“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

There are other kinds of knowledge, also. These deal with organizations with which you are generally not familiar. It is not merely a matter of learning new methods to acquire knowledge, then, but a situation in which old methods must be momentarily set aside — along with the type of knowledge that is associated with them.

The kind of knowledge upon which you depend needs verbalization. It is very difficult for you to consider the accumulation of any kind of knowledge without the use of language as you understand it. Even your remembered dreams are often verbalized constructs. You may also use images, but these are familiar images, born of the educated and hence prejudiced physical perceptions. Those remembered dreams have meaning and are very valuable, but they are already organized for you to some extent, and put into a shape that you can somewhat recognize.

Any information or knowledge must have a pattern if you are going to understand it at all. Ruburt’s own painting, his knowledge of his psychic abilities, his love of Joseph — all served to form a pattern which then attracted the Cézanne material. He received this “automatically,” writing down the words that came almost too quickly for him to follow. His craft or art of writing brought the material to clear focus. The information itself, however, had nothing to do with words, but with an overall comprehension of the nature of painting, a direct knowing. Ruburt used his own abilities as a container, then. This direct kind of knowledge is available, again, on any subject, to anyone who provides a suitable pattern through desire, love, intent or belief.

One level of dream life deals particularly with the biological condition of the body, giving you not just hints of health difficulties, but the reasons for them and the ways to circumvent them. Information about the probable future is also given to help you make conscious choices. You have taught yourselves that you cannot be conscious in your dreams, however, because you interpret the word “conscious” so that it indicates only your own prejudiced concept. As a result, you do not have any culturally acceptable patterns that allow you to use your dreams competently.

My remark has nothing to do with your accepted concepts of the unconscious portions of the self. Your ideas of the unconscious are so linked to your limited ideas of personhood as to be meaningless in this discussion. It is as if you used only one finger of one hand, and then said: “This is the proper expression of my personhood.” It is not just that there are other functions of the mind, unused, but that in those terms you have other minds. You have one brain, it is true, but you allow it to use only one station, or to identify itself with only one mind of many.

In terms of history, some ancient races achieved such goals, but in your terms, so long ago that you cannot find evidence of their knowledge.

(Long pause.) Throughout the centuries various individuals have come close, yet had no vehicle of expression that would have enabled the members of the species to understand. They possessed methods, but the methods presupposed or necessitated a knowledge that others did not possess.

(Seth immediately began a short discussion of a dream Jane had last night. She hardly remembered it, but wrote in her notebook this morning that she knew it involved a new, rather odd kind of perception that she couldn’t verbalize at all. Since this fits in with Seth’s chapter here, I’m including his comments:)