“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

As for Iran, I described how last February [1979] a mob of Marxist-led Iranian guerrillas overran the United States Embassy in that country’s capital, Tehran, and temporarily held prisoner some 70 Americans. I noted that such a situation could happen again—and it did: On November 4, Iranian students assaulted our embassy compound and took 63 Americans hostage; 3 others were imprisoned at Iran’s Foreign Ministry. Day 1 began of a countdown toward the release of the hostages (it’s day 30 as I write this note). The Moslem militants released 13 of our citizens—5 white women and 8 black men—who returned home by Thanksgiving Day, but this time they kept in bondage the remaining 53 Americans. Iran holds our entire country in contempt.

This may hardly be original thinking here, but these proliferations of consciousness imply some pretty fantastic abilities on the part of we humans—for such developments show that even though we live as small creatures within the incredible richness of an overall consciousness, or All That Is, still our actions can result in that great consciousness exploring new areas of itself. Quite awesome creative abilities on our part, I’d say, and ones that unknowingly we take for granted. We do this all of the time, of course, individually and collectively.

(Long pause.) Your consciousness will survive your body’s death, but it will also take on another kind of form—a form that is itself composed of “units of consciousness.” You have a propensity for wanting to think in terms of hierarchies of consciousness, with humanity at the top of the list, in global terms. The Bible, for example, says that man is put in dominion over the animals, and it seems as if upgrading the consciousnesses of animals must somehow degrade your own. The divine gestalt, however, is expressed in such a way that its quality (pause) is undiluted. It cannot be watered down, so that in basic terms one portion of existence is somehow up or down the scale from another. It is all Grade A (with amusement).

(Pause.) Nor can this concept fit into your versions of good and evil, as I will explain later in this book. God, or All That Is, is in the deepest sense completed, and yet uncompleted. Again, I am aware of the contradiction that seems to be presented to your minds. In a sense, however (underlined), a creative product, say, helps complete an artist, while of course the artist can never be completed. All That is, or God, in a certain fashion, now (underlined)—and this is qualified—learns as you learn, and makes adjustments according to your knowledge. We must be very careful here, for delusions of divinity come sometimes too easily, but in a basic sense you all carry within yourselves the undeniable mark of All That Is—and an inbuilt capacity—capacity—to glimpse in your own terms undeniable evidence of your own greater existence. You are as close to the beginning of [your] world as Adam and Eve were, or as the Romans, or as the Egyptians or Sumerians. The beginning of the world is just a step outside the moment.