“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The religious and scientific mass consciousnesses released in Iran and the United States respectively reach far beyond their countries of origin, obviously. Indeed, I think those attributes of All That Is must have long ago formed strong portions of the psychic atmosphere that, one might say, encircles the earth and affects all below. Those forces or consciousnesses must also constantly replenish themselves: Iran’s religious leaders devoutly nourish their country’s hatred for the United States, while here at home no less than six separate teams or commissions have begun investigations—on private, state, and federal levels—of what went wrong at Three Mile Island. Many younger people [and not only in the United States] have become very fatalistic over the possibility of nuclear accident, or worse, war. Some even refuse to bring children into a world they believe their elders have created for them [in those terms]. And most older people avoid seriously considering what nuclear war would really mean for them, out of fear closing their minds to certain aspects of that psychic atmosphere.

In my opinion these are hardly predictions, but instead very conservative projections of already well-established phenomena: I don’t for a minute think that any country, let alone our species as a whole, will give up on nuclear power. Nor will Iran, or the United States, or a number of other nations, dispense with fundamentalist religion of whatever kind. I believe that those particular aspects of scientific consciousness and religious consciousness will be with us for a very long time, for in our chosen earthly reality a larger consciousness—and, ultimately, All That Is—has opted for much long-range exploration of those two closely related portions of itself. In our probability we can create both very transcendent and very painful portions of that dual exploration. I think those particular aspects of mankind’s search for answers will grow ever more powerful for a number of years, until their very excesses finally lead to their “evolution” into forces that are much more controlled and compassionate and understanding.

(Long pause at 9:26.) There is, beneath it all, an important unity, a sense of communion, as one portion of earth’s living consciousness dies to insure the continued life of all nature. That natural sacrament, however, turns into something else entirely when the gift is so misunderstood, and when the donor is treated so poorly….

Consciousness is filled with content—any kind of consciousness. [The farmer’s] animals understand that in a certain fashion he is a midwife, responsible for some of their births. Food comes from his hands. The animals understand, on their own, that life on any terms that are physical ends with death—that the physical properties must be returned to the earth from which they came….

How strange a desire to have in these days of scientific and religious turmoil, of computers and nuclear debate and space technology. It’s almost like trying to wish oneself back into an earlier, seemingly less complicated time. That, surely, would be an illusory goal! But no matter what we may accomplish as a species, or how far we may travel, in those terms we started out utterly dependent upon our earth, with its fantastic variety of resources and life forms. That sublime framework still exists for us in all of its great beauty, and I want to always return to it: We create our human version of it each day, and I think that even now we’ve hardly begun to understand what we are and have. I’ve come to believe that the predominantly outdoor life would give me a certain understanding of our temporal and spiritual worlds impossible to grasp otherwise, and that my painting would inevitably mirror that greater comprehension. Sometimes I simply yearn for that way of living. Of course, what I’m really stressing here is living the independent life as much as possible within our ever-more-complicated national and world cultures. But we all have our dreams.

(8:53.) Early artists hoped to understand the very nature of creativity itself as they tried to mimic earth’s forms. Poetry and painting were both functional in ways that I will describe in our next book (humorously, elaborately casual), and “esthetic,” but poetry and painting have always involved primarily man’s attempt to understand himself and his world. The original functions of art—meaning poetry and painting here specifically—have been largely forgotten. The true artist in those terms was always primarily—in your terms again—a psychic or a mystic.