“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now, in your experiences this evening you have been dealing with symbols and you bring them to life. This is exactly what you are doing every day of your life in your normal hours of activity but you do not recognize the symbols. You simply perceive the objects that come from the symbols. When you are working with your consciousness, as you did this evening, you become aware of the inner symbols in your own mind. Now, there are symbols that are personal but there are also symbols that are, in your terms, universal and you build with these.

This evening it was but in a different guise. Besides the person of whom you are aware, there are also other guises taken by the same personality, and he has appeared in your dreams before you were aware of him objectively. And like our class member the Dean, you will begin to follow your own way. Do not be impatient, however.

Now, so-called occult knowledge dealt with secret knowledge, and it is secret to the extent that every man must discover it for himself and that is the end of the secrecy. But, in one manner of speaking, it cannot be told for you must have your own experience and recognize it. Very briefly this evening some of you dealt with the reality of symbols, and this is extremely important for the physical body that you know is a materialization of symbols that you have created. You do not know the symbols for yourselves but you can discover what they are, and I will expect you all to do so.

It is too late this evening to go into the allegory of the Bible. I have, to some extent, done some work on this in my own book, thus far. People in the Bible often were the personification of certain human characteristics. If, for example, a point were to be made along these lines, the following could happen— Say that you wanted to express the human characteristics that can lead to disaster, that can lead a man to betray another. Now, you are familiar with morality plays so in our story we take the term deceit and we give it a name and we make a person out of deceit and we call it, for example, Judas.

Now, you also have the memory of your future existences, for time does not exist as it seems to you now, and a portion of you is aware of your future as it is aware of your past. And so also, in your terms of time, as this sifts through to the physical being you had a great dream of grandeurs achieved, and yet you look around and see them unachieved in the morning. When your species squatted in the cliff caves and when they ran in terror across the face of the earth pursued by wolves and imagined that demons lurked in the shadows, when with ghost memories were great contrast to the world that they saw and know, and so they weaved a story from their memories. And so your legends are not only made of your past but they are also weaved from your future, in your terms, and all of these are interwoven even with your flesh. So that if all physical knowledge were taken from you, all the knowledge that you have learned since birth in this life, and that is impossible, but if it were possible still within you would always be the inner knowledge not only of your own private past and future, but of the private past and future of your kind and of your species.

You are, indeed, correct. There is nothing to fear. The knowledge is symbolic in terms that you do not yet intellectually understand. Automatically in daily life you translate symbols into what you call reality. The information is at your fingertips, you have simply gotten away from it. You form appearances from symbols but you are so lost in the world of appearances that you forget the symbols upon which you have formed the reality.

Now, the church—shall I put it in quotes and capital letters for you?—“the Church” is composed of human beings who are fallible and you remember that. It is not an octopus out to get you. Now, wait, it does not have an evil intent toward you. It does not think, ah, there is a bad (word missing) in Elmira, New York and, by God and Jesus Christ, we are going to save her for her own sake.

([Joel:] “No demons to worry about, only red onions? Would you have any advice for me then in pursuing my own ministry? It appears that the church I am serving will no longer have any appreciable function.”)

You are, indeed. You will find your own way. You will know what it is, and you know what it is now. You do not need me to tell you.

When you know what it is, you will be on your own. You will be working with two segments of people though you only think you will be working with one segment. You see yourself with young people, but you will also be working with very old people. And that is all I will say to you about it right now. It will be your own and in your own way.

But (to Ned) never look forward to listening to anyone above listening to your own inner self.

I have one small point before we close that I also wanted to mention. You are all remiss in one point here in that you give our Lady of Florence further negative suggestions that reinforce her own distrust of her intuitive self; so let us see that attitude suspended, and I will suspend the session. My heartiest regards to all of you and a fond goodnight.