“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(We’re presenting his material for me because it has good general application: If Seth deals with my own painted images without even mentioning the words reincarnation or counterparts, still he does reveal how such “residents of the mind” make up part of each person’s innate knowledge of his or her own greater — or larger — self.

I try to strongly state the pristine uniqueness of the individual. I also say that there are no limitations to the self. The two statements can appear to be contradictory. When you are a child, your sense of identity does not include old age in usual experience. When you are an old person, you do not identify yourself as a child. Your sense of identity, then, changes physically through the years. In a way it seems that you add on to yourself through experience, becoming “more than you were before.” You move in and out of probable selfhoods, while at the same time — usually with the greatest of ease — you maintain an identity of yourself. The mosaics of consciousness are brilliant to behold.

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.

(9:29.) Give us a moment… By all means encourage the dream activity, and there will be a correspondence between your dreams, your painting and your writing.² Each one encourages the others. Your writing gains vitality from your painting, your painting from your writing — and the dreaming self at one time or another is in contact with all other Aspects — capital “A” — of your reality.

Dictation: If you cannot trust your private self, then you will not trust yourself in your relationships with others or in society.

If you do not trust your private self, you will be afraid of power, for you will fear that you are bound to misuse it. You may then purposefully (leaning forward, quietly emphatic but with some amusement) put yourself in a position of weakness, while all of the time claiming that you seek influence. Not understanding yourself, you will be in a quandary, and the mechanics of experience will appear mysterious and capricious.

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.

1. In Volume 2 of “Unknown” Reality Seth began developing his theory of counterparts — that the larger psychological self, or entity, of each of us manifests not just one physical life in any given century, say, but several, so as to gain that much more experience in a variety of roles involving different ages, nationalities and languages, sexual orientations, family roles, and so forth. As I understand the counterparts thesis, the individual may or may not meet at least some of his or her counterparts, scattered as they can be among earth’s different countries and cultures. Jane and I have encountered a few of our respective counterparts, however, principally through her now-defunct ESP class.