"Astonish me." --Diaghilev to Cocteau

Frame any affirmation positively:

"I will remain well and healthy"

as opposed to "I will not get sick."

Tell yourself "I will only react to constructive suggestions" and "Every day in every way I am getting better and better" and "I love myself unconditionally."

Say at any time but before sleep gives affirmations an added "boost."

Some Seth/Jane Roberts remarks on viruses and epidemics: "So-called harmful viruses are ever-present within the body. You are very rarely vulnerable to any but a small percentage, though you carry within you traces of the most deadly of them all of the time. Viruses themselves undergo transformations completely unsuspected by medical men. If one virus disappears and another is found, it is never suspected that the first may have changed into the second; and yet through certain alterations of quite natural character such is the case. “So viruses can be beneficial or deadly according to the condition, state, and needs of the body at any given time." —The Nature of Personal Reality, Chapter 7: Session 631, December 18, 1972 "The viruses in the body have a social, cooperative existence. Their effects become deadly only under certain conditions. The viruses must be triggered into destructive activity, and this happens only at a certain point, when the individual involved is [unconsciously] actively seeking either death or a crisis situation biologically." —The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events, Chapter 6: Session 840, March 12, 1979 "To a certain extent (underlined), epidemics are the result of [an unconscious] mass suicide phenomenon on the parts of those involved. Biological, sociological, or even economic factors may be involved, in that for a variety of reasons, and at different levels, whole groups of individuals [unconsciously] want to die at any given time — but in such a way that their individual deaths amount to a mass statement." —NoME Chapter 1: Session 802, April 25, 1977 He asserted in "Mass Events" that epidemics represent mass despair which is the true cause of the epidemic. He asserted the natural state of the body is one of health.

"Remember what I said earlier about the connections between disease and nondisease states. Communication flashes between viruses and microbes, and they can change in the wink of an eye. Once again, then, ideas of the most optimistic nature are the biologically pertinent ones."

—Seth, The Way Toward Health, Chapter 14: June 27, 1984

Seth: "Your dreams and the physical events of your lives constantly alter the chemical balances within your body. A dream may be purposely experienced to provide an outlet of a kind that is missing in your daily life. It will mobilize your resources and fill your body with a rush of needed hormones, creating a dream state of stress that will bring the organism's healing abilities into combat and result in an end to particular physical symptoms." From: The Nature of Personal Reality, Chapter 10, Session 640 for February 14, 1973.

JANUARY 10, 1984

4:30 PM TUESDAY

...(This material came through after Jane and I had watched a program yesterday and today called In Search Of -- old reruns featuring Leonard Nimoy. I don't recall the shows. In my original notes I had noted that today's "Session material was quite unexpected."

(Jane obviously gave this material from her hospital bed in Poom 330.)

Now: I bid you another fond good afternoon.

("Good afternoon, Seth.'')

A few comments.

There are many, many species that man has not discovered, in all the categories of life -- insects onward.

There are multitudinous species of viruses and so forth that man has not encountered and recognized, and there are connections between viruses and other species of living matter that remain unknown. There are indeed two different kinds of upward-walking mammals, much like your own species, but much larger, and with infi- nitely keener senses. They are indeed amazingly swift creatures, and through scent alone they are aware of the presence of man when any member of your species is at all in the immediate area -- standing, say, at least several miles away. Vegetable matter is a main diet, though often implemented by insects, which are considered a delicacy.

They have, for that matter, devised many ingenious insect traps, so that hundreds or more can be caught, for many are needed since insects are so small. These traps are often constructed on trees, in the bark, in such a fashion that the tree gum itself is used to trap the insects.

The traps appear to be part of the tree itself, so as to protect them. These creatures do indeed remember, but their remembering operates extremely rapidly - a kind of almost instantaneous deduc- don that comes as sense data is interpreted. That is, received and interpreted almost at once, or simultaneously.

(Pause at 4:40.) Offspring do not occur until the individuals are well past the age that you would consider normal for breeding. Oth- erwise the procedure is the same. With some territorial variation, such creatures reside in many of the world areas on your planet, though their overall population is very small - altogether, perhaps, several thousand. They rarely congregate in large groups, but do have a family and tribal-like organization, with at the very most twelve adults in any given area. As offspring are added, the groups break up again, for they know well that in larger numbers they would be much more easy to discover

They all use tools of one kind or another, and live indeed in close concord with the animals. There is no competition between them and animals, for example, and they are not basically aggressive, though they could be extremely dangerous if they were cornered, or if their young were attacked.

They grow quite sluggish in wintertime, in very cold climates, and their temperature drops, as is characteristic of hibernating am- mals, except that their temperature is more sensitive to daily varia- tions, so that on some winter days they can forage for food very well, while on the other hand they may hibernate for even weeks on end.

(4:46.) They have a keen understanding of nature, and of natural phenomena. Language is not developed to any great degree, for their sensual ordinary equipment is so pure and swift that it almost becomes a language of its own...

--Seth, _The Way Toward Health_

Seth, Session 144:

"The dream world ... is not apart from your so-called physical universe, for the dream universe, through its connection with the inner self, also helps to construct physical matter -- and this is no trifling matter."

"It matters more than you know, and I will tell you what the matter is.. How do you like that play on words, Joseph?"

"("It's beautiful.")"

"I suspect some hint of sarcasm"

("Oh no.")"

...

"Now. As you know, among other things dreams reflect inner expectation. For our visitor's edification, dreams are created by each individual, and given actual molecular structure and reality, within a different field than the one with which you are usually familiar."

...

"Nevertheless, the actual individual dream world created by each individual will be a close resemblance to the physical environment which is also created by the individual."

"...when valid concern for world problems turns into an obsession with world injustices that wipes out all, or threatens to wipe out all personal enjoyment, then trouble is on the way. For enjoyment is a weapon. The man who is capable of joy is capable, to a large extent, of changing his world. Joy is not a weak spineless idiot either. Its backbone is stronger than bitterness."

--Seth, Session 143

Your beliefs can be like fences that surround you.... [The following is a] list [of] some limiting false beliefs. If you find yourself agreeing with any of them, then recognize this as an area in which you must personally work.

1. Life is a valley of sorrows. 2. The body is inferior. As a vehicle of the soul it is automatically degraded, tinged. … 3. I am helpless before circumstances that I cannot control. 4. … I am at the mercy of my past. 5. I am helpless because I am at the mercy of events from past lives … 6. People are basically bad, and out to get me. 7. I have the truth and no one else has…. 8. I will grow frailer, sicker, and lose my powers as I grow old. 9. ...When my body dies my consciousness dies with it.

…That was a rather general list of false beliefs. Now here is a more specific list of more intimate beliefs, any of which you may have personally about yourself.

1. I am sickly, and always have been. 2. There is something wrong with money. People who have it are greedy… 3. I am not creative. I have no imagination. 4. I can never do what I want to do. 5. People dislike me. 6. I am fat. 7: I always have bad luck.

These are all beliefs held by many people. Those who have them will meet them in experience. Physical data will always seem to reinforce the beliefs, therefore, but the beliefs formed the reality.

There is one belief, however, that destroys artificial barriers to perception, an expanding belief that automatically pierces false and inhibiting ideas.

…The Self Is Not Limited…. There Are No Boundaries or Separations of the Self…. You Make Your Own Reality….

--Seth, The Nature of the Personal Reality, Sess 614

"Problems are methods of learning, set by the inner self. This is a particularly important statement. They should always be faced in this light."

--Seth, Session 380

"There is joy also in the universe besides your problems, and the joy is paramount."

--Seth, "ESP" class session, May 28, 1968

I wish you a MERRY NEW YEAR, into which I hope you manage to insert a touch of light-heartedness now and then.

Now if I were you, making a list of resolutions, my list would include feelings and attitudes. Things to do are well and good—very good indeed—but the feelings and attitudes are at least as important.

I would not presume to make a list of resolutions for you. But in an imaginative endeavor, this is what I pretend I would list if I were you. Though this is a new year, there is nothing really new about the list.

One: I will approve of myself, my characteristics, my abilities, my likes and dislikes, my inclinations and disinclinations, realizing that these form my unique individuality. They are given me for a reason.

Two: I will approve of and rejoice in my accomplishments, and I will be as vigorous in listing these—as RIGOROUS in remembering them—as I have ever been in remembering and enumerating my failures or lacks of accomplishment.

Three: I will remember the creative framework of existence in which I have my being. Therefore the possibilities, potentials, seeming miracles, and joyful spontaneity of Framework 2 [the greater reality which our Framework 1 reality is 'nested' --Mark] will be in my mind, so that the doors to creative living are open.

Four: I will realize that the future is a probability. In terms of ordinary experience, nothing exists there yet. It is virgin territory, planted by my feelings and thoughts in the present. Therefore I will plant accomplishments and successes, and I will do this by remembering that nothing can exist in the future THAT I DO NOT WANT TO BE THERE.

--Seth, Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment, Vol. 1, Notes, Session 891

[Christ] also stressed the importance of a childlike belief, knowing that the adult mind was apt to question "How, and when, and in what manner can my request be granted?"

The words "Let thy will be done," represented excellent psychological understanding, for according to Christ's teachings as originally given, God the father represented the source or parent of the self, who was by nature free from the self's ignorance or lack of understanding at any given time, and who would know better than the known self those experiences that would fulfill the self's hopes, dreams, and potentials.

In this way, with the words spoken "Let thy will be done," the self could free itself from its own misconceptions, and attract from Framework 2 benefits that it might otherwise not be knowledgeable enough to request.

A portion of each person dwells in Framework 1 [physical reality] and Framework 2. Understand that Framework 2 is a psychic or spiritual or mental structure. In deepest terms, of course, it is not a place. It is, if you prefer, a spiritual landscape of far greater resources than the one you know. It brings forth the world of your experience in that world, and so it is your source also.

"Let thy will be done" meant "Let me follow those greater dictates of my inner nature." Even without all of the distortions, that formula worked for centuries in large measure. The God, the source, was put outside of nature, however, finally becoming at last too remote, and the story itself became frayed at the edges as man tried to tie intuitive truths to objective fact.

--Seth, DELETED SESSION JANUARY 9, 1978

Comment: A chance meeting is never really by chance. Arrangements were made for it to happen in Framework 2.

Two simple, better-living tips:

Before sleep (or at any time) say to yourself, "I will only react to constructive suggestions."

And "Every day, in every way, I am getting better and better."

"Consciousness forms the genes and not the other way around." --Seth, _"Mass Events"_, Sess. 827

"In the terms of evolution as you like to think of it, ideas are more important than genes." --Seth, D'E'VF, Sess 919.

Seth (session 615?): ... the great therapy of music; this

activates the inner

> living cells of your body, stimulates the energy of the inner self

and helps

> to unite the conscious mind with the other portions of your

being.

> Music is an exterior representation, and an excellent one, of

the

> life-giving inner sounds that act therapeutically within your

body all the time (see

> chapter five). The music is a conscious reminder of those

deeper inner rhythms,

> both of sound and of motion. Listening to music that you like

will often

> bring images into your mind that show you your conscious

beliefs in different

> form.

> The natural healing of sound can happen also when you do

such a simple thing

> as listen to the rain. You do not need drugs, hypnotism or even

meditation.

> You only need to allow and direct the freedom of your

conscious mind. Left

> alone, it will flow through thoughts and images that provide

their own therapy.

> You often avoid this natural treatment, however, and run from

frightening

> conscious thoughts that would in their turn lead you to the

source of

> "negative" beliefs, where they could be faced; you could then

travel through them, so

> to speak, into feelings of joy and victory. Instead, many of you

accept the

> way of drugs, where such feelings and thoughts are thrust

upon you, or forced

> out of you while you are denied the stabilizing comforts of the

conscious ...

From below:

If there were no idiots among you, you would soon find that geniuses were absent also.

...

In no way do I mean to demean the indisputable value of geniuses, or their great contributions to the quality of life— but the quality of life is, again, also benefited by the existence of idiots. Not only because both ends of the scale are necessary for genetic reasons, but also because idiots themselves are in no way considered failures or defects by nature. Those terms are human judgments. Idiots also serve their role by moderating the sometimes fierce hold that the reasoning mind can (underlined) have upon human activity.

-----+-----

In many cases your scientists seem to have the strange idea that you can understand a reality by destroying it; that you can perceive the life mechanism of an animal by killing it; or that you can examine a phenomenon best by separating yourself from it. So, often, you attempt to examine the nature of the brain in man by destroying the brains of animals, by separating portions of the animal brain from its components, isolating them, and tampering with the overall integrity of both the animal in question and of your own spiritual processes. By this I mean that each such attempt puts you more out of context, so to speak, with yourself and your environment, and other species. Period. While you may "learn" certain so?called facts, you are driven still further away from any great knowledge, because the so?called facts stand in your way. You do not as yet understand the uniqueness of consciousness.

(Very emphatically:) It is absurd to believe that you can learn something about consciousness by destroying it. It is absurd to believe that you can learn one iota about the inner reality of life when your search leads you to destroy it. Destruction, you see, in your terms (underlined twice), presupposes a misunderstanding of life to begin with.

There are ways of identifying with animals, with atoms and molecules. There are ways of learning from the animals. There are methods that can be used to discover how different species migrate, for example, and then to duplicate such feats technologically if you want to. These methods do not include dissection, for what you learn that way you will not be able to use (deeper and much louder).

In a way you are simply over-exuberant, like children playing a new game. You will discover that at best you are using children's blocks. Some of you have already come to that conclusion. As this book continues, I will indeed outline some beginning proposals as to ways in which you can use your consciousness to understand the nature of reality, and to make some of those inner blueprints clear.

Now: Even in your terms of history and serial time, as a race you have tried various methods of dealing with the physical world.6 In this latest venture you are discovering that exterior manipulation is not enough, that technology alone is not "the answer." Please understand me: There is nothing wrong with a loving technology.

If Einstein had been a better mathematician,7 he would not have made the breakthroughs that he did. He would have been too cowed. Yet even then his mathematics did hold him back, and put a kink in his intuitions. Often you take it for granted that intuitive knowledge is not practical, will not work, or will not give you diagrams. Those same diagrams of which science is so proud, however, can also be barriers, giving you a dead instead of a living knowledge. Therefore, they can be quite impractical.

I admit that I am being sneaky here; but if you did not feel the need to kill animals to gain knowledge, then you would not have wars, either. You would understand the balances of nature far better.

If you did not feel any need to destroy reality (in your terms) in order to understand it, then you would not need to dissect animals, hoping to discover the reasons for human diseases. You would have attained a living knowledge long ago, in which diseases as such did not occur. You would have understood long ago the connections between mind and body, feelings, health, and illness. I am not saying that you would have necessarily had a perfect world, but that you would have been dealing more directly with the blueprints for reality. Your specializations work as long as you stay within the framework, though then you must wrestle with the questions that such divisions automatically entail. It is perhaps difficult for you to realize that these are written and verbalized categories that in no real manner tell you anything about the actual experience of other creatures— but only note habits, tendencies, and separations of the most exterior nature.

If your purpose is to comprehend what other living creatures perceive, then the methods you are using are at the best short? sighted, and at the worst they completely defeat your purpose. For example: No matter what information or data you receive as the result of animal experimentation or dissection for scientific purposes, and no matter how valuable the results appear to be, the consequences of such methods are so distorted that you comprehend less of life than you did before.

SESSION 910 —April 23, 1980

(The Dominican Republic is an economically very poor country occupying the eastern portion of the island of Hispaniola in the West Indies. Yesterday Jane and I reread an article I'd filed last September, then forgotten about: In the area surrounding a certain village in the Dominican Republic, 38 girls have turned into boys at the onset of puberty. These remarkable physical changes stem from a genetic "defect" carried by a common ancestor who lived more than a century ago. The men have low sperm counts and may not be able to sire children in the normal manner, yet Jane and I think that this rare group event—the only one of its kind on record—fits in with Seth's material about the millions of variations contained within our species' vast genetic pool. For whatever mysterious reasons, then, our overall consciousness wants and needs this particular "genetic culture." See the portion of the last session given as the opening of this chapter.

Then today we read how scientists at a company that markets animals for medical research have bred a strain of hairless laboratory mice without thymes glands. The thymes gland helps a body create immunity against outside infections. Scientists often use "athymic" mice in cancer research, for example, since the mice do not reject tumor transplants. [Indeed, these animals are so sensitive to disease of any kind that they must be raised under sterile conditions.] Jane was very upset by the article and mentioned it to me several times.

If there were no idiots among you, you would soon find that geniuses were absent also.

Those human abilities that you consider to be characteristic of your species are, again, dependent upon the existence of infinite numbers of variations that appear in the aggregate, to give you often obviously opposing states. What you think of then as the average intelligence is a condition that exists because of the activity of constant variables, minute variations that give you at one end of the scale the idiot, and at the other the genius.

Both are necessary to maintain that larger "norm" of mental activity. I am using the word "norm" here for your convenience, though I disagree with the ways in which the term has been used, when it has been set up as a rule (underlined) of measurement, psychologically speaking. The genetic systems is not closed, therefore. The genes do not simply hold information without any reference to the body's living system. It does not exist, then—the genetic structure—like some highly complicated mechanism already programmed, started and functioning "blindly," so that once it is set into operation there is no chance for modification.

Particularly in your own species there is a great give?and?take between human genetic systems, the environment, and cultural events— and by cultural events I mean events having to do with your peculiarly unique field of activity that includes the worlds of politics, economics, and so forth.

(Pause.) Genetic events are not irrefutable in a deterministic fashion. They represent strong inclinations toward certain bodily or mental activity, certain biological preferences. They lead toward the activation of certain events over others, so that the probabilities are "loaded" in certain directions. (Pause.) Genetic events are (underlined) then events, though at a different level of activity than you are used to thinking of.

We are speaking of chromosomal messages. These are not written within the chromosomes as words might be written upon paper, but the information and the chromosomes are a living unit. The information is alive (intently). We are speaking about a kind of biological cuneiform, in which the structures, the very physical structures, of the cells contain all of the knowledge needed to form a physical body— to form themselves. This is indeed knowledge in biological form, and biologically (underlined) making its clearest living statement.

(9:27.) The cells [with their] genetic packages, like all cells, react to stimuli. They act. They are aware of all of the body's events biologically. In ways impossible to verbalize, they are also aware of the environment of the body as it is perceived at biological levels. I have said before that in one way or another each living cell is united with each other living cell through a system of inner communication. "Programmed" genetic activity can be altered by conditions in the environment.

(Long pause.) I am not simply saying that genetic activity can be changed, for example, through something like a nuclear accident, but that highly beneficial alterations can also take place in genetic behavior, as in your terms the genetic structure not only prepares the species for any contingency, but also prepares it by triggering those characteristics and abilities that are needed by the species at any given time, and also by making allowances for such future developments (all quite forcefully).

Your genetic structure reacts to each thought that you have, to the state of your emotions, to your psychological climate. In your terms, it contains the physical history of the species in context with the probable future capabilities of the species. You choose your genetic structure so that it suits the challenges and capabilities of the species. You choose your genetic structure so that it suits the challenges and potentials that you have chosen. (Long pause.) It represents your physical reference point, your bodily framework. It is your personal physical property. It is a portion of physical matter that you have identified, filled out with your own identity. It is like a splendid ship, the body, that you have chosen ahead of time for a splendid challenging adventure—a ship that you have personally appointed that is equipped to serve as much as possible as a physical manifestation of your person hood .

Some people, in beginning such a venture, will indeed insist upon an excellent vessel, with the most sophisticated mechanisms, equipped with grand couches and a banquet room. Others would want much more excitement, much more zest, and order then instead a less grand vessel, but one that went faster. Some would set goals for themselves that demanded that their powers of seamanship be tested. The analogy may be a simple one, yet each person chooses the living vessel of the body, with his or her own intents and purposes in mind.

(Long pause.) In physical reality, if you will forgive me, life is the name of the game—and the game is based upon value fulfillment. That means simply that each form of life seeks toward the fulfillment and unfolding of all of the capacities that it senses within its living framework, knowing that in that individual fulfillment each other species of life is also benefited.

(9:45.) In no way do I mean to demean the indisputable value of geniuses, or their great contributions to the quality of life— but the quality of life is, again, also benefited by the existence of idiots. Not only because both ends of the scale are necessary for genetic reasons, but also because idiots themselves are in no way considered failures or defects by nature. Those terms are human judgments. Idiots also serve their role by moderating the sometimes fierce hold that the reasoning mind can (underlined) have upon human activity.

The idiot is often able to experience in his or her own reality a freer, more generous, more faithful flow of emotional states, unhampered by reason's sometimes stern dictates, and it is important that such a moderating tendency does operate genetically. I will have more to say on that subject later in the book. The reasoning mind, as you have used it thus far, roughly (underlined) since the birth of Christianity, has used—instead of used, confined—has confined its reasoning abilities to a very narrow spectrum of reality. It has seen the value of life largely only as that life conforms to its own standards. (Pause.) That is, the reasoning mind, as you have used it, considers that only the reasoning creatures are capable of understanding life's values. Other forms of life have almost seemed beside the point, their value considered only insofar as they were of service to man. But man's life is obviously dependent upon the existence of life's other species, and with him those species share certain values. Life is sacred—all life—and again, all life seeks value fulfillment, not simply physical survival. Ruburt read an article about the development of a strain of mice without thymes. Since the thymus is very important in the necessary process of maintaining bodily resistance to disease, these particular mice have little resistance. They are bred and sold for experimental purposes. The intent of such procedures is to promote the quality of human life, to study the nature of diseases, and hopefully apply what is learned to some of the lives of human beings. Mice are not considered human. They are not. So like any animal, they are thought of as dispensable, sacrificed to a fine humanitarian end. (Long pause.) Perhaps at first that prejudice of the reasoning mind might escape you, since after all mice are far divorced from your own species. (louder:) There were Jews sacrificed to the same end not too long ago, and the reasoning was largely the same, though in that case you were dealing with your own species.

(10:05.) Jews were considered almost not human, however, and whenever such atrocities against your own species are concerned, you indulge in the same kind of twisted reasoning (underlined). Because the Jews were considered less than human—or, at best, human defects—they were thought of as justifiable; sacrifices on the altar of "the genetic betterment of mankind." You cannot improve the quality of your own lives by destroying the quality of any other kinds of life. There is no genetic master race. The very classification of the species into races to begin with is based upon distinctions that are ridiculously minute in the overall picture of the similarities.

Ruburt was incensed by the article that he read, and he said indignantly that such procedures involve a biological immorality. I usually avoid terms like "morality" or "immorality," since their definitions vary according to the individual. The proceedings, however, do involve a biological violation, a going against nature's flow and intent, a process in which a form of life is made to go against its own value fulfillment, and it is because of such attitudes involving other kinds of life that the horrors of the Jewish war camps were made possible.

NOTES:

1. Jane and I are both aware of and frustrated by the obvious ambiguities in our own feelings about the use of animals in medical research. We also think that most other people have such mixed feelings, whether they realize it or not. Were either of our own physical lives saved—perhaps even before birth—by those using knowledge gained from animal experimentation? We don't know. We do know that it's much easier to condone a philosophy espousing traumatic and repetitive animal research if one is relatively shielded from it.

However, if given a choice, Jane and I now would forgo the "benefits" stemming from animal experimentation, even if our own future welfares were to suffer because of a subsequent lack of knowledge—and providing that at a time of crisis we didn't weaken in our joint resolve! Following such a course would actually be most difficult, so pervasive in our society are the results flowing from animal research: I even think it might be necessary to live as a hermit in the wild to get away from them. Using animals in the laboratory Is imposing human goals and values upon other life forms, even though the modern scientific method is supposed to be value? free. For such research is carried out in the name of progress and the practical common good, of course—and that progress applies also in the remedial treatment of other animals, let us remember. We think that every reader of this book has benefited, and still does, from animal experimentation, some of it most cruel, in ways that he or she can hardly suspect, let alone specify: even benefiting from the use of animals in the study of medical and chemical, beauty and recreational products that can be found in practically every home in the country. Jane and I live in one of those homes. I see the passive, thinking and unthinking tolerance of animal experimentation as a classical case of a society using ends to justify means—yet in the United States, at least, we carefully teach each generation of our species that such rationalizations aren't morally acceptable....

--Seth, _Dreams, "Evolution," and Value Fulfillment_

"The natural state of the body is one of health." --Seth

(Symptoms are symbolic of unresolved mental or inner issues.)

From: The Nature of the Psyche, Chapter 5, Session 773 for April 26, 1976, Seth/Jane Roberts:

You have tried to divide mental and emotional characteristics between the two sexes, forcing a stereotyped behavior. Again, the male who was intuitive or artistically gifted in certain ways often therefore considered himself homosexual, whether or not he was, because his emotional and mental characteristics seem to fit the female rather than the male sex.

The woman who had interests beyond those acceptable as feminine was often in the same position. Because the intellect and the emotions were considered so separately, however, attempts to express intuitive abilities often resulted in, and often do result in, “unreasonable” behavior.

In certain circles now it is fashionable to deny the intellectual capacities in favor of feeling, sentiment, or intuitive actions. Intellectual concerns then become suspect, and recourse to reason is considered a failing. Instead, of course, intellectual and intuitive behavior should be beautifully blended. In the same way you have attempted to force the expression of love into a purely — or exclusively — sexual orientation. An affectionate caress or kiss between members of the same sex is generally not considered proper. The taboos include most aspects of the sense of touch in connection with the human body.

Generally speaking, there will be a specific overall sexual orientation of a biological nature, but the mental and emotional human characteristics are simply not meted out according to sex. Such identification cuts the individual in half, so that each person uses but half of his or her potential. This causes a schism in all of your cultural activities.

(10:05.) Give us a moment … On the one hand many of you have been taught that sexual expression is wrong, evil, or debasing. You have also been told that if you do not express your sexuality, you are displaying unnatural repression, and furthermore you are led to think that you must above all force yourself to enjoy this ambiguous sexual nature. The old idea that good women do not enjoy sex has hardly disappeared. Yet women are taught that natural expressions of love, playful caresses, are inappropriate unless an immediate follow-through to a sexual climax is given. Men are taught to count their worth according to the strength of the sexual drive and its conquests. They are taught to inhibit the expression of love as a weakness, and yet to perform sexually as often as possible. In such a sexual climate there is little wonder that you become confused.

Children of either sex identify quite naturally with both parents, and any enforced method of exclusively directing the child to such a single identification is limiting. Under such conditions, feelings of guilt immediately begin to arise whenever such a child feels natural affiliations toward the other parent.

The stronger those natural inclinations are, the more the child is directed to ignore them in your society, since certain characteristics, again, are considered exclusively male or female. The child is also coerced into ignoring or denying those portions of the personality that correspond with the sex it is being taught it cannot identify with. This squeezing of personality into a sexual mold begins early, then. Continuing guilt is generated because the child knows unerringly that its own reality transcends such simple orientation.

The more able the child is to force such an artificial identification, the greater its feelings of inner rebellion. The lack of a “suitable” father or mother image has “saved” more children than it has hurt. The psyche, with its great gifts, always feels thwarted and attempts to take countering measures. Your schools further continue the process, however, so that the areas of curiosity and learning become separated for males and females. The “she” within the male does indeed represent portions of his personality that are being unexpressed — not because of any natural predominance of mental or emotional characteristics over others, but because of artificial specializations. The same applies to the “male” within the female. You have accepted this version of personhood, again, in line with your ideas about the nature of consciousness. Those ideas are changing, and as they do the species must accept its true personhood. As this happens, your understanding will allow you to glimpse the nature of the reality of the gods you have recognized through the ages. You will no longer need to clothe them in limited sexual guises.

(Long pause at 11:07.) Heresy was considered female and subversive because it could threaten to destroy the frameworks set about the acceptable expression of religious fervor. The female elements in the Church were always considered suspect, and in the early times of Christianity there was some concern lest the Virgin become a goddess. There were offshoots of Christianity that did not survive, in which this was the case. Parallel developments in religion and government always echo the state of consciousness and its purposes. “Pagan” practices, giving far more leeway to sexual identification and expression, continued well into the 16th century, and the so-called occult underground heretical teachings tried to encourage the development of personal intuition.

Any true psychic development of personality, however, is bound to lead to an understanding of the nature of the psyche that is far too large for any such confusion of basic identity with sexuality. The concept of reincarnation itself clearly shows the change of sexual orientation, and the existence of a self that is apart from its sexual orientation, even while it is also expressed through a given sexual stance. To a good extent, sexual beliefs are responsible for the blocking-out of reincarnational awareness. Such “memory” would necessarily acquaint you with experiences most difficult to correlate with your current sexual roles. Those other-sex existences are present to the psyche unconsciously. They are a portion of your personality. In so specifically identifying with your sex, therefore, you also inhibit memories that might limit or destroy that identification.

"...without telepathy, language would be meaningless and ineffective."

--Seth, Early Sess 63

ESP Class Session: Tuesday, June 23, 1970

"You each generally agree, I am sure, that you sit upon a couch. You do not perceive the same couch. You only perceive your own idea constructions. You cannot see those of another. Telepathically, you transpose your ideas in line with what you know of the other person's thinking. You agree that the couch is here. Now it is true that within your physical system - for I know this will come next - you can measure your couch. I expect at any moment that someone will get a ruler and measure it, and then say to me that the couch is so long: How can I say it is not one couch?"

"However, within your physical system the instruments themselves are distorted, and of course they will agree with what they measure. There is no reason why they should not. Telepathically you all agree on the placement of objects, and their dimensions."

"Now: You use atoms and molecules in a strange way. You transpose your ideas upon them. You perceive them in a certain fashion. I am not blaming you. I have done it too, in my time, and there is good reason for it. But the fact is that physical matter is not solid except when you believe that it is, and that organization is transposed from within upon the without. It is not transposed from the without upon you. You form the reality that you know, and even though the table bolds up your arms and you may lean upon it and write, I still tell you that the table is not solid."

"This makes little difference as long as you can write upon it. It makes littler difference as long as you can sit upon your blue couch. But when you leave your physical system and when physical perception is no longer the rule, then you must learn new root assumptions."

"Root assumptions are those laws upon which you agree in any system of reality. You agree, for example, upon what objects are physical - it makes little difference whether they are or not, as long as you agree upon this. Your consciousness belongs in a body. You would not be caught DEAD with your consciousness outside of your body. It is taboo! Now the fact is that your consciousness is not imprisoned within your body; but as long as you believe that it is, again, you will not be caught dead outside of it. And when you are caught dead outside of it, there will be some amazement, indeed."

"There are other root assumptions that you take as a basis of reality. And in other levels of reality, there are other root assumptions. These are the seeming laws by which you govern your experiences. Our note takers are doing very well, considering that the paper is not solid and neither are their pens. It is amazing what you can do with nothing!"

Seth: "Your scientists can count their elements. While they are on the wrong track they will discover more and more elements [actually, I think he is referring to the subnuclear zoo; elsewhere, he says the ultimate building blocks are units of consciousness and many millions of those comprise just one atom --Mark]. That is, they will create more and discover more until they are ready to go out of their minds. Because what will happen is, they will always create camouflages of the real thing. And while they create instruments to deal with smaller and smaller particular particles, they will actually see smaller and smaller particles, seemingly without end.

"As their instruments reach further into the universe they will 'see,' and I suggest that you put the word see in quotes, they will 'see' further and further but they will automatically subconsciously transform what they apparently see into the camouflage pattern with which they are familiar.

"They will be and they are prisoners of their own tools. More galaxies will seemingly be discovered, more mysterious radio stars will be perceived, until the scientists realize that something is desperately wrong. [And so by now there is the supposition of dark matter and energy (more dark matter supposedly exists than regular matter!) in order to make sense of telescopic observations -- it never occurs to the scientists that they might be seeing a "mirage" rather like one's eyes on a hot day deceive one into thinking there is water in the road up ahead when there is not. --Mark] Instruments designed to measure the vibration with which scientists are familiar will be redesigned. All sorts, finally, of seemingly impossible phenomena will be discovered with those instruments. The instruments will be designed to catch certain camouflages and since they are expertly thought out they will perform their function.

"I do not want to get too involved. However by certain means the instruments will themselves transform data from terms that you cannot understand into terms that you can understand. Scientists do this all the time. However what this involves is a watering down of data, a simplification that distorts all out of shape, the original is hardly discernible when you are done. You are destroying the meaning in the translation.

"The instruments themselves do this transforming, transforming say the idea of time or light years into sound patterns, radio waves and such. You lose too much in this process. What you get is so distorted that you have absolutely no near perception of the original. I will go into this much more deeply as there is much more to be said on a technical level. But when you decipher one phenomena in terms of another you always lose sight of whatever glimmer of understanding may have reached you.

"It is not a matter of inventing new instruments any longer. It is matter of using the invisible instruments that you have [our inner senses which he discusses elsewhere --Mark]. These instruments may be known and examined by their effects. This material is evidence. It is like the branch of a tree that moves so that you know the wind by its effects, and a windbag like me by the billowing gale of my monologues."

The Early Sessions, book 1, session 19, by Jane Roberts

One is an individual first and foremost, but, after that, one likely falls into a "family of consciousness (a thrust of life)" as follows:

From:

Jane Roberts, The Unknown Reality, Vol. 2, session 737, Amber-Allen, San Rafael, CA, 1996, p. 599.

Below is a summary of the innate, basic “family” of consciousness intents according to Seth and Rob Butts.

Borledim

Seth: closest to Sumari [below], deals primarily with parenthood. Rob: to provide an Earth stock for the species through parenthood.

Milumet

Seth: composed of mystics. Rob: to mystically nourish mankind’s psyche.

Gramada

Seth: specializes in organization. Rob: to found social systems.

Vold

Seth: primarily reformers. ...one purpose in mind: to change the status quo in whatever the area of primary interest. Rob: to reform the status quo.

Ilda

Seth: they deal primarily in the great play of exchange and interchange of ideas, products, social and political concepts. They are travelers, carrying with them ideas of one country to another, mixing cultures, religions, attitudes, political structures. Seth has great affection for these folks! Rob: to spread and exchange ideas.

Sumari

Seth: initiators, naturally playful – inventors, and relatively unfettered. They are impatient however. They will be found in the arts and in the less conventional sciences. Rob: to provide the cultural, spiritual, and artistic heritage for the species.

Tumold

Seth: primarily devoted to healing. Rob: to heal, regardless of individual occupation.

Zuli

Seth: involved mainly with the fulfillment of bodily activity. Rob: to serve as physical athletic models.

Sumafi

Seth: deals primarily with teaching, their primary interest of passing on knowledge to others. Rob: to transmit “originality” through teaching.

There is more information on the nine “families” available at:

http://www.cafemuse.com/sethnet/The_Nine_Families_of_Consciousness.html

 "The categories [healing, teaching, or whatever] are general descriptions of the families of consciousness. You can split them up also and make further distinctions, if you choose. You can cut those divisions down. They merely represent interpretations that you can understand in your reality. In the most mundane of terms, some families are travelers, and some prefer to stay at home. But generally speaking, I have simply given you an outline which follows the characteristics of consciousness as it is embarked in physical form. I am not giving you these groups to set up divisions, but to help you understand that consciousness is diversified — that usually each of you falls, because you want to, into a certain family. And there you acquire friends, alliances, and counterparts."

• "Now these families fall generally into certain groups. In greater terms you can “cut the pie” however you want to, but you will still share an emotional and psychic feeling of belonging with the family of which you are a part. And (with broad amusement) most of you here are Sumari, and it demands great discipline for Sumari to take down lists — even of psychic families!"

• "Now (Seth told us last night) you can expand the functions of any particular family group, or you can cut it down, by deciding how precise you want to be. If one family deals with the nature of healing, then you can slice it down to the healing of a toe … an ear … an eye."

—Seth, Unk Reality, 2, Appendix 26: (For Session 734)

Counterparts idea:

...to some extent or another you are related to all of those alive upon the planet. You are time contemporaries. You will have a far closer relationship with some than with others. Some will be your counterparts.

These may or may not be closer to you than family relationships, but psychically speaking they will share a certain kind of history with you. You will also be connected through the physical framework of the earth in the large give-and-take of its space-time scheme. Session 731 ...you might well have four or five counterparts alive in one century, as you might have four or five family members spanning the same amount of time. Session 724 [Elsewhere, Seth said the idea of soul mates is a distortion of the counterpart idea. Also, one might have a marked dislike of a counterpart. As one may be closer to some family members than others, one may be closer to some counterparts than others.] In ["ESP"] class, Emma (Hariston) and Jack (Pierce) are counterparts. (To me [Jane's husband]:) You and Jack are counterparts, but you and Emma are not. Earl (Williams) and Sam (Garret) are counterparts. To my readers these names mean nothing. Yet in each case the relationships noted indicate inner realizations and connections. The same realities appear in each of your lives. Will Petrosky and Ben (Fein) are counterparts.... Session 732