“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Many of the ideas in our current book will be accepted by scientists most dubiously, though some, of course, will grasp what I will be saying. It is of course very difficult for you, because (pause) the deepest truths cannot be physically proven. (Pause.) Science is used to asking quite specific questions, and as Ruburt wrote recently (in God of Jane) it usually comes up with very specific answers—even if those answers are wrong (with some humor).

5. By now, a number of the world’s leading scientists in the physical disciplines have publicly stated their beliefs that basically consciousness plays the primary role in our world and/or universe. For reasons too complicated to go into here, this attitude prevails even with some mathematicians who seek to penetrate to the core of our reality as they understand it.

However, for every scientist bold enough to think this way, there are scores of others who vehemently disagree. For most scientific materialists only physical matter is real. For them consciousness is nothing more than an epiphenomenon, the passive by-product of the brain’s physiology and chemical events. They believe that physical death is the end of everything, that ultimately all is pointless. They derisively call their rebellious colleagues “animists”—those who believe that all life forms and natural phenomena have a spiritual origin independent of physical matter. (Such heretics are also called “vitalists,” a term related to animism, and one which also has a long history of scientific contempt behind it.)

Jane and I have often been most intrigued by the obvious contradictions involved here, for what can the materialistic scientists use other than mind—or consciousness, that poor epiphenomenon—to study and dissect matter? (Not to mention that innumerable experiments have proven that “physical matter” isn’t solid or objective at all, but “only” energy!) We have, then, the paradox of mind denying its own reality, let alone its importance. As far as we know, human beings are the only creatures on earth who would seriously engage in such learned, futile behavior. It’s also very ironic, I think, that the materialists spend years acquiring their specialized educations, and prestige, both of which they then use to inform us of the ultimate futility of all of our endeavors (including their own, of course). But for the materialists, the mind-brain duality isn’t scientific in the orthodox sense. It isn’t falsifiable; that is, it cannot be stated under what precise conditions the mind-brain duality could be proven false. To which, understandably enough, those scientists who do accept the reality of mind reply that neither can the idea be falsified that only what is “physical” is real.

Aside from anything Seth has said or ever may say about other probable realities, or even about human origins here on earth, I think it most risky at this stage in history for anyone—scientist or not—to dogmatically state that life has no meaning, or is a farce, or that attributes of our reality of which we can only mentally conceive at this time do not really exist. Discoveries in the “future” are quite apt to prove such limited viewpoints wrong. The history of science itself contains many examples of theories and “facts” gone awry. Moreover, why would our species want to depend upon as fragile a conception as epiphenomenalism through which to comprehend our reality? Or better yet, why does it in large part? Truly, our individual and collective ignorance of just our own probable reality is most profound at this time in our linear history (in those terms). Jane and I wouldn’t be surprised if ultimately, as a result of mankind’s restless search for meaning, we didn’t end up returning in a new official way to our ancient concepts of spirit within everything, animate and inanimate. Such an updated animistic/vitalistic view would take into account discoveries ranging from subnuclear events to the largest imaginable astronomical processes in our observable universe. Human beings do know their own worth, as Seth stated in this session.