“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

There were other tales, some that have not come down to you, in which Adam and Eve were created together, and in a dream fell apart into the separate male and female. In your particular legend Adam appears first. The woman being created from his rib symbolized the necessary emergence, even from the new creature, of the intuitive forces that will always come forth — for without that development the race would not have attained self-consciousness in your terms.

Good and evil then simply represented the birth of choices, initially in terms of survival, where earlier instinct alone had provided all that was needed. In deeper terms, there is still another meaning that mirrors all of those apparent divisions that occur as All That Is seemingly separates portions of itself from itself, scattering its omnipotence into new patterns of being that, in your terms, remember their source and look back to it longingly, while still glorying in the unique individuality that is their own.

As the mind developed, the species could hand down to its offspring the wisdom and law of the elders. This is still being done in modern society, of course, when each child inherits the beliefs of its parents about the nature of reality. Apart from all other considerations, this is also a characteristic of creaturehood. Only the means are different with the animals.

The early acquiescence to beliefs has a biological importance, therefore, but as the conscious mind attains its maturity it is also natural for it to question those beliefs, and to assess them in relation to its own environment. Many of my readers may have certain ideas about good and evil that are very hampering. These may be old beliefs in new clothing. You may think that you are quite free, only to discover that you hold old ideas but have simply put new terms to them, or concentrated upon other aspects.

Philosophies that teach denial of the flesh must ultimately end up preaching a denial of the self and building a contempt for it, because even though the soul is couched in muscle and bone it is meant to experience that reality, not to refute it.

This alone will cause adverse experience, making you reject the very basis of your own framework of experience. You will consider the body as a thing, a fine vehicle but not in itself the natural living expression of your being in material form. Many such Eastern schools also stress — as do numerous spiritualistic schools — the importance of the “unconscious levels of the self,” and teach you to mistrust the conscious mind.

You attempt then to further banish the characteristic enjoyment of your own creaturehood, denying the lusty spirituality of your flesh and the strong present corporeal leanings of your soul. You will try to rid yourself of very natural emotions, and so be cheated of their great spiritual and physical motion. (Pause.) On the other hand, some leaders may give little consideration to such issues, but still be deeply convinced of the misery of the human condition, focusing upon all the “darker” elements, seeing the world’s destruction ever closer to hand without really examining the beliefs that arouse such constant feelings.

They may find it easy to cluck their tongues at obvious fanatics who cry out for God’s vengeance, and speak about the world’s end in brimstone and ashes. They may be as equally convinced, however, of man’s basic unworthiness, and so of course of their own. In daily life such people will concentrate upon negative events, store them up, and unfortunately cause personal experience that will seem to quite reinforce the basic ideas.

The individual therefore deprives himself of the use of much of his ability. He does not consider it his own, and is astounded when any others of his race display such superior qualities.

The people alive within the world come into it with their own problems and challenges, and this will have much to do with the kind of national and worldwide beliefs that are generated and that dominate. The beliefs, of course, are frameworks in which various kinds of experience are tested. This also applies to religions, and political and social situations as well. There is always a give and take between the individual and the mass system of beliefs in which he has chosen his environment.

There is a belief in illness as being morally wrong, and a countering belief in it as being ennobling, uplifting and spiritually good. These value judgments are extremely important, for they will be reflected in your own experience with any illness or disease.