“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The brain channels the information that the mind receives to your physical structure, so that your experience is physically sifted and automatically translated into terms that the organism can understand. (Seth-Jane spoke emphatically, rapping upon the coffee table between us.) Because of this, physically speaking and in life as you think of it, the mind is to a large extent dependent upon the brain’s growth and activity. There is some information necessary to physical survival that must be taught and handed down from parent to child. There are basic assumptions of a general nature with which you are born, but because the specific conditions of your environment are so various, these must be implemented. So it is necessary that the child accept beliefs from its parents.

(9:46.) Largely, but not completely, your imagination follows your beliefs, as do your emotions. To some extent there are certain general patterns. A child will cry when it is hurt. It will stop when the hurt stops, and the emotion behind the cry will automatically change into another. But if the child discovers that a prolonged cry after the event gets extra attention and consideration, then it will begin to extend the emotion.

From the earliest stages the child automatically compares its interpretation of reality with its parents’. Since the parents are bigger and stronger and fulfill so many of its needs, it will attempt to bring its experience into line with their expectations and beliefs. While it is generally quite natural for the child to cry or feel “badly” when hurt, this inclination can be carried through belief to such an extent that prolonged feelings of desolation are adopted as definite behavior patterns.

(I now described an effect that had started to bother me after the session had begun; it’s a good little example of the way beliefs can work. No sooner had Seth come through than I became aware of an unaccustomed tightness in my writing hand — a tension that interfered with the automatic formation of the letters and words. I kept the notes going by making an extra effort, but I found it quite distracting to keep thinking about the mechanics of writing while trying to concentrate upon what Seth was saying. The difficulty persisted through the delivery and into break.

The conflicting beliefs, then, cause the difficulty in the method. The hand’s motion is not as automatically smooth as it should be. You also believe that you communicate through writing far better than you do verbally. To Ruburt you often write notes, saying things easily and beautifully that you find difficult verbally because of your belief.

Your emotions and your imagination both follow your belief. When the belief vanishes then the same emotional context is no longer entertained, and your imagination turns in other directions. Beliefs automatically mobilize your emotional and imaginative powers.