“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now: The animals do have imagination, regardless of your current thought. Yet man is so gifted that he directs his experience and forms his civilizations largely through the use of his imaginative abilities.

It is now nearing Easter (on March 26), and the yearly commemoration of what is considered historic fact: the [resurrection and] ascension of Christ into heaven.¹ Untold millions have in one way or another commemorated that occasion through the centuries. Private lives have merged with public sentiment and religious fervor. There have been numberless village festivals, or intimate family gatherings, and church services performed on Easter Sundays now forgotten. There have been bloody wars fought on the same account, and private persecutions in which those who did not agree with one or another’s religious dogmas were quite simply killed “for the good of their souls.”

The theory of evolution,⁴ for instance, is an imaginative construct, and yet through its lights some generations now have viewed their world. It is not only that you think of yourselves differently, but you actually experience a different kind of self. Your institutions change their aspects accordingly, so that experience fits the beliefs that you have about it. You act in certain ways. You view the entire universe in a fashion that did not exist before, so that imagination and belief intangibly structure your subjective experience and your objective circumstances.

Now: The latest growth of fundamentalist religion has arisen as a countermeasure against the theories of evolution. You have, then, an overcompensation, for in the Darwinian⁵ world there was no meaning and no laws. There were no standards of right or wrong, so that large portions of the people felt rootless.

(11:16 P.M. I’d say that much of Seth’s excellent delivery since break is related to some of his material in the 825th session, including this passage: “I put the word ‘good’ in quotes for now because of your misconceptions about the nature of good and evil, which we will discuss somewhat later.”)

In the 591st session for Seth Speaks, I noted claims for an earlier date for the origin of the first Gospel, that according to Mark; nevertheless, most authorities still believe that the Gospels were written between A.D. 65 and 110. Since Christ was presumably crucified around A.D. 30, this means that some 35–40 years passed before the advent of Mark’s account. There are many consistencies in the Gospels, but also inconsistencies that cannot be resolved. Even the authorships of the Gospels according to Matthew and John are now being questioned. A study of the New Testament books alone can quickly lead one into a maze of questions: Why isn’t the resurrection itself described? Why are there so few references to the ascension? Matthew doesn’t mention it at all in his Gospel, for example; and Paul alludes to it only once (1 Timothy 3:16) in his writings. Is the Gospel according to Luke merely schematic, rather than chronological? If time (as much as 40 days) did elapse between Christ’s resurrection and ascension, where was he physically during all of that period, other than on the few occasions cited in the Gospels and in Acts, when on various occasions he revealed himself to the women who discovered his empty tomb, to the apostles, and to some others? Sometimes Christ appeared as an apparition — but as Seth commented in a private session: “You could not have a world in which the newly risen dead mixed with the living. An existence in a spiritual realm had to follow such a resurrection.”

And finally, here’s an answer to a number of inquiries from readers. The 647th session for Chapter 21 of Personal Reality was held on July 2, 1973, and in it I quoted a remark Seth made to me the following September: “You can have more material on Jerusalem or Christ now, or when you want it. You can have The Christ Book when you want it….”