“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

1. Lysergic acid diethylamide-25. A “trip” can last for five to eight hours, or even longer. But there isn’t any one psychedelic experience for all, either in terms of time or content — the whole thing is too intensely personal. Note, though, that Seth’s statements here refer only to LSD, used under certain conditions. There are other chemical hallucinogens, for example, that are not mentioned above.

Psychology, religion, science — in one way or another, all of these have added to the confusion by stripping the conscious mind of its directing qualities, and viewing it as a stepchild of the self. (Pause.) The schools of “positive thinking” try to remedy the situation, but often do more harm than good because they attempt to force beliefs upon you that you would like to hold, but do not in your present state of confusion.

Many such philosophies make you cower at the idea of entertaining “negative” thoughts or emotions. In all cases the clues to your emotional experience and behavior lie in your systems of belief: some more evident to you than others, but all available to you consciously. If you believe that you are of little merit, inferior and filled with guilt, then you may react in several ways according to your personal background and the framework in which you accepted those beliefs. You may be terrified of aggressive feelings because [it seems] others so much more powerful than you could retaliate. If you believe that all such thoughts are wrong you will inhibit them and feel all the more guilty — which will generate aggressiveness against yourself and further deepen your sense of unworthiness.

(Pause.) No one can do this for you. You may believe that good mental health means being always cheerful, resolute and kind, and never crying or showing disappointment. That belief alone can lead you to deny quite natural dimensions of human experience, and to impede the flow of emotions that could otherwise cleanse both your body and your mind. If you are convinced that feelings are dangerous, then again that belief itself will generate a fear of all of them, and you may become almost panic-stricken if you display anything but the most “reasonable” calm behavior.

Your emotions then may strike you as highly unpredictable, extremely powerful, and to be kept down at all costs. Such an attempt to strangle natural feeling is bound to take its toll, but it is the belief itself that is to blame, and not the emotions. Any of the conditions mentioned puts you out of touch with your inner sense of balance. The natural grace of your being becomes disturbed.

The conscious mind is meant to align all of your capabilities in accordance with its beliefs about the nature of reality. Those resources are considerable, for they include the deepest aspects of your creativity, and powers far beneath consciousness of which you are only dimly aware.

You cannot will yourself to be happy while believing that you have no right to happiness, or that you are unworthy of it. You cannot tell yourself to release aggressive thoughts if you think it is wrong to free them, so you must come to grips with your beliefs in all instances.

If you have been told, again, that the spirit is good, in fact perfect, and that you must then be perfect in all of your ways, while at the same time you believe in the imperfection of the body, you will always be in conflict with yourself.

In animals natural aggression is used with the greatest biological integrity. It is on the one hand ritualized, and on the other hand perfectly spontaneous. Its signals are understood. The various degrees, postures, and indications of natural animal aggressiveness are all steps in a series of communications in which the animal encounters are made clear.

Violence is basically an overwhelming surrender, and in all violence there is a great degree of suicidal emotion, the antithesis of creativity. (Pause.) Both killer and victim in a war, for instance, are caught up in the same kind of passion, but the passion is not aggressive. It is its opposite — the desire for destruction.

Simultaneously all of these inhibited reactions seek release, for the manifestation of aggressive feelings sets up natural balances within the body itself, as well as serving as a communication system with others. When his system has had enough, our friend may then indeed react with violent behavior. He might suddenly find himself in a fight — initiating one — and the smallest incident may serve as a trigger. He could seriously hurt himself or someone else.

There are many biological signs shown by the body, all meant as communications to others on a creative basis — as warnings to whatever degree. Each is automatic in its own way, and yet ritualistic, a dance of muscle in motion with its own meaning, and biologically understood. These are all constructive. They are meant to elicit reactions from others and to arrive at new points of understanding, a balance of rights. When your conscious thoughts interfere with such processes, you are in deep trouble.

(“All right.”)