“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

That all seeming divisions reflect portions of a unified whole is surely one of our oldest concepts, growing, in those terms, with us out of our prehistory as we struggled to grasp the “true” nature of reality. Traditionally we’ve cast that feeling or knowledge in religious terms, for want of a better framework, but I think that more and more now the search is also on within science for a theory—even a hypothesis—that will lock up our often subjective variables into what might be called a more human equivalent of the still-sought-for unified theory in physics. What are human beings, anyhow? From what Jane and I can gather (through our reading especially), at least some of the world’s leading scientists are becoming willing to contend with consciousness itself. (Including their own consciousnesses? I can’t help wondering!) Portions of the latest scientific literature I have on hand, particularly that produced by physicists, contain references that not long ago would have been branded as metaphysical, or even worse.

I also think that if asked Seth would point out that since the concept of quantum mechanics is based upon the idea that everything we “know”—matter, energy, our sensual information—is made up of quanta, or the interactions of insubstantial fields that in turn, and quite paradoxically, produce very active subatomic packets or particles, then quantum mechanics is at least analogous with his statements that basically the universe is composed of consciousness itself. But I think that the continuum of consciousness, or All That Is, contains not only the phenomena of quantum mechanics, but also Seth’s nonphysical EE (electromagnetic energy) units, and his CU’s (or units of consciousness). In those terms, then, quantum mechanics is a theory that doesn’t penetrate deeply enough into basic reality, even if physicists these days are basing their unified field theories upon quantum thinking. (These theories are themselves quite incomplete, since at this time they incorporate only three of the four basic interactions in nature: electromagnetism, and the strong and weak nuclear forces. So far, gravitation remains outside all attempts at integration.)

A moment ago, I referred to the way all involved with my wife could agree upon a course of probable activity. There are as many possibilities—and probabilities—as one can think of. I can hardly begin to list them all here. In Framework 2, for example, Marie, pregnant with Jane, could have decided with her daughter-to-be upon certain sequences of action to be pursued during their lives. Or in Framework 2 the two of them could have cooperated upon such a decision before Marie’s birth, even. If reincarnation is to be considered, their disturbed relationship this time might reflect past connections of a different yet analogous nature, and may also have important effects upon any future ones. Additionally, Jane could have chosen the present relationship to eventually help her temper her reception of and reaction to the Seth material, making her extra-cautious; this, even though she’d seen to it ahead of time that she would be born with that certain combination of fortitude and innocence necessary for her to press on with her chosen abilities. She could have made a pact ahead of time to “borrow” certain strong mystical qualities from her maternal grandfather, who was part French Canadian and part Canadian Indian (specific tribe unknown by us), and with whom she strongly identified as a child. And Jane’s resolve, her will that, according to Seth, “is amazingly strong” (in Volume 2 of “Unknown” Reality, see the 713th session for October 21, 1974), may buttress the understanding and determination of one or more of her counterparts in this life; she may meet (or have met) such an individual; another may live across an ocean, say, with no meeting ever to take place in physical terms.

Whatever the initial course of action agreed to in just this probable reality by everyone involved, from whatever point in the “past,” in Framework 1 the participants have subjected it to an almost infinite variety of choices and modifications through the years: but always—always—within nature’s great structure, and accompanied by the utter freedom of each person concerned to accept, reject, abort, or change the whole affair from their individual perspective at any moment….

In these last few pages (since I began discussing my beliefs about Jane’s early psychological conditioning), I’ve indicated the only kind of thinking by which I can personally make sense out of our world these days. Particularly when I consider the “news” on the typical front page of the typical daily newspaper: All too accurately the “stories” of war, pollution, corruption, and poverty and crime show just how little we human beings know or understand ourselves at this time—and how far we have to go, individually and en masse. As the years have passed, I’ve come to trust more and more my own insights into our behavior as a species within the framework of a nature that I believe our kind has co-created with every other species on the planet (to confine my theme to just our immediate environment for the moment). It all seems very complicated, certainly, but as I manipulate in everyday life I don’t consciously dwell upon all of the ramifications I’ve mentioned in these essays. Instead I try to hold them in the back of my mind as parts of a greater whole. So, I believe, does Jane.

Granted that our species’ best human understanding of “the mystery of life” and of the universe is exceedingly inadequate, still Jane and I do not think that nature is totally objective, indifferently cruel, or simply uncaring, as science would have us believe. (We also have deep reservations about the theory of evolution and its “survival of the fittest” dogmas, but this isn’t the place to go into those subjects.) Far more basic and satisfactory to us are the intuitive comprehensions that this “nature” we’ve helped create is a living manifestation of All That Is, and that someplace, somewhere within its grand panorama, each action has meaning and is truly redeemed. We are not dwarfed. How could we be? For if, as I wrote earlier, Jane and I agree with the ancient idea that “all seeming divisions reflect portions of a unified whole,” we also think that in some fashion the whole is enclosed within each of its parts. Science calls the idea holonomy, but Seth has been saying the same thing for years without ever mentioning the word. Jane didn’t even know it.

Because of its very nature, however, and even though it comprises enough “evidence” in favor of a generalized principle that explains the workings of certain phenomena, a theory inevitably contains errors, since it’s based upon incomplete data to begin with. It’s therefore vulnerable to later theories through which investigators attempt to reduce or eliminate those errors. A continuous refining of detail takes place in the search for a final truth that can become “fact.” (I also note that that truth being sought may end up as so abstract a quality that it loses its emotional and intellectual meanings for us, and moves out of our generalized perception. I’m noting, then, that we can analyze something right out of our own reality by ultimately declaring it to be impossible—when actually it, and other versions of it, continue to exist in related probable realities.)