“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

My idea briefly is this: Our usual orientation is focused pretty exclusively in what we think of as the “real” world, but there are many realities. By shifting our consciousness, we can glimpse these alternate realities, and all of them are the appearance that Reality takes under certain conditions. I don’t believe that we can necessarily describe one in terms of another.

For years I’ve been confused, trying to define Seth in the usual true-and-false world of facts. There he’s accepted as an independent spirit — a spirit guide by those with spiritualistic beliefs — or as some displaced portion of my own personality by the scientific community. I couldn’t accept either idea, at least not in undiluted form.

The “spirit guide” designation may be a handy symbolic representation of this idea, and I’m not saying that spirit guides do not exist. I am saying that the idea deserves greater examination, for the spirit guide may represent something far different than we think. The idea can also be limiting if it always places revelatory knowledge outside of us, and tries to make literal some extraordinary phenomena that may be beyond such interpretation.

Intuitively and emotionally we often understand more than we intellectually realize. Trying to define revelatory knowledge, or a Seth, in terms of our limited ideas about human personality is like trying to translate, say, a rose to the number 3, or trying to explain one in terms of the other.

The Nature of Personal Reality not only enriched my creative life but challenged my ideas and beliefs. I agree wholeheartedly with the concepts Seth presents here, while realizing that they run counter to many accepted religious, social, and scientific dogmas. Certainly this book is an answer to all those who have written for help in applying Seth’s ideas to ordinary living, and I am certain that it will assist many people in dealing with the varied events and problems of daily life.

Seth’s main idea is that we create our personal reality through our conscious beliefs about ourselves, others, and the world. Following this is the concept that the “point of power” is in the present, not in the past of this life or any other. He stresses the individual’s capacity for conscious action, and provides excellent exercises designed to show each person how to apply these theories to any life situation.

The message is plain: We are not at the mercy of the subconscious, or helpless before forces that we cannot understand. The conscious mind directs unconscious activity and has at its command all of the powers of the inner self. These are activated according to our ideas about reality. “We are gods couched in creaturehood,” Seth says, given the ability to form our experience as our thoughts and feelings become actualized.