“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Man is so highly verbal that he finds it difficult to understand that other species work with idea-complexes (with a hyphen) of a different kind, in which of course thought as you consider it is not involved. But an equivalent exists; using an analogy, it is as if ideas are built up not through sentence structure reinforced by inner visual images, but by like “mental” patterns structured through touch and scent — in other words, thinking, but within a framework entirely different and alien to you.

(1. How idea structures work in animals as opposed to mankind.

In certain eras, the lines between the species were not completely drawn, and there were long periods where men and animals mixed and learned from each other. Man’s imagination made him a great maker of myths. Myths as you know them represent bridges of psychological activity, and point quite clearly to patterns of perception and behavior through which, in your terms, the race passed as it traveled to its present state. Mythology bridges the gap between instinctive knowledge and the individualization of idea.

A human being, however, has another dimension to deal with, a new area of creativity, a diverse mixture of beliefs. His or her ideas about the self must be examined, for they are being materialized in flesh. Again, the situation has great complexity, for the condition is still a healthy attempt on the part of the body to maintain balance. Overall there is also the world situation to be taken into consideration — the status of the species on the planet, in which, say, overpopulation problems will bring about death to insure new growth.

In order for consciousness to develop in your terms, there must be freedom for the exploration of all ideas individually and en masse. Each of you are living entities, growing toward your own development. Each of your beliefs, therefore, has its own unique origin and feeling patterns, so you must for yourself travel back through your beliefs and your own feelings until intellectually and emotionally you realize your rightness, your completely original existence in time and space as you know it.

(Jane said there was much more to the idea of natural therapy in animals. She began tuning in to this information on her own, rather than getting it through one of Seth’s channels. Ages ago, humans not only watched the animals, but went to them for help. It had to do with shock treatment, she said wonderingly. If a human was in a catatonic state after a battle, for instance, the “animal medicine man” would purposely shock the patient into an emotional reaction to bring him out of the state.

What you consider conscience is often an applied-from-without sense of right and wrong instilled in you in your youth. As a rule these ideas represent your parents’ conceptions of natural guilt, distorted by their own beliefs. (See the 619th session in Chapter Four, as well as the first session in this chapter.) You accepted those ideas for a reason, individually and en masse, for mankind at any given “time” has a strong idea of the particular sort of world experience it will create.