“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

On the other hand there are those who stress the great value of the inner self, the emotional being, at the expense of the conscious mind. These theories hold that the intellect and usual consciousness are far inferior to the inner “unconscious” portions of being, and that all the answers are hidden from view. (Pause.) The followers of this belief consider the conscious mind in such derogatory terms that it almost seems to be a supercilious cancer that sprouted like a growth upon man’s psyche-impeding rather than aiding his progress and understanding.

(A one-minute pause at 9:59.) It is your method of assessing temporal experience according to the beliefs that it holds about the nature of reality. It automatically causes the body to react in certain ways. I cannot say this often enough: Your beliefs form your reality, your body and its condition, your personal relationships, your environment, and en masse your civilization and world.

Your beliefs automatically attract the appropriate emotions. They reinforce themselves through imagination; and at the risk of repeating myself, because this is so important: Imagination and feeling follow your beliefs. It is not the other way around.

(Pause at 10:55.) When a man or a woman feels no connection between personal reality and experience and the surrounding world, then he [or she] loses even an animal’s sense of pure competence and belonging. Your beliefs, once more, form your reality, shaping your life and all of its conditions.

All of the powers of your inner self are set into activation as a result of your conscious beliefs. You have lost a sense of responsibility for your conscious thought because you have been taught that it is not what forms your life. You have been told that regardless of your beliefs you are terrorized by unconscious conditioning.

The whole following sentence to be underlined: And as long as you hold that conscious belief you will experience it as reality.

Some of your beliefs originated in your childhood, but you are not at their mercy unless you believe that you are. Because your imagination follows your beliefs, you can find yourself in a vicious circle in which you constantly paint pictures in your mind that reinforce “negative” aspects in your life.

The imaginative events generate appropriate emotions, which automatically bring about hormonal¹ changes in your body or affect your behavior with others, or cause you to interpret events always in the light of your beliefs. And so daily experience will seem to justify what you believe more and more.

The only way out of it is to become aware of your beliefs, aware of your own conscious thought, and to change your beliefs so that you bring them more in line with the kind of reality you want to experience. Imagination and emotion will then automatically come into play to reinforce the new beliefs.

As mentioned (in the 614th session in Chapter Two), the first important step is to realize that your beliefs about reality are just that — beliefs about reality and not necessarily attributes of reality. You must make a clear distinction between you and your beliefs. You must then realize that your beliefs are physically materialized. What you believe to be true in your experience is true. To change the physical effect you must change the original belief — while being quite aware that for a time physical materializations of the old beliefs may still hold.

If you completely understand what I am saying, however, your new beliefs will — and quickly — begin to show themselves in your experience. But you must not be concerned for their emergence, for this brings up the fear that the new ideas will not materialize, and so this negates your purpose.

(11:10.) You are doing the same thing now constantly and automatically with whatever beliefs you have, and they are being as constantly and automatically translated. It is the separation of self from beliefs that is so important initially, however.

You are not to hammer at yourself consciously. Imagination and emotion are your great allies. Your conscious direction will automatically bring them into play. You can see why it is so important that you examine all of your beliefs about yourself and the nature of your reality; and one belief, if you let it, will lead you to another.

Now: Much has been written saying that if imagination and willpower are in conflict, imagination will win. Now I tell you, if you examine yourself you will find (deeper and louder) that imagination and willpower are never — underlined twice — in conflict. Your beliefs may conflict, but your imagination will always follow your willpower and your conscious thoughts and beliefs.

If this is not apparent to you, then it is because you have not as yet completely examined your beliefs. Let us take a simple example: You are overweight. You have tried diets to no avail. You tell yourself that you want to lose weight. You follow what I have said so far. You change the belief. You say, “Because I believe I am overweight, I am, so I will think of myself at my ideal weight.”

But pretend that you go beyond this point. In sheer desperation you say, “All right, I will examine my beliefs further!” Now this is a hypothetical case so you may find one of innumerable beliefs. You may, for instance, find that you believe you are not worthy, and hence should not look attractive. Or that health means physical weight and it is dangerous to be slim.

Now: You may be poor. Following my suggestions, you may try to alter the belief and say, “My wants are taken care of and I have a great abundance.” Yet you may still find yourself unable to meet your bills.

Imaginatively you may see the next bill coming, with you unable to pay it. “I will have enough money,” you say. “This is my new belief.” But nothing changes so you think, “My conscious thoughts mean nothing.” Yet upon examination of your beliefs you may find a deep conviction of your own unworthiness.

You may find yourself thinking, “I am no one to begin with,” or “The rich get richer and the poor get poorer,” or, “The world is against me,” or, “Money is wrong. People who have it are not spiritual.” You may discover, again, one of numerous beliefs that all lead to the fact that you do not want to have money or are afraid of it. In any case your imagination and your beliefs go hand in hand.

Yet if you examine your beliefs more carefully you will find one of many possible beliefs, such as, “I’m afraid to remember my dreams,” or, “My dreams are always unpleasant,” or, “I’m afraid to know what I dream about,” or, “I want to remember my dreams but — they may tell me more than I want to know!”

In this case also your reality colors your beliefs, and your experience is a direct result of your conscious attitudes. By such attitudes as these just mentioned you put clamps upon your inner self, purposely hamper your experience, and reinforce beliefs in the negative aspects of your being.

Only by examining these ideas of your own can you learn where you stand with yourself. Now I do not mean to stress the negative by any means, so I suggest that you look to those areas of your life in which you are pleased and have done well. See how emotionally and imaginatively you personally reinforced those beliefs and brought them to physical fruition — realize how naturally and automatically the results appeared. Catch hold of those feelings of accomplishment and understand that you can use the same methods in other areas.

(12:07 a.m. As Jane came slowly out of trance she announced the title for the next chapter, which will be Five. It had just come to her: “The Future and Your Present Beliefs.” “But I think there’s still a little tail left to this chapter first,” she said. Eyes closed, she sank back into her rocker. It took an extra effort for her to rouse herself enough to go to bed.