“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The infant sees mental images before birth, before the eyes are open. Your memory, it seems, is your own — yet I have told you that you have a history of other existences. You remember other faces, even though the mind you call the conscious one may not recognize the images from that deep inner memory. It must often clothe them in fantasy. You are yourself. Your self is secure in its own identity, unique in its characteristics, meeting life and the seasons in a way that has never happened before, and will never happen again — yet still you are a unique version of your greater self. You share in certain overall patterns that are in themselves original.

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.

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.