“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(9:48.) A ruler cannot make his decisions based upon national events only, but he must take international ones into mind, and in a more direct fashion, say, than even 10 years ago. [...] The private consciousness is forced to contend with world events in a way that is completely new in historical terms. It is a time of turmoil—but it is a time of turmoil partially because consciousness has been willing to extend itself in that particular fashion. [...]

[...] But she changed her mind, obviously; then at 9:25 she told me she knew what Seth was going to talk about: “The horizontal consciousness.”)

[...] Those people had only to deal with their own enclosed civilization, for the conscious mind, in the terms of this discussion, now, could not extend itself to the extent that is now habitual. [...]

Generally speaking, you are here to expand your consciousness, to learn the ways of creativity as directed through conscious thought. The aware mind can change its beliefs, and so to a large extent it can alter its bodily experience….

[...] The birth of a conscious mind, as you think of it, meant that the species took upon itself free will. [...]

Over a period of time the conscious mind, because of its position, can override the body’s messages. [...]

(9:34.) The conscious mind sees with a spectacular but limited scope. [...] I use the term “conscious mind” as you define it, for you allow it to accept as evidence only those physical data available for the five senses—while the five senses, of course, represent only a relatively flat² view of reality, that deals with the most apparent surface.

(Long pause.) Your consciousness will survive your body’s death, but it will also take on another kind of form—a form that is itself composed of “units of consciousness.” You have a propensity for wanting to think in terms of hierarchies of consciousness, with humanity at the top of the list, in global terms. The Bible, for example, says that man is put in dominion over the animals, and it seems as if upgrading the consciousnesses of animals must somehow degrade your own. [...]

You limit the capacity of your conscious mind by refusing to allow it to use a larger scope of attention, so that you have remained closed and ignorant about the different, varied, but rich experiences of other species: They do appear beneath you. [...]

Your conscious mind can only accept a certain sequence of probabilities as recognized experience. As I have said, the choices among probabilities go on constantly, both on conscious and unconscious levels. Events that you do not perceive as conscious experience are (pause) a part of your unconscious experience, however, to some extent. [...]

Any of the probable actions that a person considers are a part of that person’s conscious thought. Just underneath, however, people also consider other sets of probabilities that may or may not reach conscious level, simply because they are shunted aside, or because they seem to meet with no conscious recognition. [...] The probabilities with which you are not consciously concerned remain psychologically peripheral: They are there but not there, so to speak.

[...] Very simply: You want something, you dwell upon it consciously for a while, you consciously imagine it coming to the forefront of probabilities, closer to your actuality. [...]

(9:40.) You have the conscious mind for a good reason. You are not at the mercy of unconscious drives unless you consciously acquiesce to them. [...] If you do not like your experience, then you must change the nature of your conscious thoughts and expectations. [...]

Man has been endowed, and has endowed himself, with a conscious mind to direct the nature, shape and form of his creations. All deep aspirations and unconscious motivations, all unspoken drives, rise up for the approval or disapproval of the conscious mind, and await its direction.

Experience is the product of the mind, the spirit, conscious thoughts and feelings, and unconscious thoughts and feelings. [...]

[...] Sometimes this idea quality is received as intuition, where it sparks into the conscious mind. But the conscious ego is the primary manipulator of camouflage patterns and the obvious mover. [...]

When your friend Philip innocently asked at what point human consciousness entered the picture, his question was not pertinent. Human consciousness involves entity consciousness, and entity consciousness asserted itself at the very first phase of physical materialization.

(A few days ago, while doing some painting, the idea had popped into my conscious mind unbidden that the very act of painting a picture involved the construction of a plane. [...]

(9:36.) Your conscious mind is meant to assess and evaluate physical reality, and to help you chart your course in the corporeal universe of which you are presently part. [...] All energy at the inner self’s disposal is then concentrated to bring about the results asked for by the conscious mind.

He was a study, a living example, of the effects of conflicting unexamined beliefs, a fierce and yet agonized personification of what can happen when an individual allows his conscious mind to deny its responsibilities — i.e., when an individual becomes afraid of his own consciousness.

[...] This is not a usual case — but to some extent or another, such a division occurs physically or mentally when the contents of the conscious mind are not examined.

[...] … When he asked it, he was referring to the point at which self-consciousness entered into so-called inert form. You know, now, that all form has consciousness, and so there was no point at which self-consciousness entered with the sound of trumpets, so to speak. Consciousness was inherent in the first materialization upon your plane.

[...] His subconscious and conscious mind had to be acquainted with certain ideas to begin with, in order for the complexity of this material to come through.

[...] The inner senses provided him with much, but the manuscript itself [as written up] also represented an achievement of the conscious mind. [...]

Using your conscious mind as a threshold, however, you can discover still more. [...] Think of that moment of conscious awareness as a path. Imagine many other such paths, all converging; again, imaginatively take one of them in your mind and follow it. [...] To some small extent you are “altering” your consciousness. [...]

[...] That exterior world is thrust outward, however, and projected into reality in line with your conscious desires, beliefs, and intent. It is important that you remember this position of the conscious mind as you think of it. [...]

The true [mental] physicist² will be a bold explorer — not picking at the universe with small tools, but allowing his consciousness to flow into the many open doors that can be found with no instrument, but with the mind.

There are two ways to get at your own conscious beliefs. [...] They are quite available once you are determined to examine the complete contents of your conscious mind.

The “negative” subjective and objective events that you meet are meant to make you examine the contents of your own conscious mind. [...]

The conscious mind will benefit greatly as it becomes more and more aware of its directing influence upon events. [...]

A man who makes a statue uses his conscious mind, his creative abilities, his physical body, and the inner resources of his own being.

[...] You form your image constantly; as many of the artistic processes are hidden, so the inner mechanisms by which you create your material self lie beneath the surface of your conscious mind. [...]

A problem caused by guilt, for example, physically materialized as a malady, is meant to lead you to face and conquer the idea of guilt, the belief in it that you hold in your conscious mind. [...]

[...] Your conscious mind perceives these clearly, while you pretend that this official version is all that exists. Your conscious mind, generally speaking, interprets reality according to your private beliefs and those of your civilization. [...]

[...] As you know, in a fashion you are appealing to portions of peoples’ minds that exist “beneath” the conventionalized version of consciousness that they take for granted. The words are perceived consciously, but the concepts run directly counter to many usual beliefs—not just scientific ones, but to the beliefs that underlie the accepted establishment of the world.

[...] It seemed too much to bear, and quite unexplainable in ordinary conscious-mind terms. [...]

[...] The conscious mind, with its normally considered intellect, is meant to assess the practicality of action within your world. [...] The idealization of motion, however, in that person’s mind, or of change, may be denied expression at any given time — but it will nevertheless seek expression through experience. [...] Because you are now a conscious species, in your terms, there are racial idealizations that you can accept or deny. [...]

[...] A pause lasting well over a minute.) Your current decisions to accept one specific line of consciousness as real, and to ignore others, makes such concepts difficult to understand. You train yourselves — biologically, even — to inhibit certain stimuli, yet often the body itself responds to the very stimuli that you consciously ignore. By opening up your minds to new kinds of significances, however, you can begin to glimpse other orders of events⁴ with which you are quite intimately concerned.

[...] Connected with it is the consciousness of all those who understand it, perceive it, or originate it. [...] Instead the consciousness that held, or holds, or will hold the information attracts it like a magnet … The information itself wants to move toward consciousness. [...] Your consciousness attracts the consciousness that is already connected with the material.” [...]

I want you to take a break but first I want to make one other point, and that is this: The mind contains the conscious and the subconscious, but the conscious and the subconscious are fluid. At various times the consciousness becomes unconscious, and the unconscious becomes conscious. [...]

The conscious mind deals directly with survival as far as the particular camouflage patterns are concerned. But there is no actual dividing line or distinction between the conscious and the subconscious, nor among the apparent levels of the subconscious itself.

I have said that the brain is the mind in camouflage, and so it is. It is the portion of the mind that is more or less observable to the surgeon, and the part of the mind that reacts to camouflage pattern, and the part that can be explored and tampered with, though this is dangerous indeed.

(Pause at 9:04, one of many.) Each “particleized” unit, however, rides the continual thrust set up by fields of consciousness, in which wave and particle both belong. Each particleized unit of consciousness contains within it inherently the knowledge of all other such particles—for at other levels, again, the units are operating as waves. [...] Ethically, the CU’s represent the spectacular foundations of the world in value fulfillment, for each unit of consciousness is related to each other, a part of the other, each participating in the entire gestalt of mortal experience. And we will see how this applies to your attitudes toward specieshood, and man’s relationship with other conscious entities and the planet he shares with them.

One mind alone could not come into being from chance alone; one thought could not leap from an infinite number of nerve ends, if matter itself was not initially alive with consciousness, packed with the intent to be. [...]

The perspective from which you watch world events is vital, and it is true that communication now brings to the conscious mind a far greater barrage than before. [...]

[...] They react in their own ways to suggestion to the tone of your voice, to your expectations of their behavior, to your treatment of them—and in that regard your body consciousness responds to your conscious treatment of it. For this analogy alone, meant to further develop your joint understanding of the relationship between your conscious mind and your body, we will make further points. [...]

[...] The conscious mind, however, with its cultural beliefs and fears, usually cut off to a large degree from the animal wisdom, feels as if it is in the midst of a battle. [...]

(“Each individual mind is a storehouse of knowledge from which each person can draw, but you have been taught that all knowledge comes from the exterior world, and from the stimuli that arises from it. But all knowledge is originally direct knowing—a kind of molecular mentality, in which the atoms and the molecules give their own kind of intuitive translation of knowledge possessed by all units of consciousness —for all of the knowledge of the universe is inherently contained within even the smallest, most microscopic of its parts.”

What happens to a thought when it leaves your conscious mind? [...] For these thoughts and emotions that have left your conscious mind will lead you into other environments.

We also realize that permanency of form is an illusion, since all consciousness must be in a state of change. We can be, in your terms, in several places at once because we realize the true mobility of consciousness. [...] This form, projecting outward from your own consciousness, completely escapes your egotistical attention. When I think emotionally of someone else, I do the same thing, except that a portion of my consciousness is within the image, and can communicate.

[...] If there is any point where your own consciousness seems to elude you or escape you, or if there is any point where your consciousness seems to end, then these are the points where you have yourselves set up psychological and psychic barriers, and these are precisely those areas that you should explore. Otherwise you feel as if your consciousness is enclosed within your skull, immobile and constricted, and every lost thought or forgotten memory at least symbolically seems like a small death. [...]

It is convenient not to be consciously aware of each breath you take, but it is sheer stupidity to ignore the inner self which does the breathing and is aware of the mechanics involved. I have said that the mind is a part of the inner world, but you have access to your own minds, which you ignore; and this access would lead you inevitably to truths about the outer world. [...]

As breathing is carried on in a manner that seems automatic to the conscious mind, so the important function of transforming the vitality of the universe into pattern units seems to be carried on automatically. [...]

I cannot say this too often — you are far more than the conscious mind, and the self which you do not admit is the portion that not only insures your own physical survival in the physical universe which it has made, but which is also the connective between yourself and inner reality. [...]

[...] Your conscious concepts must enlarge so that the conscious self can understand its true nature. As you think of it, consciousness is barely — barely — half developed. [...] Portions of the brain not used lie latent, waiting for the recognition that will trigger them into activity (intently). When this happens, the mind will become aware of the rich bed of probabilities upon which the ego now rides so blindly.

It was known, however — and unconsciously written in the cells and mind and heart — that this procedure would only go so far. When man’s consciousness was sure of itself it would not need to be so narrowly focused. Then the true flowering of humanity’s consciousness could begin. [...]

[...] Some of the effects of LSD⁷ and other artificial psychedelic drugs give you a hint of other probable directions your consciousness might have followed, or might still follow. As the experiments are conducted, however, and in the ignorance of the framework, the conscious mind takes a subordinate position. [...]

Your conscious mind tells you where you are in time and space, and directs your activity in a world of human action. [...] Because you have a conscious mind, then, other portions of your being rely upon it to give them an adequate picture of your situation, and to give the conscious orders for action. [...] To do this, you must use that mind as completely as possible. [...]

[...] Again, on deep biological levels beneath normal consciousness, and on psychic levels above normal consciousness, you are aware of the integrity of your being — but also of your great connection, while living in flesh, with the natural environment of time and space. The earth-god concept can be consciously used, but only to your greatest advantage if you understand the purposes of your conscious mind and its relationship with your biological nature.

The conscious mind has always been aware of the cells’ —