“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now: Good evening —

Some of this has to do with distorted ideas of both the conscious and unconscious minds, using your terms now. Generally speaking, in Western society the conscious mind is seen as coming into its own in early adulthood, as the self rises from the bed of childhood unconsciousness into its critical awareness and differentiation. The appreciation of distinctions and differences is considered one of the greatest characteristics of consciousness, and so those aspects of it are valued. On the other hand the equally significant assimilating, combining, correlating characteristics of consciousness are overlooked. In scholarly circles, and many that are not scholarly at all, the intellect is equated only with the critical faculties, so that the more diagnostic you are the more intellectual you are considered.

Now: You equate the color white with brilliant consciousness, good, and youth, and the color black with the unconscious, old age and death.

Applied to old age, the color black denotes a returning to those unconscious forces. Now all of this so far is from the standpoint of American and Western belief. It is simply the reality in which many of my readers are involved. In other “underground” systems of belief, however, black is seen as a symbol of great knowledge, power and strength. When this is carried to an extreme you wind up with devil cults, in which the poorly understood powers of creativity and exuberance rush out in distorted form; the undersides of consciousness are then glorified at the expense of the other, white, “conscious and objective” values.

In many ancient civilizations, the night with its blackness was revered, and the secrets of nighttime consciousness explored. Correlations were made in which such knowledge was used consciously in the daytime. The two seemingly separate aspects of consciousness merged, and there were flowerings of art and civilization that are, in your terms now, almost impossible to conceive. And in such civilizations all races were accorded their place, joyfully, and those of all ages were respected for their particular contributions.

Now you may take a break as Ruburt checks his mechanism over there.

Now (heartily:) That is the end of dictation, and of our session unless you have questions.