“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Remember that ideas are as natural as the weather. They follow patterns, then, and obey certain laws even as more strictly physical phenomena do. Unfortunately, no one examines the nature of mental reality from such a viewpoint. You will be born in the midst of certain mass beliefs, and these may vary according to the country of your nativity. As you come into your body with all of its physical surroundings, so at birth do you emerge into a rich natural psychological environment in which beliefs and ideas are every bit as real.

Regardless, there are certain tendencies, mental stances, that you will take about yourself, your body and your life to one degree or another. Many of these will be directly or indirectly connected with old myths and beliefs of your forefathers. Your ideas of good and evil as applied to health and illness are highly important, for instance. (Pause.) Few can escape putting value judgments in such areas. If you consider illness as a kind of moral stigma, then you will simply add an unneeded quality to any condition of ill health.

This of course involves considerations of race, and you must realize that your present race is the one into which you were born, in your terms, in this place and time. Each of you have been members of different races, and so each of you have shared in both the advantages and ignominies attached, in historic terms, to such conditions of birth.

This is not the place for me to go into a long discussion concerning the significance of races, yet each one is highly meaningful, and represents a different aspect of humanity as a whole. Therefore, each race has a symbolic meaning to mankind’s psyche. The outside experience and structure of any given race’s experience may change, but the inner symbolism will still remain, and be creatively grappled with.

1. The “big bang” theory postulates that 10 to 15 billion years ago all matter — or energy — was concentrated in one great primordial “atom.” This colossus exploded, and the still expanding universe we see today is the aftermath of that event. One variation of the theory considered a pulsating universe that results from the repeated collapsing and expanding of all matter-energy.

(Drawing in the air, Seth-Jane finished the list, then told me that I was to place a second one, with its own heading, opposite the first. I groped along, not having time to ask more than a couple of questions.)

That is not the chapter heading. It is a diagram. Now: Another one of the same kind:

(She went over them with me now, checking my placement of them on the page. Note that Seth would give a complete list under one heading, then match its components item by item with their opposites — no small feat, I would say, considering the number of issues involved. Resume at 11:03.)