“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(That statement, in fact, plus her desire for material from Seth on a question of her own, made her wonder whether we’d even receive any book dictation tonight. Then, no sooner had we sat for the session than Jane asked me to write down what she was about to say, since she had the material available whether or not Seth got to it: “A new part, or chapter heading: ‘People Who Are Afraid of Themselves. Controlled Environments, and Positive and Negative Mass Behavior.’” I told her I thought Seth would not only have plenty of time to cover our respective questions, but would come through with some book work too, and this was the case.

It is as if you shared, say, a psychological planet, populated by people who had the same roots, the same ground of being — as if you shared the same continents, mountains, and oceans. Instead you share certain patterns of development, images, memories, and desires. These are reflected in your physical life, and in one way or another elements of your life are shared in the same fashion.

Only in a manner of speaking (repeated twice), there are certain — (humorously:) a necessary qualifying word — “power selves,” or personalities; parts of your greater identity who utilized fairly extraordinary amounts of energy in very constructive ways. That energy is also a part of your personality — and as you paint such images you will undoubtedly feel some considerable bursts of ambition, and even exuberance. The feelings will allow you to identify the images of such personalities.

When people are convinced that the self is untrustworthy, for whatever reasons, or that the universe is not safe, then instead of luxuriating in the use of their abilities, exploring the physical and mental environments, they begin to pull in their realities — to contract their abilities, to overcontrol their environments. They become frightened people — and frightened people do not want freedom, mental or physical. They want shelter, a definite set of rules. They want to be told what is good and bad. They lean toward compulsive behavior patterns. They seek out leaders — political, scientific (humorously), or religious — who will order their lives for them.

In the next portion of this book we will discuss people who are frightened of themselves, then, and the roles that they seek in private and social behavior. To some extent we will be discussing closed environments, whether mental or physical, in which questioning becomes taboo and dangerous. Such environments may be private, as in the case of persons with what are generally called mental disorders, or they may be shared by many, in — for example — mass paranoia.

There are religious cults, and there are also scientific ones. There are people who follow a cult that is purely private, with rules and regulations as rigorous as any sent down to a group of frightened followers by a despot of whatever kind. Such conditions exist, and I hope that such a discussion will lead to greater understanding. A large portion of this book will be devoted, of course, to the introduction of concepts that will privately encourage greater productivity and creativity, and therefore automatically contribute to more healthy and sane social ways.

Now: The headings Ruburt gave: This [next] will be Part 3: “People Who are Frightened of Themselves.”