“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(In Note 1 for the 817th session, which was held on January 30, I wrote that Sue Watkins had recently delivered the last of the typed manuscript for Seth’s The Nature of the Psyche. Actually, she had converted my original typed sessions making up Psyche into standard manuscript form for the publisher; I still have to do many of the notes for the book after I finish my work on Volume 2 of “Unknown” Reality several months from now.

(In line with doing things differently, no session was held last Saturday night because over the weekend we decided to give up the Monday–Saturday session routine we’ve followed for the last eight months, and return to our original practice of holding sessions on Monday and Wednesday evenings. The change was made to give Jane more time on weekends to handle the mail. I don’t think my own daily work patterns will be affected much; I help her with the correspondence, but don’t spend nearly the time at it that she does.)

Growing from an infant to a full adult was probably one of the most difficult, and yet the most easy of feats that you will ever accomplish in a life. As a child you identified with your own nature. You intuitively realized that your being was immersed in and a part of the process of growth.

(Long pause, one of many, at 9:51.) Give us a moment… To some extent your society’s beliefs allow you enough freedom so that most of you trust your bodies while they are growing toward adulthood. Then, however, many of you no longer rely upon the processes of life within you. Certain scientific treatises often make you believe that the attainment of your adulthood has little purpose, except to insure the further existence of the species through parenthood — when nature is then quite willing to dispense with your services. You are quite simply told that you have no other purpose.³ The species itself must then appear to have no reason except a mindless determination to exist. The religions do insist that man has a purpose, yet in their own confusion they often speak as if that purpose must be achieved by denying the physical body in which man has his life’s existence, or by “rising above” “gross, blunted,” earthly characteristics. Period. In both cases man’s nature, and nature in general, take short shrift.

Such tales are myths. They do indeed have power and strength. In those terms they represent the darker side of myths, however — yet through their casts you presently view your world. You will interpret the private events of your lives, and the spectacular range of history, in the light of those assumptions about reality. They not only color your experience, but you create those events that more or less conform to those assumptions.

The natural contours of your psyche are quite aware of the inner sweep and flow of your life, and its relationship with every other creature alive. Intuitively, each person is born with the knowledge that he or she is not only worthwhile, but fits into the context of the universe in the most precise and beautiful of fashions. The most elegant timing is involved in each individual’s birth and death. The exquisite play of your own inner nature in general — and that identification leads you into the deeper knowledge of your own part in nature’s source.

You form your own reality. If you are tired of having me stress that point, I can only say that I hope the repetition will serve to make you understand that the statement applies to the most minute and the most important of the events that you experience.

Some people believe that they must be punished, and so they seek [out] unfortunate circumstances. They [go] to one event after another in which they meet retribution. They may seek out areas of the country in which natural disasters are frequent, or their behavior may be such that they attract from other people reactions of an explosive kind. Often, however, individuals use disasters quite for their own purposes, as an exteriorized force that brings their lives into clear focus. Some may be flirting with the idea of death, and choose a dramatic encounter with nature in the final act. Others change their minds at the last moment.

Objectively — whatever the appearances — storms, earthquakes, floods, et cetera, are quite necessary to the well-being of the earth. Both man’s and nature’s purposes are served, then, though generally speaking man’s myths make him blind to those interactions. People’s thoughts and emotions always give clear clues whenever illness is involved, yet most people ignore such information. They censor their own thoughts. Many therefore “fall prey” to epidemics of one kind or another because they want to, though they might deny this quite vigorously.

I am speaking particularly of epidemics that are less than deadly, though danger is involved. In your times, hospitals, you must realize, are important parts of the community. They provide a social as well as a medical service. Many people are simply lonely, or overworked. Some are rebelling against commonly held ideas of competition. Flu epidemics become social excuses for much needed rest, therefore, and serve as face-saving devices so that the individuals can hide from themselves their inner difficulties. In a way, such epidemics provide their own kind of fellowship — giving common meeting grounds for those of disparate circumstances. The [epidemics] serve as accepted states of illness, in which people are given an excuse for the rest or quiet self-examination they desperately need but do not feel entitled to otherwise.

(Long pause at 11:21.) I do not mean to assign any hint of accusation against those so involved, but mainly to state some of the reasons for such behavior. If you do not trust your nature, then any illness or indisposition will be interpreted as an onslaught against health. Your body faithfully reflects your inner psychological reality. The nature of your emotions means that in the course of a lifetime you will experience the full range of feelings. Your subjective state has variety. Sometimes sad or depressing thoughts provide a refreshing change of pace, leading you to periods of quiet reflection, and to a quieting of the body so that it rests.

Fears, sometimes even seemingly irrational ones, can serve to rouse the body if you have been too lethargic, or have been in a rut psychologically or physically. If you trusted your nature you would be able to trust such feelings, and following their own rhythms and routes they would change into others. Ideally even illnesses are a part of the body’s health, representing needed adjustments, and also following the needs of the subjective person at any given time. (Long pause.) They are a part of the interplay between the body and mind, or spirit.

Some portion of each individual is in direct contact with the very source of its own existence. Each individual is innately aware that help is available in every situation, and that information does not need to come through the physical senses alone. Many illnesses are cured, then, through quite natural methods that not only involve physical healings, but bring into play other events — events that have great bearing on the psychological elements that may be involved behind the scenes. For those interactions we will have to look to Framework 2.

A number of scientists — biologists, zoologists, and psychologists, among others — have recently published highly praised books in which they claim to show how our genes manipulate our individual behavior with only their own genetic survival at stake, even when we think we are displaying subjective qualities like altruism. Jane and I think the idea of such self-centered genetic behavior is much too limited, simple, and “mechanistic,” to use another term that’s currently in scientific vogue. The idea of selfish genes also implies plan on the part of such entities — and so comes dangerously close to contradicting several basic tenets of science itself: among them that life arose by chance, that it perpetuates itself through random mutations and the struggle for existence (or natural selection), and that basically life has no meaning.