“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

There are definite reasons why the questioner chose the particular personality for this quest. An attempt was made to find a suitable substitute, you see, and a particular group of circumstances then seized upon, in order to initiate the proceedings. The questioner is subconsciously aware of those abilities that should be developed in her own personality, and attempts to project these outward into someone else. Then you see you search for the someone else, neatly labeled, but the capabilities and personality developments must be pursued within the self. You cannot chase after them and possess them by pretending they belong to someone else.

You must know your own personality and develop your own abilities, and this should be your quest now. There is a strength of character, and indeed a rather heartless determination. These can be used to strengthen the framework and extend the limitations of your own personality. You are not developing your abilities, but using vital energies in pursuit of something that you do not basically want to attain.

You need the excitement vivid in the pursuit, but this excitement will be increased by far when your energy is used to perfect and develop your own personality. You are in effect putting the responsibility for your own development where it does not belong, and turning your destiny over to another person in a very real manner, in order to escape taking full responsibility for your own destiny.

“The Seth personality has been an intermediary and a legitimate one. The information already given to you regarding the nature of personality gestalts should make this development seem a fitting one. [...] Seth is, however, independent, and continues to develop as I do. [...]

[...] If I ever had any doubts … what-ever’s going on, it’s not coming from me, not from my own personality.” [...] I feel this is as significant a development—almost—as the original Seth session. [...]

[...] “The development in the last session was latent from our first session, but it was a development that could or could not have occurred. Had it not, then many important future developments would have been blocked. The points where the [Seth] voice was loudest and most powerful—these points often represented openings through which the development could occur. [...]

There is no such lapse in many other personality structures. [...] Growth and challenge is provided not in terms of achievement or development in time, but instead in terms of intensities. Such a personality is able, in your terms, not only to react and appreciate event A, say, in your present time, but also to experience and understand event A in all of its ramifications, and all of its probabilities.

Now that is the challenge and the ideal, and it is met to varying degrees by personalities at various stages of development. Obviously such personalities need far more than the neurological systems with which you are presently equipped. [...]

Now there are personalities developed enough to do this. [...]

This is a cornerstone for consciousness and for personality development. [...] Without it, no further development of consciousness can occur. [...]

Now, the inner self is psychologically influenced by these probable personalities, for they are all psychologically connected and represent a whole personality structure, a whole personality gestalt with which you as you know yourself are utterly unfamiliar.

The personality is more integrated, yet through its acceptance of inner data, the ego, to use the term lightly, has expanded. [...] It is now composed of more various elements from the whole personality. [...]

“There is no such lapse in many other personality structures. [...] Growth and challenge are provided not in terms of achievement or development in time, but instead in terms of intensities. Such a personality is able not only to react to and appreciate Event A, say, in your present time, but to experience and understand Event A in all of its ramifications and probabilities.

“Now, there are personalities developed enough to do this. [...]

“Any personality can become an entity on its own. This involves a highly developed knowledge of the use of energy and its intensities. [...]

The pupil must be encouraged, but not overly extended while development continues. [...] Great care must be utilized, even before serious learning can begin, that all levels of the personality develop at a more or less constant rate.

Now, each whole self, or multidimensional personality, has its own purposes, missions, and creative endeavors that are initial and basic parts of itself and that determine those qualities that make it eternally valid and eternally seeking. [...] We face many challenges of quite momentous nature, and we realize that our purposes are not only important in themselves, but for the surprising offshoots that develop in our efforts to pursue them. [...]

The personality was never consciously aware of the initial meeting. [...] At one time some years ago, at a writers’ conference, she became involved in circumstances that could have led to her psychic development before she was ready. [...]

[...] It uses a time context instead, with each self given a body and a time; but a knowledge of the ideas of multipersonhood could help you realize that you have available many abilities not being used, latent to you but still important in your entire identity, and significant enough to you personally to be developed.

(In an effort to reassure her, I looked up what Seth said in Chapter 9 of Personal Reality, and showed it to her. See the 637th session: “… think now of the life of the self as one message leaping across the nerve cells of a multidimensional structure — again, as real as your body — and consider it also as a greater ‘moment of reflection’ on the part of such a many-sided personality … I am aware that [these analogies] can make you feel small or fear for your identity. [...]

[...] You rarely find a person who is a great intellect, a great athlete, and also a person of deep emotional and spiritual understanding — an ideal prototype of what it seems mankind could produce.

However, we have among us this evening indeed a secondary personality, a strong and savage one. We have here this evening a secondary personality that attempts to rule the complete life of the personality of whom we have been speaking, and its name is ulcer. [...] The personality literally lives its life about the existence of the ulcer. It is hardly worth it, for the personality must be led to see that it itself has created the ulcer, both psychologically and physically, in most actual terms, and that it itself can indeed cast it out.

Nor will anything be gained by a patent and speedy program that is not solidly based on understanding, both understanding of the self in particular, and what you may call the mechanics involved in the creation of the illness itself, and in an understanding of those elements which caused the personality to develop the illness.

[...] Attempting to cut itself off, however, from the wholeness of the whole personality, the ego must strain for its reserves of energy; for in a large measure, it refuses to accept the energy of the whole personality that is available to it.

[...] Briefly however, psychic development should lead to overall personality development. [...] Nevertheless, the fact remains that psychic development results in something else entirely. The person involved must then demand more of himself…

[...] Nevertheless, any physical benefits, any predictions that do occur in such sessions, come as a result of initial spiritual and psychic development. To expect the physical benefits first can indeed close off the very spiritual and psychic development.

[...] The more you read the more you will understand of Pete’s ability, and the more indeed that you can develop your own abilities. For each individual has inner senses, whether or not he knows that he does, and these should be developed.

[...] The death of the old grouping now allows for the birth of a new grouping, this time a grouping that will effectively deal with the problems at hand, and that will allow the personality to develop and expand. [...]

There are still some lingerings of mourning, for the grouping was indeed vital, and adopted initially to help the personality. The grouping was doomed to failure, in that it could not succeed in helping the personality, you see, but hindered it.

[...] Not only did other elements of the personality begin to deny it energy, but it—this grouping —also committed suicide, so to speak, sacrificing itself for the whole personality which it tried to serve.

[...] If an individual considers identity strongly in terms of male or female identity, then such a person may refuse to accept the fact of the sexual changes that occur in reincarnational existences. This kind of sexual identification, however, also impedes personality development during physical life.

[...] Some will refuse to accept the idea of further work, development, and challenge, believing instead that conventional heaven situations are the only possibility. For some time they may indeed inhabit such an environment, until they learn through their own experience that existence demands development, and that such a heaven would be sterile, boring, and indeed “deadly.”

[...] For example, the personality may be led back to the events prior to the decision. Then the personality is allowed to change the decision. [...]

[...] The relationship between you and Ruburt is now beginning (underlined) to approach a highly beneficial state, that will bring out the best in both of your personalities, and develop your artistic and psychic abilities to the fullest.

There will be another development, or new word, about a recent development concerning his book, possibly next week. [...]

[...] Jane achieved these mostly on her own, and wondered whether the Seth personality would gradually fade away as “her own” abilities increased.)

If this is realized then the personality will not feel smothered. [...] He does not owe the father any more than that, and to seek the father’s pleasure superficially, or to try to please the father in fields where he has no interest, will not lead either to personal development or success, and will not help the father in any way.

[...] Karma is merely in the physical plane, the result of personal development, and represents the maturing realization that we are all psychically and physically part of All There Is, and that when we wound, it is not another that we wound but ourselves.

In order to rationalize, this personality and all personalities, to give to the present identity a more or less logical explanation for a symptom that is of past origin, the personality will bring forth an actual incident which can then be pointed at by the personal subconscious as a scapegoat.

Quite ordinary people often believe, then, that suffering itself is a way toward personal development and spiritual knowledge. [...]

[...] The idea has been that the more persecuted and maligned a person is, the greater will be the reward in a future existence.

The ideas of penance, fasting to excess, the personal abuse of the body, such as self-flagellation — all of those practices are conducted in the belief that suffering is something to be sought in itself. [...]

I am explaining this matter rather thoroughly because we will be getting to matters concerning the entity and its personality developments. [...]

[...] That is, before entry into your plane, the main characteristics of a personality have already been determined by the personality itself.

[...] He also brought two questions, one personal and the other very technical, from people he works with at Corning Glass.

[...] This particular, more advanced telepathy could not and did not occur in its most complicated form until the development within your plane of psychically developed personalities. This development involved separations and concentrations of energy into self-conscious identities. This development was an advancement, yet this advancement led also to a separation and objectifying of consciousness, into dual segments of subject and object.

[...] There is one area you see where he (Leonard) is thus far entirely blocked, for he cannot love another person wholeheartedly, nor imagine himself in that position. This lack is always with him, and it is caused by a particular shallow area in his personality that is not developed.

The only person who was more or less entirely neutral in the whole affair was the woman above, who had little to do with any decision. [...]

This material, while it is personal, should give you an excellent example of how ordinary events occur.