“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now: The reasoning mind represents human mental activity in a space and time context, as mentioned earlier.

In the dreaming state the characteristics of the reasoning mind become altered, and from a waking viewpoint it might seem distorted in its activity. What actually happens, however, is that in the dreaming state you are presented with certain kinds of immediate knowledge. It often appears out of context in usual terms. It is not organized according to the frameworks understood by the reasoning portions of your mind, and so to some extent in dreams you encounter large amounts of information that you cannot categorize.

(Long pause.) Let us first of all return momentarily to the subject of the reasoning mind, its uses and characteristics. It seems to the reasoning mind that it must look outside of itself for information, for it operates in concert with the physical senses, which present it with only a limited amount of information about the environment at any given time. The physical eyes cannot see today the dawn that will come in the morning. The legs today cannot walk down tomorrow’s street, so if the mind wants to know what is going to happen tomorrow, or what is happening now, outside of the physical senses’ domain, then it must try through reason to deduce the information that it wants from the available information that it has. It must rely upon observation to make its deductions accordingly. In a fashion, it must divide to conquer. It must try to deduce the nature of the whole it cannot perceive from the portions that are physically available.

(9:10.) Children begin to count by counting on their fingers. Later, fingers are dispensed with but the idea of counting remains. There have been people throughout history who mentally performed mathematical feats that appear most astounding, and almost in a matter of moments. Some, had they lived in your century, would have been able to outperform computers (just as some are outperforming computers these days!). In most cases where such accomplishments show themselves, they do so in a child far too young to have learned scientific mathematical procedures to begin with, and often such feats are displayed by people who are otherwise classified as idiots (idiot savants), and who are incapable of intellectual reasoning.

Indeed, when a child is involved, the keener his use of the reasoning mind becomes the dimmer his mathematical abilities grow. Others, children [or adults] who would be classified as mentally deficient, can tell, or have been able to tell, the day of the week that any given date, past or present, would fall upon. Others have been able, while performing various tasks, to keep a precise count of the moments from any given point in time. There have been children, again, with highly accomplished musical abilities, and great facility with music’s technical aspects—all such accomplishments before the assistance of any kind of advanced education.

Now, some of those children went on to become great musicians, while others lost their abilities along the way, so what are we dealing with in such cases? We are dealing with direct knowing. We are dealing with the natural perceptions of the psyche, at least when we are speaking in human terms. We are dealing with natural, direct cognition as it exists before and after (pause) man’s experience with the reasoning mind.

Some of those abilities show themselves in those classified as mentally deficient simply because all of the powers of the reasoning mind are not activated. In children under such conditions, the reasoning mind has not yet developed in all of its aspects sufficiently, so that in a certain area direct cognition shines through with its brilliant capacity.

Direct cognition is an inner sense. In physical terms you might call it remote sensing. Your physical body, and your physical existence, are based upon certain kinds of direct cognition, and it is responsible for the very functioning of the reasoning mind itself. Scientists like to say that animals operate through simple instinctive behavior, without will or volition: It is no accomplishment for a spider to make its web, a beaver its dam, a bird its nest, because according to such reasoning, such creatures cannot perform otherwise. The spider must spin his web. If he chooses not to, he will not survive. But by that same reasoning—to which, of course, I do not subscribe—you should also add that man can take no credit either for his intellect, since man must think, and cannot help doing so.

(9:33.) Man’s reasoning mind, however, with its fascinating capacity for logic and deduction, and for observation, rests upon (pause) a direct cognition—a direct cognition that powers his thoughts, that makes thinking itself possible. He thinks because he knows how to think by thinking (intently), even though the true processes of thought are enigmas to the reasoning mind.¹

(Long pause.) In dreams the reasoning mind loosens its hold upon perception. From your standpoint you are almost faced with too much data. The reasoning mind attempts to catch what it can as it reassembles its abilities toward waking, but the net of its reasoning simply cannot hold that assemblage of information. Instead it is processed at other levels of the psyche. Dreams also involve a kind of psychological perspective with which you have no physical equivalent—and therefore such issues are most difficult to discuss.

The reasoning mind is highly necessary, effective, and suitable for physical existence, and for the utilization of free will, which is very dependent upon perception of clearly distinguishable actions. In the larger framework of existence, however, it is simply one of innumerable methods of organizing data. A psychological filing system, if you prefer.

Regardless of who or what he is, then, with Jane’s permission Seth adds his material to the information possessed by her reasoning mind—and thus offers it to the reasoning minds of others.