“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(The session started late because of our experimenting with a high-quality stereo recording and playing system we bought yesterday. Jane has wanted this especially for work with Sumari. Acting upon impulse while we were in the store, I bought one of those watches that gives not only the time of day but the day of the month. For some reason I find this latter feature quite amusing.)

Dictation: The simple diagrams merely represent some general belief systems from the standpoint of “moral values.” Your ideas of good and evil affect not only your behavior with others, but your activity in a community and in the world at large.

Reality, then, is viewed through this system of beliefs. If you hold them you will feel that those characteristics are given by God. According to the fervor with which you cherish these ideas you will find that they enclose you, for in a very limited manner they will define your concept of good. People entertaining such beliefs are often very religious in conventional terms. Countries emphasizing like beliefs send missionaries to “convert” those who are pagan, and therefore inferior.

These people may be of any age. They may come from any economic environment. Now if you happen to be Protestant, male, white, American, rich, and healthy, at least within the framework of your beliefs you can look at yourself with “clear” eyes. Your foundation is shaky indeed, but at least you fit within it for the moment. You will notice that I added “Protestant” to our value system, as well as “American.” If however you hold this group of beliefs and you fall short — that is, if in some way you do not fit in — then even within that system you are in trouble.

(10:05.) Some of the components are more charged than others. A Catholic or a Jew possessing these beliefs is obviously out of step to some extent, and will feel guilty as he measures himself against them. (Intently:) A black man who accepts the same system is indeed in difficulty. If he happens to be a poor black man he is in double jeopardy.

Here we have a system of belief in which it is wrong to be white, American, or wealthy, or even at all well-off in financial terms. All of the distortions in Christianity are apparent, where the first group is blind to them, of course. Here, though, wealth and a white skin are not only bad, but obvious symptoms of moral deterioration. If the first system of beliefs sees money and goods as a sign of God’s blessing, the second group views material possessions as evidence of spiritual decay.

Here the exotic is romanticized, the foreign held up, the picturesque seen as the real. Black skin or brown skin becomes the criteria of spiritual perfection, and poverty a badge of honor to be worn not only proudly, but often to be used as an aggressive tool. The people who follow these belief systems think that they are right. Their living style, community affiliations, and political leanings will be in direct opposition to the “white-wealthy” ethic.

Now if you happen to be black or brown, poor, and believe in this system, you will at least feel secure within it. If you are instead white and wealthy and hold such beliefs, you will think yourself quite inferior indeed, and do everything in your power to show how picturesque, and liberal and open-minded, and black or brown you can be, while still being white, fairly well-off, and perhaps secretly addicted to your Christianity.

Now: The third diagram can cut across the other systems of belief, of course. In the first two groups there are many leeways. You may have one, two or three preferred characteristics that correlate with your ideas, for example, but your concepts about age leave you no such freedom; for at one time or another all of you, “if you are lucky” in your terms, will approach old age.

If life is seen as good in this system of belief, then youth is viewed as the crowning glory, from which summit there is no further journey except descent. The old are not granted characteristics of wisdom, but feared as evil, bad, undesirable or frightening. To these people senility seems a natural, inevitable end to life.

(Jane spoke very emphatically, gesturing often.) This would be quite apparent were it not for your current belief systems, through which the old are forced to interpret their experience. Many instances of expansion of consciousness, and mental and psychic growth, are interpreted by you as senility. No important correlations have been made between the subjective experiences of the old, particularly in “senile” conditions, with those of other ages involved in expansion of consciousness, whether natural or drug induced.

The individual, when it is time then, begins to see beyond temporal life, to open up dimensions of awareness that in your terms he or she could not afford while involved in the intense physical focus of normal adult life. Unfortunately the personality has no system of beliefs, as a rule, to support such an expansion. The natural therapies, both physical and mental, are denied. Drugs are often used as depressants, clouding the clarity of what seems to be distorted vision. This is one of the most creative, valuable aspects of your lives. Instead the old are made to feel useless in your society. Often of course they share this value judgment, and their experience within your communities has in no way prepared them to face subjective experience.

Even the chemical and hormonal changes that occur are those that are conducive to spiritual and psychic growth at that time. The joyful affirmation possible is denied to the old because of your system of beliefs.

(11:17. Jane, in a very deep and active trance, had been so focused on the material that she’d been unaware of anything else. “Boy, I felt Seth was getting into some really good stuff — a whole new system of geriatrics,” she said. “I was right into those feelings. Animals already know all of this unconsciously. But it’s so strange and funny to be going into things about old age,” she continued, surprised. “Our society doesn’t suspect any of this. I feel very excited about it.”

Dictation. (A one-minute pause.) In certain terms, “psychedelic experience” cannot be explained within your limited frameworks of reference — not because such illuminations are beyond explanation but because your present systems of belief are too limiting.