“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(As we sat waiting for the session to begin at 9:20, Jane told me she’d just “picked up” the heading for Chapter Three of Seth’s book: “Telepathy and Belief Gathering” — or “Idea Gathering”; she wasn’t sure which. We’ll see how close she came. At 9:25 she said, “I’m getting ready to start now. I can tell….” She lit a cigarette and looked off to one side and down, her attention already turned inward as she prepared to psychically join a very familiar “energy personality essence,” as Seth calls himself.)

I quite realize that many of my statements will contradict the beliefs of those of you who accept the idea that the conscious mind is relatively powerless, and that the answers to problems lie hidden beneath.

There are gradations and fluctuations within its activity. It is far more flexible than you give it credit for. (Pause.) The ego can use the conscious mind almost entirely as a way of perceiving external or internal realities that coincide with its own beliefs. It is not that certain answers do not lie openly accessible, therefore, but that often you have set yourself on a course of action in which you believe, and you do not want to open yourself to any material that may contradict your current beliefs.

Now these may be the result of one specific belief, or caused by a complex of beliefs held together.

The beliefs of course will be accepted by you not as beliefs, but as reality. Once you understand that you form your reality, then you must begin to examine these beliefs by letting the conscious mind freely examine its own contents.

When and if you manage to change your beliefs in that self-deceptive framework, then any suitable “forgotten” event from the past will be used as a catalyst. One would do as well as another.

The basic beliefs however were always in your conscious mind, and the reasons for your behavior. You simply had not examined its contents with the realization that your beliefs were not necessarily reality, but often your conceptions of it.

(9:50.) Usually when you do examine your conscious mind you do so looking through, or with, your own structured beliefs. The knowledge that your beliefs are not necessarily reality will allow you to be aware of all the data that is consciously available to you. I am not telling you to examine your thoughts so frequently and with such vigor that you get in your own way, but you are not fully conscious unless you are aware of the contents of your conscious mind. I am also emphasizing the fact that the conscious mind is equipped to receive information from the inner self as well as the exterior universe.

If you find all of this difficult, you can also examine your physical reality in all of its aspects. Realize that your physical experience and environment is the materialization of your beliefs. If you find great exuberance, health, effective work, abundance, smiles on the faces of those you meet, then take it for granted that your beliefs are beneficial. If you see a world that is good, people that like you, take it for granted, again, that your beliefs are beneficial. But if you find poor health, a lack of meaningful work, a lack of abundance, a world of sorrow and evil, then assume that your beliefs are faulty and begin examining them.

We will later discuss the nature of mass reality, but for now we are dwelling upon the personal aspects. The main point I wanted to make in this chapter was that your conscious beliefs are extremely important, and that you are not at the mercy of events or causes that dwell far beneath your awareness.

SUGGESTION, TELEPATHY, AND THE GROUPING OF BELIEFS

(Seth returned in a humorous manner at 10:37.) Now: Resume dictation. Chapter Three: “Suggestion, Telepathy, and the Grouping of Beliefs.”

Ideas have an electromagnetic reality. Beliefs are strong ideas about the nature of reality. Ideas generate emotion. Like attracts like, so similar ideas group about each other and you accept those that fit in with your particular “system” of ideas.

It is the most physically oriented portion of your inner self; but it is not, however, apart from your inner self. It sits on the window sill, so to speak, between you and the exterior world. (Voice stronger for emphasis:) It can also look in both directions. It makes judgments about the nature of reality in relationship to its and your needs. It accepts or does not accept beliefs. It cannot shut out information from your conscious mind, however — but it can refuse to pay attention to it.

This does not mean that the information becomes unconscious. It is simply thrown into a corner of your mind, unassimilated, and not organized into the parcel of beliefs upon which you are presently concentrating. It is there if you look for it.

Another way to do this is to recognize through examination that the physical effects you meet exist as data in your conscious mind — and the information that formerly seemed unavailable will be obvious. The seemingly invisible ideas that cause your difficulties have quite obvious visible physical effects, and these will lead you automatically to the conscious area in which the initiating beliefs or ideas reside.

Once more, if you become aware of your own conscious thoughts, these themselves will give you clues for they clearly speak your beliefs. If, for example, you have scarcely enough money on which to live, and you examine your thoughts, you may find yourself constantly thinking, “I can never pay this bill, I never have any luck, I’ll always be poor.” Or you will find yourself envying those who have more, degrading the value of money perhaps, and saying that those who have it are unhappy, or at best spiritually poor.

(11:10.) When you find these thoughts in yourself you may say, and rather indignantly: “But those things are all true. I am poor. I cannot meet my bills,” and so forth. In so doing, you see, you accept your belief about reality as a characteristic of reality itself, and so the belief is transparent or invisible to you. But it causes your physical experience.

You must change the belief. I will give you methods to allow you to do this. You may follow your thoughts in another area, and find yourself thinking that you are having difficulty because you are too sensitive. Finding the thought you may say, “But it is true; I am. I react with such great emotion to small things.” But that is a belief, and a limiting one.

If you follow your thoughts further you may find yourself thinking, “I am proud of my sensitivity. It sets me apart from the mob,” or, “I am too good for this world.” These are limiting beliefs. They will distort true reality — your own true reality.

You are a sender and a receiver. Because ideas have an electromagnetic reality, beliefs, because of their intensity, radiate strongly. Due to the organizing structure of your own psychological nature, similar beliefs congregate, and you will readily accept those with which you already agree.

This interchange follows, again, your conscious beliefs. It is fashionable in some circles to believe that you react physically to telepathically received messages despite your conscious beliefs or ideas. This is not the case. You react only to those telepathic messages that fit in with your conscious ideas about yourself and your reality (emphatically).

(“Not since the sessions started [in 1963] have I felt that Seth’s material was so richly available. I wasn’t able to be that open before this — I couldn’t accept a lot that was right there because it didn’t fit in with my beliefs.” Jane pointed to her left. “Hmmm. Now I could get stuff on archaeology, of all things. Wild….”