THE FURTHER EDUCATION OF OVERSOUL SEVEN

by Jane Roberts ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 5, 1979

Metempsychotic twaddle. The author of Seth Speaks and other adventures in the shadowy realm of ESP makes another abortive attempt (this is an Over-soul Seven sequel) to combine spiritualism and fiction. Roberts builds this stupefying tale around a hardboiled behavioral psychologist called Jeffery W. Blodgett (other characters bear such names as Mrs. Always, Bianka Hosentauf, and Prof. Ramrod Brail) who finds his consciousness invaded by a busy band of spirits, including Oversoul Seven, from another dimension. All the tight little structures of his frigid positivism come tumbling down, and he rushes willy-nilly to the typewriter to record the doings of these utterly unamusing creatures who transcend (like all of us, could we but realize it) the limits of time, space, and embodied existence. As if this weren't enough, Blodgett has some highly unorthodox and hopelessly silly visions of the gods. In one of these Zeus remarks to Jesus, ""Oh, the Crucifixion? I'll grant you that was no fun."" To which Christ replies, ""nostalgically"": ""Yet the whole concept was. There were great moments, moments when I almost got through to them."" Roberts' point, it develops, is that we've got to surrender the old mythologies, while holding on to the timeless divinity within each of us. An unsavory hash of stodgy prose and wishful thinking that only the most hardened devotees of occultist fantasy will be able to digest.

Pub Date: Sept. 5, 1979

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Prentice-Hall

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1979

Categories: FICTION