway.”
I sat at the table and said nothing for a minute or two while Harry finished putting his groceries away. “Well,” I said finally, “if you don’t mind, I think I’ll borrow one of the Seth books. I already read a few chapters, and despite the fact that this Jane woman claims to be channeling a dead person, it seems pretty interesting anyway.”
Harry nodded. “Good choice. Seth is a wonderful place to start. That’s where I started.”
I looked at Harry. He had a slight smile on his face, and his eyes were sparkling.
If I didn’t know any better, I’d swear he had planned all this somehow.
