“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Pause.) Communications between various scattered portions of the self often appear, again, in such situations as automatic writing, speaking, the hearing of voices, or through what the person believes to be telepathic messages from others.

The supposedly telepathic messages can be attributed to contemporaries—enemies, gods, devils, or what have you. Spacemen are a recent addition. In most cases, what you have here are expressions of strong portions of the self that are more or less purposefully kept in isolation. They may appear or disappear, psychologically speaking. They present a kind of chain of command—one that is not usually permanent for any long period, however.

(9:35.) On an individual basis, the schizophrenic carries through those cultural patterns. The contrasts between, say, the superior self or the idealized self, and the debased self, may vary. They may be brilliantly apparent or somewhat blurred. In many such instances there will also be at least a short spurt of intense but scrambled, perhaps garbled, creative activity, in which the individual tries to recognize these various elements, as mankind himself has attempted many times in the creative, sometimes garbled creation of his own religions (with soft irony).

The Christ image is often used because it so perfectly represents the combination of the grandiose self, as per the all-knowing son of God, and the martyred victim who is crucified precisely because of his lofty position.

The Christ figure represents the exaggerated, idealized version of the inner self that the individual feels incapable of living up to. He feels he is being crucified by his own abilities. He may—or of course she may—on other occasions receive messages from the devil, or demons, which on their part represent the person’s feelings about the physical self that seems to be so evil and contradictory in contrast to the idealistic image. Again, there is great variety of behavior here.

The next natural step would be to reassimilate those portions of the self, to acknowledge their ancient origins and abilities, to return them so that they form a new coating, as it were, or a new version of selfhood. It is as if (pause) man could not understand his own potentials unless he projected them outward into a godhead, where he could see them in a kind of isolated pure form, recognize them for what they are, and then accept them—the potentials—as a part of his own psychological reality (all very intently). As a species, however, you have not taken the last step. Your idea of the devil represents the same kind of process, except that it stands for your idea of evil or darkness, or abilities that you are afraid of. They also stand for elements of your own potential. I am not speaking of evil possibilities, but that man must realize that he is responsible for his acts, whether they are called good or evil.