“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Jane surprised me at the last moment by asking if I wanted the session; I’d thought she was going to pass it up because of her general discontent with herself. Seth didn’t call this one book dictation, but it certainly applies to Dreams. And in his opening delivery he referred to the creative freedoms that—seemingly in spite of her conscious fussing—Jane had allowed herself today.)

In a fashion—in a fashion—the [universe] began in the same way that Ruburt’s story this evening began: with the desire to create—out of joy, not from a sense of responsibility.

However, if objective proof of that nature is considered the priority for facts, then as you know science cannot prove its version of the [universe’s] origin either. It only sets up an hypothesis, which collects about it all data that agree, and again ignores what does not fit. Moreover, science’s thesis meets with no answering affirmation in the human heart—and in fact arouses the deepest antipathy, for in his heart man well knows his own worth, and realizes that his own consciousness is no accident.⁵ The psyche, then, possesses within itself an inner affirmation, an affirmation that provides the impetus for physical emergence, an affirmation that keeps man from being completely blinded by his own mental edifices (all with much emphasis and fast delivery.

(9:33.) There is furthermore a deep, subjective, immaculately knowledgeable standard within man’s consciousness by which he ultimately judges all of the theories and the beliefs of his time, and even if his intellect is momentarily swamped by ignoble doctrines, still that point of integrity within him is never fooled.

There is a part of man that Knows, with a capital K. That is the portion of him, of course, that is born and grows to maturity even while the lungs or digestive processes do not read learned treatises on the body’s “machinery,” ⁶ so in our book we will hope to arouse within the reader, of whatever persuasion, a kind of subjective evidence, a resonance between ideas and being. Many people write, saying that they feel as if somehow they have always been acquainted with our material—and of course they have, for it represents the inner knowing within each individual. (Pause.) In a fashion, creative play is your human version of far greater characteristics from which your universe itself was formed. There are all kinds of definite, even specific, subjective evidence for the nature of your own reality—evidence that is readily apparent once you really begin to look for it, particularly by comparing the world of your dreams with your daily life.

When all of summer’s
splendid leafery is gone
then space seems to surround
us everywhere, far and close.
The immense vault of the universe
turns intimate,
reaches to our chimneytops
in shining swirls of sudden openness
just outside of our back doors.
Space from the galaxies
rushes in to fill the new emptiness
where a million million leaves were,
and the valleys hold
natural cupfuls of space,
filled to their transparent brims.

There seems to be
no unexpressed self
in animals,
as if they are
as fully themselves
in flesh as possible,
with no lag
of consciousness
to fill up,
while we keep
trying to grow
into something
else.

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.

“There is no doubt that we need to believe that life has meaning. That belief may well be a biological imperative. If we were as science maintains—only creatures formed by elements combining mindlessly in a universe itself created by chance, surrounded everywhere by chaos—then how could we even conceive of the idea of meaning or order?

“Science would say that the idea of meaning itself is simply a reflection of the state of the brain, as is the illusion of our consciousness. But a science that disregards consciousness must necessarily end up creating its own illusion. It ignores the reality of experience, the evidence of being, and in so doing it denies rather than reinforces life’s values.”