Major ideas covered very well and includes a question-and-answer section that addresses common concerns about the material for the first-time reader.

www.the-office.com/seth


I'm not quite sure who the author is but I imagine it is the owner of the URL which sells cool tech-related and office furniture. The owner has created this as a labor of love, clearly, so I can't imagine s/he would mind me posting it here and helping to share this wonderful article s/he wrote. There are some images on the site but here is the text:

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In these pages, I am giving you one of the most valuable gifts you will ever receive....the ability to learn to look at the marvelous adventure of life on this earth with greater comprehension.

Following is an introduction to the writings of Jane Roberts and SETH, along with a listing of their combined literary works, and three related images. In their value to the inhabitants of this earth, the teachings of Seth are considered to be as important as the original teachings of Jesus.

What's the Deal with Jane Roberts & SETH?

I have been asked that question a number of times, often by people who visit my home and see the lineup of “Seth” books on the bookshelf.

Some inquisitors have heard of Seth. “Isn’t that some sort of ‘power of positive thinking’ kind of thing?” is the most frequent follow-up question.

There is no quick or easy answer to either question. Inevitably, two areas are addressed in the ensuing conversation: (1) the general philosophy presented within the Seth books, and (2) the rather unconventional manner in which this complex and imposing body of work came to be.

The purpose of this essay is to introduce the reader to what the Seth Material (as it is generally known) is, and just as importantly, what it is not.

At the outset, I must offer two caveats. First, like the blind man and the elephant, I admit that I have not (yet) read the entire body of work (few have), and as such it is rather presumptuous of me to orient you to it.

Second, I also bring a certain bias to my description of the Seth Material. To borrow an analogy presented in a quantum physics textbook I once read, regular Seth readers generally approach Seth books the way car enthusiasts might approach a brand-new Corvette. Half instinctively pop the hood to admire and discuss all the things that make it start, stop, turn and go. The other half just want to get behind the wheel, crank the engine, and go roaring through the nearest “S” turns like a pack of wild teenagers.

I am of the second group. While I am aware of, and appreciate, the manner in which the Seth books came to be, I am far more interested in discussing, and attempting to apply, the principles outlined in them. Some in the Houston Seth Group think as I do. Others prefer to peer endlessly under the hood, fascinated by the “mechanics” by which the books were produced. Each of us also differs as to the specific portion and the extent of the Seth Material we have read.

Perhaps the greatest tribute to Seth is that these differences serve to bring us closer together rather than to drive us apart. In that, we all agree, there is perhaps a hopeful lesson that the material has broader social and societal applications.

Under the Hood: Jane, Rob and the History of Seth

The Seth Material dates back to the early 1960’s in Elmira, a quaint town perched near the Pennsylvania border in New York’s Finger Lakes region. Elmira boasts beautiful homes and an established literary heritage. Many years ago, Samuel Clemens came to escape the Mississippi River Valley summer heat. He wrote a number of books including Huck Finn while in Elmira.

Robert Butts and his wife Jane Roberts lived in an apartment in a Victorian house on Water Street. They were young Bohemians of sorts: she a writer and he an artist. They carved a spare living out of their creative passions, supplemented with various odd jobs. Involuntarily, Jane began having what she called psychic experiences. Unable to ignore these experiences, she and Rob one night borrowed a Ouija board to see if they could better “focus” whatever was happening to her.

After a couple unsuccessful sessions with the Ouija board, Jane and Rob started receiving intelligible messages, the planchette drifting from letter to letter, forming words, then sentences. Rob asked the Ouija to identify the personality behind the mysterious communications. “Seth,” the board replied. Soon, Jane found “Seth’s” words coming to her far faster than they could be spelled out on the board. Before long, she began lapsing into a trance state in which she would speak Seth’s words directly.

By the mid-'60’s, Jane would host a group of students in her home a couple times each week for what she called “ESP Classes.” The students learned how to develop their own latent psychic abilities (or not) and the modest fees they paid helped Jane and Rob cover the rent. The gregarious Seth had by now manifested a distinct personality. He did not keep his presence a private matter for long. Regularly during the ESP classes, Jane would fall into a trance state and begin “channeling” Seth, her voice deepening, gaining strength, and taking on a peculiar (some say Russian) accent.

Jovial and opinionated, Seth would answer students’ questions about a wide variety of subjects, generally centering on some aspect of the nature of reality.

Through it all, Rob took copious notes, developing his own shorthand and serving as scribe to these public and private sessions with Seth. The notes were first published under the title How to Develop Your ESP Power, the book subsequently reissued under a new title, The Coming of Seth.

To Jane and Rob’s surprise, Seth one day announced that he wished to write a book. Four nights a week, Jane would channel Seth, and Robert would scribe (always by hand). That first book was published as dictated without editing under the title Seth Speaks: The Eternal Validity of the Soul. Rob penned liner notes to add perspective and describe his wife’s mannerisms as she channeled the work of the mysterious author.

“Speaks” stands as an extraordinary work frequently credited as the watershed of the New Age Movement of the late ‘60’s and beyond. A number of principles in the book presaged subatomic (quantum) particle theories that would surface years or decades later. It also painted a pragmatic and ardently responsible “theory of everything,” tying together science, religion, philosophy, and both personal and societal ethics.

Seth proved to be an inveterate author, dictating several more books of increasing complexity, serving as classroom teacher to burgeoning numbers of students, and conducting endless private sessions with Jane and Rob.

Interestingly, Jane remained ever the skeptic regarding her unplanned vocation as Seth’s mouthpiece. An author herself, she continued to write conventionally, producing a number of fiction and non-fiction titles under her own name. No one questioned the nature of Seth and his revolutionary ideas more fervently than did Jane and Rob, the matter sometimes worming its way into Jane’s “non-Seth” books.

It should be noted that Seth’s and Jane Roberts’ respective books betray very different writing styles and personalities. Jane’s style could be direct and clinical; Seth’s style warm and jovial. Jane’s books were subjected to the normal editing process. Seth’s books were published as dictated, with only occasional grammatical or punctuation refinements.

The self-deprecating Seth referred to himself as an “old ghost.” He admonished his readers to think for themselves, trust their own instincts and question everything, including his own writings.

On February 26th, 1982, Jane was hospitalized for an under-active thyroid gland, severe arthritis, and other complications. She died on September 5, 1984 at the age of 55. Seth’s voice was likewise silenced.

What remained was two decades of dictated material; some published, some not, all recorded on lined paper in Rob’s block lettering. Sweeping, complex, interconnected and elegant, the volume of work has received what could be considered the ultimate academic blessing. Boxes upon boxes of Rob’s original Seth notes reside permanently in the prestigious Yale Archives in New Haven, where volunteers endeavor to commit Seth’s words to a comprehensive computer database.

Several years after the death of Jane Roberts, Rob remarried. He and his present wife Lauren, who considered herself fortunate to have had the privilege of knowing Jane Roberts during her lifetime, together worked to compile and publish nine volumes of the Early Sessions, books which predated The Coming of Seth.

Did Jane Roberts go into trances and channel the words of an invisible entity into a virtual library? Or, was it literary legerdemain, some sort of scam?

Choose your poison. Seth addressed the question directly, noting that a trance is a natural state, merely a matter of focusing one’s consciousness, not unlike hypnosis. Jane’s ability to reach such a state allowed a “bridge” between herself and Seth, he explained.

Jane pondered the possibility that “Seth” was merely a fragment of her own higher consciousness, perhaps akin to a multiple personality. Seth did not completely disagree with this assessment.

The third alternative is that Jane simply faked Seth for two decades. That this modestly educated young woman from Elmira dictated hundreds of thousands of pages of complex, revolutionary and integrated material, mostly in front of an audience, speaking with a vocal resonance, dialect and cadence distinctly different from her own. That she simultaneously produced an impressive collection of fiction and nonfiction works, in a completely different style, under her own name.

Those unfamiliar with the Seth writings may casually default to Curtain #3. But acquaintances of Jane and Rob, along with those familiar with Jane solely through her (and Seth’s) writings generally discount the “fake” theory as the least-viable explanation.

My opinion? I really don’t know, but I do believe there are mysteries of consciousness of which we are simply ignorant. I strongly suspect that we are more than our physical bodies. Throughout history, across Earth’s many cultures, humans have had unexplainable “glimpses” into a world that exists beyond the veil of our five traditional senses.

Anyone can play baseball, but few are blessed with the natural ability to excel at the game. Fewer still rise to the challenge of honing those unique, seemingly God-given skills into such legendary careers as Ruth, Mays, Musial and Jackson. I think Jane Roberts had unique psychic abilities. I think she combined these mysterious skills with her natural skills as an author (augmented by Robert Butts’ dedication as scribe and readers’ advocate) to produce the Seth Material.

The writings they have left stand as an extraordinary reminder of that which we do not know; and perhaps also of the depth of wisdom available to us if we are simply willing to open our eyes and our minds to it.

Taking the ‘Vette for a Spin: the World According to Seth

Seth details a philosophy of conscious creation. This philosophy supposes that:

* Physical reality arises from consciousness, not the other way around.
* We create our own reality.
* We are not at the mercy of a disjointed deity or subconscious.
* We are multi-dimensional beings; more than our physical bodies.
* Time and space are dimensional “illusions” we jointly create and by which we tacitly agree to abide.
* At the core of our being, we reside in a realm in which time and space do not exist.
* We are, in essence, creative spiritual beings having an earthly experience.
* The fate of each of us is in our own hands.
* We have multiple, perhaps infinite, life experiences. Problems not faced in this life will be faced in another.
* We cannot blame God, society, or our parents for “misfortunes,” since before this physical life we chose the circumstances into which we would be born and the challenges that could best bring about our development.
* We form physical matter as effortlessly and unselfconsciously as we breathe. Telepathically, we are all aware of the mass ideas from which we form our overall conception of physical reality.

Metaphysics is defined as the branch of philosophy that examines the nature of reality including the relationship between mind and matter, substance and attribute, fact and value. Seth admonishes his readers to approach these matters not as mere observers, not as victims of either chance or the whim of some celestial clockmaker, but as spiritually intelligent creatures. Reality, he says, does not unfold randomly or chaotically, but intelligently and holistically, each of us as a unit of consciousness carrying our own load in the creative process.

In the reality painted by Seth, an idea is an event, and plays as important and tangible a role in our reality as any event. This is not a new concept, dating in terms of Western civilization back to Plato. What is new in the Seth Material is the extension of this abstract philosophy to a tangible process carried through to its logical conclusion. What is even more remarkable is the clarity of thought and presentation Seth brings to his treatises on this complex issue and many others.

Seth proves to be an articulate teacher and a whimsical agent provocateur of thought. He will challenge every prejudice, predisposition, bias and assumption you bring to his podium. If you are like so many others, your mind, once expanded to the reality of your true potential, will never go back to its “original size.”

Seth provides as clear, pragmatic and responsible a roadmap for Life’s journey as any we have today. It also happens to be stimulating and joyous reading of the highest order.

Low-B.S. FAQ

I generally dislike FAQs (frequently asked questions) because they tend to give overly simplistic answers to complex questions. However, since they are central to the Internet’s culture, and because the Seth Material attracts certain questions like a magnet, I will use the format to “cut to the chase” on some inevitable questions.

“Is the Seth Material compatible with religion and/or science?”

The Seth Material parallels much of the core wisdom undergirding western religions, eastern religions, and modern science. But the system of reality outlined by Seth is generally incompatible with any sort of dogma, religious or scientific. If you adhere unbendingly to dogmas of either discipline, you will probably find the Seth Material uninteresting or ludicrous. If you are firm in your belief that humans are passive, objective observers of the scientific process with no impact on outcomes, you will likely label the Seth Material as pseudo-science or worse. If you are firm in your belief that humans are congenitally flawed creatures somehow separated from a divine Maker who demands worship and metes punishment, you may well find this material blasphemous. In either case, don’t waste your money or your time.

“Does the Seth Material favor the concept of reincarnation?”

Yes, both on earth and within other dimensional realities.

“How about karma?”

No, Seth does not advocate the concept of karma, or “paybacks” carried from one lifetime to the next. Seth speaks of physical lifetimes arising from a timeless, spaceless realm of Consciousness. In these terms, multiple lifetimes essentially occur simultaneously. Lessons not learned in one lifetime will be learned in another. Love not practiced in one lifetime will be practiced in another. However, there is no “karma” carried between linear lifetimes in the traditional sense of eastern religions.

“Does Seth recognize the divinity of Jesus Christ?”

Seth addresses a number of religious issues throughout the material, including both the historical and Biblical figures of Jesus. Seth presents some startling insights with which “Conservative Christians” will likely take umbrage or find completely unacceptable. Other followers of Jesus and his then-revolutionary ideas conversely may find their own faith strengthened by Seth’s observations.

“I’m an atheist (or an agnostic). Am I going to run into some kind of religious solicitation buried somewhere in the Seth Material?”

No. Seth’s writings deal objectively with issues of religion, beliefs and faith. He eschews all dogmas, including, it should be noted, those of organized atheism and humanism.

“Are you guys a cult? Are you waiting for the spaceship behind the comet?”

No, and no. The Houston Seth Group is a readers’ group. We meet informally to discuss and debate the Seth Material. We also meet socially, and several close friendships have arisen within the group. We hope to never have close contact with a comet or a spaceship.

“Do I need to get interested in Ouija Boards or any other New-Age stuff to read Seth?”

You apparently haven’t been paying attention. Some Seth enthusiasts find Ouija Boards or other New-Age trappings compatible with their interest in Seth. Others have no interest in such activities. However, avid Seth readers invariably are voracious consumers of a broad array of books and periodicals involving the nature of reality. We tend to be introspective, skeptical, and very curious. Several of us meditate routinely. Without exception, members of our group are also committed to making positive changes in our own lives and in the lives of those with whom we come in contact. Toward this end, Seth enthusiasts tend to gravitate to vocations, avocations or volunteer activities that focus on creative pursuits, or helping and serving others.

“Do you really think you (we) can change the world just by believing you (we) can?”

Yes, and by recognizing and removing the limiting beliefs that keep me (us) from doing so.

“How do we know that the Seth Material is not the work of an evil spirit?”

This is certainly a sensitive question, asked sincerely by those who fear an ulterior motive within any "channeled" communication. Perhaps Seth's own words provide the best assurance I can offer. I would leave it to the reader to determine whether these words are indicative of evil:

"There is never any justification for violence. There is no justification for hatred. There is no justification for murder. Those who indulge in violence for whatever reason are themselves changed, and the purity of their purpose adultered. It is wrong to curse a flower and wrong to curse a man. It is wrong not to hold any man in honor, and it is wrong to ridicule any man. Your must honor yourselves and see within yourselves the spirit of eternal validity. You must honor all other individuals, because within each is the spark of this validity. When you curse another, you curse yourselves, and the curse returns to you. When you are violent, the violence returns."

Above essay, courtesy of Jim Serra, Member, HoustonSethGroup.com



“Where do I start? Which book(s) should I read first? Where do I find them?”

Seth books are available at many bookstores, generally in the New Age or Philosophy sections. Many libraries stock Seth books. You can also buy them on line (several online sources of Seth books are included in the “links” section of this website). The Seth Material or Seth Speaks are both good places to start. Then you can move on to other titles that you find of interest. If you have been given a gift of one or more books authored by Jane Roberts / Seth, the gift-giver has undoubtedly given great thought to the introductory book(s) you have received, and may also have provided a chronological list you may wish to follow, should these books capture your interest. One is provided here as well. BrassRingBooks.com is among those which stock these books.



The Game of Life : Creating Your Own Reality

Imagine that you are about to participate in an interactive role-playing game. There are rules in this game that everyone agrees to: what goes up must come down, day is followed by night, if you touch a flame it will burn you, etc. etc. You get to choose the character you play beforehand; shall I be black or white, Australian or American, male or female? You might even choose to meet up with others in the game, which is tricky because you won’t necessarily remember them when you see them.

To enter the game, you must be “born” and become completely helpless. You must forget everything you know and start all over again. You are given sets of rules by the “older” players which you learn as you go along. After a given time, you are declared an “adult” by the other players and are sent out on your own.

The thing is, after a while, you become so involved, so completely immersed in the personality of the character that you are playing in this game, that you forget who you really are.

You forget that you’re even in a game, and you begin to believe that the game is all there is.

Now, you still get to decide everything that happens to your character, which you do constantly, but as a player who has now totally identified with the character you have chosen to portray, you begin to believe that everything that transpires is happening by “chance” or “fate”.

When the character you play goes to sleep, you return to your real self. This is also your opportunity to plan ahead and manifest the character's desires and wishes. When the character later awakens, it is with the belief that he/she was simply “dreaming”.

Some players, realizing that there has to be more than just this game, will start searching for answers. Some conclude that someone must have invented this game, and probably all the players in it. They begin to worship this mysterious “someone” who obviously must be much smarter than they are, and invent more rules that they insist were made by the original game creator.

The only way to leave this game is called dying. Once this transpires, you remember who you really are and you rejoin friends - some of whom were in this game with you. You may also interact with some who were involved with other games - and share your experiences.

The game, you conclude, was fun, adventurous and a great learning experience, and you decide you’d like to play again; this time in a different setting

About The SETH MATERIAL

Jane Roberts (1929--1984), a prolific and courageous writer of fiction and non-fiction, and poetry, is considered one of the most important psychics of the twentieth century.

In 1963, author Jane Roberts and her husband were trying a Ouija board, when, to their surprise, they started to receive messages from a being that called itself Seth. Soon, Jane began to hear the words in her head before they formed on the board, and she began to speak for Seth. The messages were those of a highly intelligent, witty personality which seemed very much 'alive' - despite its claim to be "an energy personality essence no longer focused in physical reality".

A rational, down-to-earth person, Jane did not accept Seth at face value. Her initial belief was that Seth, teacher/philosopher/"Speaker", was a manifestation of her own mind.

But Seth's messages were of such profound philosophical insight, which touched upon subjects that Jane had had no previous interest in, or held different opinions about (such as the reality of reincarnation, on which Seth firmly insisted), that she came to accept Seth as a being independent of her own personality.

From 1963 through 1984, Seth spoke through Roberts while her husband took dictation. Jane and her husband held regular Seth sessions, all meticulously transcribed by Robert Butts, and many of the sessions were also tape recorded through the years by her students or visiting scientists.

Ultimately nine Seth books were published in addition to another fourteen books penned by Roberts herself. Almost all remain in print today and have sold over 7.5 million copies around the world.

Throughout her life, Roberts rigorously questioned and wrote about consciousness, the source creativity, her own psychic abilities and the abilities of others. Her writing and journals, as well as a wealth of additional unpublished Seth material, are now housed in the Yale Archives, where it is consistently one of the most visited collections in the library. The Seth material is the only work of metaphysical literature in the archives of Yale University, attesting to its quality and significance. The Seth Material holds particular interest for those engaged in the study of quantum physics.

About entering the trance or dream state:

SETH:
"You usually glide from wakefulness through to sleep without ever noticing the various conditions of consciousness through which you pass, yet there are several. First, of course, with various degrees of spontaneity, there is the inward turn of consciousness away from physical data, from worries and concerns of the day. Then there is an undifferentiated level between wakefulness and sleep where you act as a receiver - passive but open, in which telepathic and clairvoyant messages come to you quite easily. Your consciousness can seem to float..... (...)

This period can last for only a few moments, for half an hour, or can be returned to. It is a cushioning, supportive, and expansive stage of consciousness.

Suggestions given during this time are highly effective. Following this period there is an active state, that can occur, of pseudodreaming, where the mind busies itself with physical concerns that have managed to cling through the first two stages. (...)

Now: These stages of consciousness are all a part of your own reality. A knowledge of them can be most useful. You can learn to "shift gears," stand aside from your own experience, and examine it with much better perspective. You can prepare questions or problems, suggesting that they be solved for you in the sleep state. You can suggest that you will speak with distant friends, or convey important messages that you cannot convey verbally, perhaps. You can bring about reconciliations, for example, at another layer of reality though you cannot do so in this one.

You can direct the healing of your body, telling yourself that this will be accomplished by you at one of the other levels of sleep consciousness, and you may ask for the aid of a Speaker to give you any necessary psychological guidance that is needed to maintain health. If you have particular conscious goals, and if you are reasonably certain that they are beneficial ones, then you can suggest dreams in which they occur, for the dreams themselves will hasten their physical reality."

SETH:

"You would be much better off in reading this book if you asked yourself who you are, rather than [asking] who I am, for you cannot understand what I am unless you understand the nature of personality and the characteristics of consciousness."

"So I ask you: 'What is your name, each of you?' My name is nameless. I have no name. I give you the name of Seth because it is a name and you want names. You give yourselves names..., because you believe they are important. "Your existence is nameless. It is not voiceless, but it is nameless. The names you take are structures upon which you hang your images . . . What you are cannot be uttered, and no letter or alphabet can contain it. Yet, now you need words and letters, and names and objects. You want magic that will tell you what you are. "You believe that you cannot speak to me unless I have a name, so I am Seth.... I told Ruburt [Seth ascribes a male name, Rubert, to Jane Roberts] from our earliest sessions that he could call me Seth. I never said, 'My name is Seth,' (but 'I call myself Seth'—my emphasis), for I am nameless. I have had too many identities to cling to one name!"

"I have been sent to help you, and others have been sent through the centuries of your time, for as you develop you also form new dimensions, and you will help others. I am in this room speaking to Robert [Jane Roberts husband, Robert Butts] although there is no object within which you can place me. You have a vehicle to use, a body that you call your own, and that is all. You are as disembodied as I. I come here as though I appeared through a hole in space and time. What you call emotion or feeling is the connective between us."

"Your spirit joined itself with flesh, and in flesh, to experience a world of incredible richness, to help create a dimension of reality of colors and of form. Your spirit was born in flesh to enrich a marvelous area of sense awareness, to feel energy made into corporeal form. You are here to use, enjoy, and express yourself through the body.

"You are here to aid in the great expansion of consciousness. You are not here to cry about the miseries of the human condition, but to change them when you find them not to your liking through the joy, strength and vitality that is within you; to create the spirit as faithfully and as beautifully as you can in flesh."

"According to what you have been taught, you are composed of physical matter and cannot escape it, and this is not so. The physical matter will disintegrate but you will not. I can assure you that death is another beginning. You have lived before and you will live again, and when you are done with physical existence, you will still live. I want you to feel your own vitality. Feel it travel through the universe and know that it is not dependent upon your physical image.

"I am life and I am death. Now when death can talk about death, that is your answer. Only the living are so mute. Think of your definitions. In certain terms, you are all dead and have been for centuries. In other terms you are not yet born and centuries will come before you walk upon the surface of the earth. Yet you are alive, and you take it for granted that I am dead, and so, what a delightful game we play!

"What I am trying to show you is that individuality continues. Now, I have been born and died more times than I can remember. And yet, in my present state, my individuality continues. It is not my essence. It is not buried in some bovine goodness in which I must think beautiful thoughts and become lost in the beauty of the Universe. I am part of the beauty of the Universe, and as such, my individuality continues-as does your own."

"You sense here the energy of your being, and it is death and it is life, for the two are one and united, and, in your terms, are the faces of the same reality. You will never know, in your terms again, the self that you are now, and yet it will never end, and you will always remember it. Yet there is a history, in other terms, to your being, and you can read that history. In your terms, you can look backward toward reincarnational lives, but they are not you..."

"Life implies death, and death implies life--that is, in the terms of your world. You could not die unless you were the kind of creature who was born, nor could you have a present moment as you consider it. Your body is aware of the fact of its death at birth, and of its birth at its death, for all of its possibilities for action take place in the area between. Death is therefore as creative as birth, as necessary for action and consciousness, in your terms.

"Here time as you think of it has little meaning. You could compare the two different time experiences in this way: In your dimension it is as if remembered events were like pieces of furniture, all arranged in one room, in a given order. Living in that room, you can find your way between various pieces easily. You then move out into a larger and different kind of room, and here the furniture may be rearranged in any fashion, arranged and rearranged to your heart's content. You may form different combinations from it and use it for different purposes as you might visit a new residence and move some of your belongings there before you officially make it your own. There will be guides to help you and you will hardly notice that you have entirely moved in, for you will feel so at home. Shortly, training periods will begin. It will become your turn then to help others and be their source of strength.

"Now the new body is, of course, not a new one at all, but simply a body not physical in your terms, one that you use in astral projections, one that gives the vitality and strength to the physical body that you know. Your flesh is embedded in it now. When you leave the physical body, the other body is quite real to you and seems physical, although it has many more freedoms.

"First of all, there are verbal difficulties having to do with the definition of life. It appears to you that there is living matter and nonliving matter, leading to such questions as: "How does nonliving matter become living?"

"There is no such thing, in your terms, as nonliving matter. There is simply a point that you recognize as having the characteristics that you have ascribed to life, or living conditions---a point that meets the requirements that you have arbitrarily set.

"This makes it highly difficult in a discussion, however, for there is no particular point at which life was inserted into nonliving matter. There is no point at which consciousness emerged. Consciousness is within the tiniest particle. There was no point at which consciousness was introduced, because consciousness was the illumination from which the first cells emerged.

"There is a design and a designer, but they are so combined, the one within and one without, that it is impossible to separate them. The Creator is also within its creations, and the creations themselves are gifted with creativity and that each contains an infinite capacity for development---and that each is innately blessed.

"In the dawn of physical existence, men knew that death was merely a change of form."

"What you call death is rather your choice to focus in other dimensions and realities. You do not acquire a 'spirit' at death. You are one, now! You adopt a body as a space traveler wears a space suit, and for much the same reason."

"You are not any of those past selves, even though they are a part of the history of your being. They are themselves in their own space and time. You are as different from those reincarnational selves, therefore, as you are from your parents, though you share certain backgrounds and characteristics. So you can theoretically expand your consciousness to include the knowledge of your past lives, though those lives were yours and not yours. The next step is taken when identity is able to include within itself the intimate knowledge of all incarnations. Yet in this state, the independence of the various reincarnated selves is not diminished as each separate identity then seeks to know and experience its other portions, then All That Is learns Who and What It Is. Action never ceases its exploration of itself."

"In each life you choose and create your own settings or environments; and in this one you chose your parents and whatever childhood incidents that came within your experience. You wrote the script. Like a true absent minded professor, the conscious self forgets all this, however, so when tragedy appears in the script, difficulty or challenges, the conscious self looks for someone or something to blame."

"....When consciousness splits off from itself, the original is not less, but a new synthesis occurs. Such psychological births take place often in one life, quite escaping your notice.... The self is quite able to keep track of its own journeys into various realities and times, and feels no confusion. ..."

"Reincarnation involves the historical periods that you recognize, and the seemingly sequential progress of events. Your reincarnational selves more or less belong to the same probability, translated into historical terms. Since all time is simultaneous, however, all frameworks of historical nature are being formed at once. In those terms you are born in the past with your knowledge of the future held in unconscious abeyance, and you are born in the future convinced that your knowledge of the past comes only from history books."

"The entire complex social world rests however on strong probable relationships, and the power behind civilizations rests upon a great unconscious rapport, and is built upon, in any given present, future and past, personal and social relationships."

"An excess of male lives will turn a personality sour in a feminine manner, without the inner understanding and compassion that is usually associated with the female sex. In like manner, consistent feminine personalities will turn harsh without the inner strength usually associated with the male sex. For this reason, most entities live lives as male and female."

"It does not follow that everyone with whom you are concerned was also involved with you in past lives. You will always meet new personalities in various existences, as well as people you have known.

"When you leave the physical system after reincarnations, you have learned the lesson and you are literally no longer a member of the human race, for you elect to leave it. Only the conscious self dwells within it in any case, and other portions of your identity dwell simultaneously within other training systems. In more advanced systems, thoughts and emotions are automatically and immediately translated into action, into whatever approximation of matter there exists. Therefore, the lessons must be taught and learned well."

"The teachers within your system are those in their last reincarnation, and other personalities who have left the system but have been assigned to help those still within it. The system also includes some fragment personalities what are entering for the first time, as well as those in later reincarnations."

"In the most basic sense, the purpose of life is being--as opposed to not being. In your system of three-dimensional reality you are learning about mental energy (also called thought energy or psychic energy) and how to use it."

"Knowledge about mental energy and its use is learned by constantly transforming your thoughts and emotions into physical form (your physical reality) and by then perceiving and dealing with the matter and events that are formed."

"From doing this, you are supposed to get a clear picture of your inner development as it is reflected by the exterior environment. You participate in physical reality so that you can operate and experience within this dimension. Here, you can develop your abilities, learn, create, solve problems and help others."

"Now, there are no limitations or divisions to the self. You can indeed depend upon seemingly unconscious portions of yourself. The seemingly unconscious portions of your body draws energy from food and molecules, from the air to form your body. All this happens because the inner portions of your being operate spontaneously, joyfully, freely; and all of this occurs because your inner self believes in you, often even while you do not believe in it. The you that you consider yourself to be is never annihilated. Your consciousness is not snuffed out, nor is it swallowed, blissfully unaware of itself, in some nirvana. You are as much a part of a nirvana now as you ever will be. You are in the process of expanding your psychic structure, of becoming a conscious participant with the soul. You are becoming what your soul is.

"There is nothing in your exterior experience that you did not originate within yourself. Interactions with others do occur, yet none occur what you do not attract or draw to you by your thoughts, feelings, attitudes or emotions. In your terms this applies both before, during and after physical life. In a most miraculous fashion you are given the gift of creating your own experiences.

"In this physical existence you are learning how to handle the inexhaustible energy that is available to you. Some of your feelings and thoughts are translated into objects. These exist in a medium you call space. Others are translated into events that exist in a medium you call time. Both of the concepts of space and time are illusions. They exist only in the physical realm. Since you are a part of "being," then you in effect give yourself the life that is being lived through you. While physical, while you are in the flesh, you are a portion of nature therefore, not apart from it. You can not strive to be above nature, and still be yourself.

"Beyond myself there is another self and still another, of which I am aware. And that self tells you that there is a reality beyond human reality and experience that cannot be made verbal or translated into human terms."

"Your soul was not born yesterday, but before the annals of time as you think of time. In your terms, you are its most latest addition. You are apart of the whole soul, but not yet aware of the greater portions of yourself. The characteristics that were yours at birth were yours for a reason. The inner self chose them. The inner self can even now alter many of them. You did not arrive at birth without a history. Your individuality was always latent within your soul.

"The pattern that is you is written first of all in the psyche, and is then faithfully decoded in your genes and chromosomes. Your you is expressed in flesh, but came first from the psyche which is beyond or outside of flesh. You are awake, alert and participating in many more realities than you know, as your soul expresses itself through you. You are a living picture in flesh of yourself or soul. You project what you think you are outward into flesh.

"It is more correct to think of the soul not as something you have rather, what you are. You frequently consider the soul as a finished thing that belongs to you but is not you. In truth your soul is the most intimate, powerful part of your inner self and is forever changing and growing. Your soul is alive, responsive, curious and in a constant state of becoming. The soul portion of you resides in other dimensions beyond the physical level. The soul portion of you is the most highly motivated, most highly energized, most potent consciousness unit know in any universe. Your soul, the soul that you are, that you are a part of, that soul is a far more creative, miraculous phenomenon that you can possibly imagine. Your soul possesses more wisdom, knowledge, information and strength than you can ever be consciously aware of.

"The soul is not something waiting for you at death, nor is it something you must save or redeem. You cannot lose it. It is indestructible. The fulfillment of the soul is not dependent upon arrivals at any points, spiritual or otherwise. Your own personality as you know it, that portion of you that you consider most precious, most uniquely you, will never be destroyed or lost. If you maintain a limited concept of the soul, then you cannot take advantage of its many abilities that are your own, and to some extent you cut yourself off from the source of your own being and creativity. The soul's abilities will continue to operate, but often in spite of what you believe rather than with your conscious cooperation.

"Your inner self knows its relationship with the soul. You think you perceive exclusively through your five physical senses, and yet you have only to extend your ego idea of reality, and you will find yourself accepting quite readily the existence of non-physical information coming from the soul portions of yourself.

"Having become aware of the true nature of the soul you can consciously begin to draw upon its greater energy, strength and understanding. In so doing your ideas concerning your own nature will change and expand, for you will have removed limitations to your growth. The wonderful results will be felt down to the smallest cells of your body and will effect the most seemingly mundane events of your life.

"You were born into a state of grace. It is impossible for you to leave it. You will die in a state of grace whether or not special words are spoken for you, or water or oil is poured upon your head. You share this blessing with the animals and all other living things. You cannot fall out of grace, nor can it be taken from you. You can ignore it. You can hold beliefs that blind you to its existence. You will still be graced but unable to perceive your own uniqueness and integrity, and blind also to other attributes with which you are automatically gifted."

"You sell yourself short if you believe that you are only a physical organism living within the boundaries cast upon you by time and space....You are a unique individual. You form your physical environment. You are part of all that is. There is no place within you that creativity does not exist."

"Now, reality has no beginning and no end. Hopefully— hopefully— hopefully, in your terms of time, you may get a glimpse of what I mean. There is indeed an expanding universe, and it is formed in the eternal present. In my book I will go as far as I can into those precepts, yet some [of you] will not follow. You create your own reality. That works, and is true, whether or not you follow, or care to follow, into these other realms.

"For those of you who do accompany me, I promise you an adventure, a creative alteration of consciousness, and experiences beyond those that you have known in your terms. You look at the world around you and are amazed at its richness and variety. Do you think that the inner world is not as rich, even more rich, more valid? Do you think there is but one kind of consciousness?

"Your world is formed out of the vast unpredictability of consciousness. From it you form your own ideas of significance and of yourself... You must stop thinking in terms of ordinary progression. It is bad enough when you worry about keeping up with the Joneses. It is something else, however, when you start worrying ahout which kind of self [Or consciousness] is superior to another kind."

"You are like children with a game, and you think that the game is played by everyone. Physical life is not the rule. Identity and consciousness existed long before your earth was formed. You suppose that any personality must appear in physical terms. Consciousness is the force behind matter, and it forms many other realities besides the physical one. It is, again, your own viewpoint that is presently so limited that it seems to you that physical reality is the rule and mode of existence"

"Using your free will, you have made physical reality into something quite different than what was intended. You have allowed the ego to become overly developed and specialized. You were here to work out problems and challenges, but you were always to be aware of your own inner reality, and of your nonphysical existence. To a large extent you have lost contact with this. You have focused so strongly upon physical reality that it become the only reality that you know"

You create your reality according to your beliefs and expectations, therefore you should examine these carefully. If you do not like some aspect of your world, then examine your own expectations."

"Realize that your physical experience and environment is the materialization of your beliefs. If you find great exuberance, health, effective work, abundance, smiles on the faces of those who you meet, then take it for granted that your beliefs are beneficial. If you see a world that is good, people like you, take it for granted again, that your beliefs are beneficial. But if you find poor health, a lack of meaningful work, a lack of abundance, a world of sorrow and evil, then assume your beliefs are faulty and begin examining them."

"Your world is formed in faithful replica of your own thoughts...If you think positive suggestions to yourself about a situation you send telepathic ammunition for positive use. You must learn to erase a negative thought or picture by replacing it with its opposite."

"You form your own reality. But in forming that reality, you change other realities of which you do not know. The joy, the challenge, the responsibility, the creativity is yours. There is no other message that I can ever give you, or that you can give yourself. You are, each of you, All-That-Is experienced through your own individuality, and the transubstantiation of your flesh."

"Identity and consciousness existed long before your earth was formed....Consciousness is the force behind matter, and it forms many other realities besides the physical one....So much of your energy is used in the physical productions that you cannot afford to perceive any reality but your own."

"Matter is the shape that basic experience takes when it comes into your three-dimensional system. Your dreams, thoughts, expectations, beliefs and emotions are literally transformed into physical matter."

"Every nerve and fiber within the body has an unseen inner purpose. Nerve impulses travel outward from the body, along invisible pathways, in much the same manner that they travel within the body."

"These pathways are carriers of telepathic thoughts, impulses, and desires containing all the codified data necessary for translating any thought or image into physical actuality, altering seemingly objective events."

"This telepathy operates constantly at an "automatic" or subconscious level, providing communication to back up sensory data. Telepathy is the glue that holds the physical universe in position, so that you can agree on the existence and properties of objects."

"The conscious mind was therefore expected to perform alone, so to speak, ignoring the highly intuitive inner information that is also available to it. It was not supposed to be aware of such data. Yet any individual knows quite well that intuitive hunches, inspiration, precognitive information or clairvoyant material has often risen to conscious knowledge. Usually it is shoved away and disregarded because you have been taught that the conscious mind should not hold with such nonsense. However, your conscious mind is meant to look into the exterior world and into the interior one. The conscious mind is a vehicle for the expression of the soul in corporeal terms.

"You must give up any ideas that you have as to the unsavory nature of unconscious activity. You must learn to believe in the goodness of your being. Otherwise you will not explore these other states of your own reality.

"When you trust yourself then you will trust your own dream interpretations -and these will lead you to greater self-understanding. Your beliefs of good and evil will become much more clear to you, and you will no longer need to project repressed out upon others in exaggerated fashion."

"You were born with a built-in recognition of your own goodness. You were born with an inner recognition of your rightness in the universe....You are a cooperative species and a loving one. Your misunderstandings, your crimes, and your atrocities, real as they are, are seldom committed out of any intent to be evil, but because of severe misinterpretations about the nature of good, and the means that can be taken towards its actualization.

"....there are certain tendencies, mental stances that you will take about yourself, your body and your life to one degree or another. Many of these will be directly or indirectly connected with old myths and beliefs of your forefathers. Your ideas of good and evil are highly important for instance. (Pause.) Few can escape putting value judgments in these areas. If you consider illness as a kind of moral stigma, then you will simply add an unneeded quality to any condition of ill health."

"Such judgments are simplistic, and ignore the great range of human motivation and experience. If you are bound and determined that "GOD" creates only good, then any physical deficiency, or illness or deformity becomes an affront to your belief, threatens it and makes you angry or resentful."

"Your scientific beliefs tell you that your entire world happened accidentally. Your religions tell you that man is sinful....A generalized fear and suspicion is generated, and life too often becomes stripped of any heroic qualities.

"As long as you believe in the basic evil of man, then you must project upon yourself great punishment. You must see your world destroyed, as so will you have prophets to tell you so, and so they will speak the truth, for they will speak from your own beliefs in the idea of your own evil.

"Now, there will be no holocaust unless you believe that you are so evil that you, as a race must punish yourselves. But there will always be benign old spirits like me that tell you that, although you are bad, you are perfectly bad, and utterly beautiful, and nothing will destroy you unless you are convinced you are, as a race so evil you must be destroyed. And even then, only those who so believe will partake in that probability!

"The prophets speak truly, that speak of doom. They speak truly when they speak from a framework that believes in doom. But that framework is a mere probability that gains its strength only from a belief in evil. So, the prophets felt that belief, and are themselves terrible driven by that belief; and paint dire pictures that reside within the psyche of those who themselves feel damned.

"There are other directions that your race can take, and I'm trying to point out those directions to you. And if you take those directions, then indeed-in your terms-there will be a birth of a new species-a species that understands its blessed creaturehood, that understands its spirituality, that does not despoil its planet, that purposefully creates the kind of world a sane god would create, a god who has no need for a heaven or a hell!

"Quite simply, a belief in the good without a belief in the evil, may seem highly unrealistic to you. This belief, however, is the best kind of insurance that you can have, both during physical life and afterwards. It may outrage your intellect, and the evidence of your physical senses may shout that it is untrue, yet a belief in good without a belief in evil is actually highly realistic."

"Your beliefs generate emotion. It is somewhat fashionable to place feelings above conscious thoughts, the idea being that emotions are more basic and natural than conscious reasoning is. The two actually go together but your conscious thinking largely determines your emotions,and not the other way around. Your beliefs generate the appropriate emotion that is implied.

"The race must learn the value of the individual man. The race is also learning its dependence upon other species, and beginning to comprehend its part in the whole framework in physical reality. Now: some individuals are being reborn at this time simply to help you understand. They are forcing the issue, and forcing the crisis, for you still have time to change your ways. You are working on two main problems, but both involve the sacredness of the individual, and the individual's relationship with others and with all physically oriented consciousness.

"The problem of war will sooner or later teach you that when you kill another man, basically you will end up killing yourself. The over-population problem will teach you that if you do not have a loving concern for the environment in which you dwell, it will no longer sustain you--you will not be worthy of it. You will not be destroying the planet, you see. You will not be destroying the birds or the flowers, or the grain or the animals. You will not be worthy of them, and they will be destroying you. You have set up the problem for yourselves within the framework of your reference. You will not understand your part within the framework of nature until you actually see yourselves in danger of tearing it apart. You will not destroy consciousness. You will not annihilate the consciousness of even one leaf, but in your context, if the problem were not solved, these would fade from your experience.

"The crisis is a kind of therapy...And you need it now, before your race embarks upon journeys to other physical realities. You must learn your lessons now in your own back yard before you travel to other worlds. So you have brought this upon yourself for that purpose and you will learn.

"If you become so frightened of realities that are not your own; if you take upon yourselves tragedies that do not exist in your reality, in your moment, you weaken your position, and you think you are helping. You must operate from strength, not from weakness. When you stand on a firm shore, you can extend your arm to the man that is in quicksand. You cannot help him by leaping into the quicksand with him, for surely both of you will go down, and he will not thank you. Organize your reality according to your strength. Organize your reality according to your playfulness, according to your dreams, according to your hopes, and then you can help those who organize their reality according to their fears."

"Many people do not need to listen to my voice because they listen to the voices of the oak trees and the birds, and to the voices of their own being. I am a poor imitation of the voices of your own psyches to which you do not listen. I will be unneeded, and gladly so, when you realize that the vitality and reinforcement and joy are your own, and rise from the fountain of your own beings; when you realize that you do not need me for protection, for there is nothing you need protect yourself against.

"You can become involved now in a new exploration, one in which man's civilizations and organizations change their course, reflecting his good intents and his ideals. You can do this by seeing to it that each step you personally take is 'ideally suited' to the ends you hope to achieve. You will see to it that your methods are ideal. If you do this, your life will automatically be provided with excitement, natural zest and creativity, and those characteristics will be reflected outward into the social, political, economic, and scientific worlds. This is a challenge more than worth the effort.

"You should tell yourself frequently 'I will only react to constructive suggestions.' This gives you positive ammunition against your own negative thoughts and those of others."

"A negative thought, if not erased, will almost certainly result in a negative condition. Say to yourself, 'That is in the past. Now in this new moment, this new present, I am already beginning to change for the better.'"

"It does not do to repress negative thoughts, such as fears, angers, or resentment. They should be recognized, faced and replaced. Recognize resentment when it is felt, and then realize that resentment can be dismissed. Initial recognition must be made. Then you must imagine removing the resentment 'by its roots' and replacing it with a positive feeling."

"You must watch the pictures that you paint with your imagination. Your environment and the conditions of your life at any given time are the direct result of your own inner expectations. If you imagine dire circumstances, ill health or desperate loneliness, these will be "automatically" materialized, for these thoughts themselves bring about the conditions that will give them a reality in physical terms. If you would have good health then you must imagine this as vividly as you fearfully imagine ill health."

"You create your own difficulties. This is true for each individual. The inner psychological state is projected outward, gaining physical reality -whatever the psychological state may be....You cannot escape your own attitudes, for they will form the nature of what you see. If changes are to occur, they must be mental and psychic changes. These will be reflected in your environment. Negative, distrustful, fearful, or degrading attitudes toward anyone work against the self."

"Using your free will, you have made physical reality into something quite different than what was intended. You have allowed the ego to become overly developed and specialized. You were here to work out problems and challenges, but you were always to be aware of your own inner reality, and of your nonphysical existence. To a large extent you have lost contact with this. You have focused so strongly upon physical reality that it become the only reality that you know."

‘‘It is the worst kind of arrogance to ignore the existence of paranormal experiences on parts of large portions of the population, and dangerous to operate with hypotheses that do not include such larger versions of reality. Science wants to be free of myth, yet it sets up its own. Only science’s myths lack all of those qualities that give men hope, zest, cheer, or faith, by denying not only the meaning of man's universe but of his very being, reducing his world to a spiritual and psychic vacuum, shoving man out of his own experience and diminishing his sense of stature by denying the events of his psyche.’’
The Worldview of William James, by Jane Roberts

SETH: ‘‘You think that you are only conscious while you are awake. You assume yourselves unconscious when you sleep. In Freud’s terminology, the dice are indeed loaded on the side of the conscious mind. But pretend for a moment that you are looking at this situation from the other side. Pretend that while you are in the dream state you are concerned with the problem of physical consciousness and existence. From that viewpoint, the picture is entirely different, for you are indeed conscious when you sleep.’’

"You must learn to listen to the voice of the inner self and work with it"

‘‘Do not think of the mind as a purely mental entity, and of the body as a purely physical one. Instead, think of both mind and body as continuing, interweaving processes that are mental and physical at once. Your thoughts actually are quite as physical as your body is, and your body is quite as nonphysical as it seems your thoughts are. You are actually a vital force, existing as a part of your environment, and yet apart from your environment at the same time.’’

‘‘Only people who trust their spontaneous impulses can be consciously wise enough to choose from a myriad of probable futures the most promising events ...’’

"You should tell yourself frequently 'I will only react to constructive suggestions.' This gives you positive ammunition against your own negative thoughts and those of others."

"The self has no boundaries except those it accepts out of ignorance"

"You create your reality according to your beliefs and expectations, therefore you should examine these carefully. If you do not like some aspect of your world, then examine your own expectations"

"If you are in poor health, you can remedy it. If your personal relationships are unsatisfactory, you can change them for the better. If you are in poverty, you can find yourself surrounded by abundance... Each of you, regardless of position, status, circumstances, or physical condition, is in control or your own experience."

‘‘Each of you believes, to one extent or another, that the universe is not safe, and therefore you must set up defenses against it ... You need not say, ‘The universe is safe,’ for at your present level, that will only enrage you.
Say, ‘I live in a safe universe,’ and so you shall.’’

"Do not personally give any more conscious consideration, either of you, to events that you do not want to happen. Any such concentration, to whatever degree, ties you in with those probabilities, so concentrate upon what you want, and as far as public events are concerned, take it for granted that sometimes even men are wiser than they know".

‘‘You get what you concentrate on. There is no other main rule.’’

‘‘Efficient manipulation within the physical field will soon require that other portions of the self be utilized and recognized. In a manner of speaking, the ego can be compared to the nationalistic state of nations, necessary indeed for man’s development, but already growing passé, and perhaps even mitigating against the survival of the species.’’

‘‘Fulfillment, value fulfillment, implies fulfillment of all abilities and all potentials, including quite physical potentials. The pyramid gestalts of which I have spoken have experiences far beyond those of any human being. Yet they are concerned with the least, with the existence of the least among you.’’

‘‘The fullest potentialities cannot be developed unless the physical aspects are also developed. Your job is to manipulate as well as you can within the physical universe, and to develop within it religious leaders of any denomination. Any leaders who restrict development along one level for the sake of development along other levels, betray their followers.’’

‘‘The worldwide view of man as a species, worldwide brotherhood in no way hampers or endangers the individual man, and in no way endangers nations, but wil

OMG, Denny! Thanks for all of the effort that you went through to post this. What a great resource for people who are beginners, or are curious as to what Seth is all about! I know at least two people that I will pass this on to. Again many, many thanks! Love, Cyn

You're most welcome! (I just learned today that selecting the blue "Thank You" box in a post assigns the author a "good karma" point. )

Occasionally, I cruise the Internet looking for what may be new or what I might have earlier missed. The author did a superb job--perhaps the best effort I've seen thus far.

We do not use the Karma Point feature as it is not very Seth. Clicking on the thank you button does put a thank you in the activity stream on the home page though.

Sorry about my misunderstanding. Somehow I got the idea it was a feature here...(an old post, something someone told me in chat?)

I'm aware of Seth's comments on karma and his further refinement of ideas related to it--that it is instructive, not punitive; and cannot really exist because of simultaneous time.

It sounded kinda fun, though.

Thanks for your clarification and muchly appreciated efforts, here,

Denny.