“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

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.

If you are sick, for example, there is a reason. To recover thoroughly without taking on new symptoms, you must discover the reason. You may dislike your illness, but it is a course you have decided upon. While you are convinced that the course is necessary you will keep the symptoms.

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.

(9:40.) We will speak about health and illness more specifically later in the book. I would like to make one point here, however — that often psychoanalysis is simply a game of hide-and-seek, in which you continue to relinquish responsibility for your actions and reality and assign the basic cause to some area of the psyche, hidden in a dark forest of the past. Then you give yourself the task of finding this secret. In so doing you never think of looking for it in the conscious mind, since you are convinced that all deep answers lie far beneath — and, moreover, that your consciousness is not only unable to help you but will often send up camouflages instead. So you play that game.

(Pause at 9:45, one of many. Now rock music began to blare out from one of the apartments below us. I felt the very floor vibrate, but Jane, in trance, didn’t seem to be bothered.)

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.

(10:01. There were several developments during break, and I’ll try to discuss them in order before we get into Chapter Three. To begin with, Jane left her excellent trance easily, saying she had barely heard the music. It still boomed up from below us, but she wasn’t interested in that. Instead she talked about “feeling sort of funny,” without being able to elaborate.

(“Over here now,” Jane said, designating her upper left, “is Seth on what you were just saying about peer groups — how young people feel it’s so important to fit in with their own kind, and why. And why I felt that way, but you didn’t. Hey, I’ve even got a bunch of history about that, all ready to deliver — a lot of material on each idea…. I was really confused for a while, yet now I see that each thing’s separate, already prepared by Seth. You’re not going to get two sentences about one subject, then switch to another one….” Jane laughed. “Which channel do you want?”

Because it is intimately connected with other portions of the self it does not basically feel alienated or alone, but proudly acts as the director of the conscious mind’s focus. It is an adjunct of the conscious mind in that respect.

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.

(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.

(11:17.) These are but a few samples of the ways in which your own quite conscious ideas may be invisible to you while being available all the time, and limiting your experience.

Now we have been speaking of the conscious mind, for it is the director of your activities physically. I told you (at the beginning of this chapter) that it was important to realize the ego’s position as the most “exterior” portion of the inner self, not alienated but looking outward to physical reality. Using this analogy, portions of the self on the other side of the conscious mind constantly receive telepathic data. Remember, there are no divisions, so the terms used are simply to make the discussion easier.

The ego tries to organize all material coming into the conscious mind, for its purposes — the ego’s — are those that have come to the surface at any given time in the self’s overall encounter with physical reality. As I said, the ego cannot keep information out of the conscious mind but it can refuse to focus directly upon it.

(Jane said she believed that “Seth could do three books at once, a chapter at a time on each, and with no confusion among them. Right now I feel that this whole book’s just there, ready to be given for the writing down.” Her very active dream life had evidently included a lot of preparation for it, she added, but I didn’t ask her any questions that might open up more channels.

Willy likes to go out, but he is not used to being out all of the time. To an extent he feels banished. He simply picked up Ruburt’s feelings, now, which are strong, and Ruburt’s growing vehemence of intent. In a way these were not directed at the cat, yet Ruburt also knew the cat would pick them up.

Now give us a moment. Ruburt is beginning now to itch to go out, but it is the cat who itches.

Your Willy is in no danger, but show him your love, and regulate his ingoing and outgoing. Not that Ruburt need regulate his, but that his distraction or impatience causes the cat to overreact.

Now: Ruburt’s sensing of the channels does represent a development and has been possible for some time; but it is only now entering his experience. Do remind him of his success in this and other areas, for the feeling and reality of success can and will be carried over.