“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

As most of my readers know, I make no claims of now having a physical personhood. (Pause.) I do claim an independent reality at another level of existence. My status and origins seem strange only because you have understood so little about your own origins. I am beginning this book this evening. I have already given the title, and at another level of consciousness Jane Roberts was able (12 days ago, for example) to perceive some glimpses of some of the subject matter that will be included here. So far, however, physically there is only the page of paper upon which Robert Butts is writing down these words I speak.

I speak through Ruburt—or through Jane Roberts, if you prefer. Ruburt has his own creative abilities, and uses them well, and it is to a large extent because of those abilities that our contact first took place (in December 1963). Scientists like to say that if you look outward at the universe, you look backward in time. That statement is only partially true. When you move inward through the psyche, however, you do begin to thrust, in your terms, “backward” toward the origins of existence. Your creative abilities do not simply allow you to paint pictures, to tell or write stories, to create sculpture or architecture. They do not simply provide you with a basis for your religions, sciences, and civilizations. They are your contact with the source of existence itself.

(Pause.) Now: While you believe that consciousness somehow emerges from dead matter, you will never understand yourselves, and you will always be looking for the point at which life took on form. You will always have to wonder about a kind of mechanical birth of the universe—and it will indeed seem as if your own world was made up of the spare parts that somehow fell together in just such a fashion so that life later emerged.

Scientists say now that energy and matter are one. They must take the next full step to realize that consciousness and energy and matter are one.

(Pause at 9:22.) Give us a moment…. In this book, then, we will look at the origin of the universe, the origin of the species, the origin of life from another viewpoint. This viewpoint will, I hope, provide another framework through which you can understand and study physical reality, your part in it, and sense the immense creative complexity that unites each individual with the source of consciousness itself.

To do this, I hope to explore a more meaningful concept of evolution¹—and that concept must involve a discussion of subjective reality and its effect upon the “evolution” of man’s consciousness.

The universe did not originate from what you like to think of as an external, objectified source. Your own physical body provides you with sturdy corporal images, exterior presentations. Your dreams do not suddenly appear exteriorized upon your images in place of your features, for example. They remain hidden. Your dreams appear on the interior screen of your mind.

I never want any of my remarks to be construed in such a fashion that it seems I am in any way negating the fullness, validity, and magnificence of physical existence. I do want to point out, however, that a state you usually call dreaming is but a dim indication of an inner reality of events (intently), an inner order of events from which the physical world emerges. I hope to show how the nature of dreams has helped shape man’s consciousness. I hope to show that consciousness forms the environment, and not the other way around (with many gestures).

This further unites all species in a cooperative venture that has remained largely invisible because of beliefs projected outward upon the world by both your sciences and religions, generally speaking. All of your grandest civilizations have existed first in the world of dreams. You might say that the universe dreamed itself into being.

(A one-minute pause at 9:40.) Give us a moment…. Generally speaking, the states of waking and sleeping are the only levels of consciousness with which you have been primarily concerned. It seems to you that this is the result of your evolutionary progress—but there have been civilizations upon the earth that specialized in the use of many focuses of consciousness, as for example you are focused upon the use of tools.

Dreams can be highly specific. They can be used to provide sources of information. I hope to show their practical importance, both as a part of man’s “evolutionary development” and their possibilities in what you think of as modern life. The answers are where you have least looked for them. The universe is still being created, even as each person is in each moment.

1. Recently, I bought two books written by “scientific creationists.” The authors strongly disagree with ideas of evolution. I’ve read halfway through one of the books, and have discussed it with Jane to some extent. After the session I suggested that she start reading it also, in order to acquaint herself with theories radically different from the “ordinary” scientific ones espoused by evolutionists. Very briefly: The creationists believe that God created the universe (including the earth, obviously) around 10,000 years ago. They maintain that all of the earth’s living forms have remained essentially unchanged since that prime creative event; they can account for the disappearance of the dinosaurs, for example, and the vast number of other life forms we no longer see around us. On the other hand, evolutionary science believes that the universe came into being between 10 billion and 20 billion years ago; that the earth itself is about 4.6 billion years old, and that according to the fossil record and other evidence, its living organisms first arose and began evolving at least 3.5 billion years ago. Science also believes, however, that the study of a “first cause” involves not scientific but philosophical and theological questions. For instance, why did the universe we think we know so well come into existence at all, and what was the cause of that beginning?

2. I’m presenting the private portion of tonight’s session for two reasons: Seth comments a bit upon the creative production of the sessions, and he shows how we can habitually impose upon our physical selves our conscious ideas of what we “should be doing”—not paying enough attention to our impulsive, natural, bodily messages.