“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(9:55. Jane was out of trance quickly. She repeated the idea she’d voiced several times lately — that although Seth had ended the Augustus data rather abruptly in Chapter Six, he planned to return to it occasionally through the book.

Now: First of all, Augustus had been told in various ways, quote: “You think too much. You should be doing something physical, involved in sports, more outgoing.” Such repeated remarks, with other childhood conditions, made him afraid of his own mental activity. He also felt unworthy, so how could his thoughts be good?

Feelings of violence accumulated early, but in his family there were no acceptable ways of releasing normal aggressive feelings. When these built up into felt, violent eruptions, Augustus was only the more convinced of his unacceptable nature. For some time in his normal state as a teenager, he tried harder and harder to be “good.” This meant the banishing of thoughts or impulses that were sexually inspired along various lines, aggressive, or even just unconventional. Considerable energy was used to inhibit these portions of his inner experience. The denied mental events did not disappear, however. They increased in intensity and were kept apart from his “safer” usual thoughts.

In such a way, Augustus actually created a mental structure whose organization followed the principles I mentioned before your break. Under other circumstances and possessing different characteristics, another individual could damage a physical organ by literally attacking it, as surely as it might be assaulted by a virus (emphatically). Because of Augustus’s particular temperament and nature, however, and his native though conventionally undeveloped creativity, he formed a structure rather than destroying one.

In his normal state he accepted only the beliefs he considered were expected of him. As mentioned (in the 628th session in Chapter Six), there was a time before his condition developed when his “good-self thoughts” and his “bad-self thoughts” vied for his attention, and the body tried desperately to react to constant, alternating and often contradictory concepts.

(Pause.) What developed was a situation in which the conflicting sets of thoughts and feelings finally took turns, though Augustus maintained his own integrity for most of the time. But those beliefs that he shoved away were, by attraction, instantly seized by the other mental structure — again, composed of ideas and feelings combined into what you might think of as an invisible cellular organization, with all capabilities of reaction.

In his normal condition Augustus thought of his own powerlessness — for he had denied himself normal aggressive action — and felt this weak. The beliefs activated the body’s cellular memory, weakening the body and impeding its function. Yet for a time, while performance was dulled it was steady. A balance was maintained that suited his purposes.

He became afraid that the body would go out of control and commit violent action, because he was of course aware of the strength of the denied thoughts and feelings. When a crisis situation arose or when he became lost in despair, an acceleration began that he pretended not to notice, and Augustus Two would appear.

(10:35.) Augustus Two was filled with a sense of power — because Augustus considered power wrong and set it aside from what he thought of as his normal self. Yet Augustus knew the body needed the vitality that he had denied it. Therefore enter Augustus Two with his great ideas of extraordinary power, vigor and superiority — (louder and smiling:) I am keeping my Augustuses straight. I hope you are too.

In Augustus Two, the tension found release and the energy flow became more even after initial bursts of activity. The longer Augustus Two stayed, however, the weaker his position became — a fact recognized by Augustus and Augustus Two. Augustus, you see, had to build up sufficient repressed thought and emotion because of a situation with which he could not cope. This threat would then bring about the emergence of Augustus Two. The body behaves as you think it must behave, so Augustus and Augustus Two, with their alternating patterns of behavior, caused the body to react in quite different ways.

Forget now that in this case such a division occurred, and imagine instead the successive thoughts and feelings that you possess. When you feel weak you are weak. When you feel joyful your body benefits and becomes stronger. Augustus’s case simply shows in exaggerated form the effects of your beliefs upon your physical image. If you think, “Aha, then from now on I will only think good thoughts — and therefore be healthy, and inhibit my ‘bad’ thoughts, or do anything at all with them but think them,” then in your own way you are doing what Augustus did. He began by believing that some of his thoughts were so evil that they must somehow be made nonexistent. So inhibiting what you consider as negative thoughts, or assuming that they are so terrible, is no answer.

The spirit is always in a state of becoming, ever-changing, supple, and in your terms without end, as it was and is without a point of beginning. Ruburt said recently that if he was sure of one thing about physical reality, it was [that is was] not anywhere near perfect in these terms. But in the same meaning of the word neither is the spirit, which to fulfill the requirement of perfection would have to be set in some state of completion beyond which no fulfillment or creativity was possible.

(Jovially:) Then I will add: I told you there would be no trouble with the book. Tell Ruburt I said so — but who listens to me? Though he is listening better lately, and on the right track…. I wish you a hearty good evening.

(Seth’s joking remarks about “the book” refer to this one. In some recent deleted material he had discussed Jane’s initial uncertainty about signing a contract for the publication of psychic work before it had been produced. Tam Mossman, Jane’s editor at Prentice-Hall, has read the first six chapters of Personal Reality [as we call it], and has written her a very encouraging letter.)