“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Dictation. (Long pause.) You form your own reality. That reality contributes to the experience of others, but each of you possesses a unique, original stance in space and time that is yours alone in quite practical terms, regardless of time’s relative existence.

Only when you operate from your own stance can you help others to the best of your ability. To anticipate danger, or to imaginatively take on the troubles of others robs you of the very energy with which you could help them. I am not saying, therefore, to turn your eyes from the unfortunate conditions of the world. Practical help is needed in all areas of the human life. Yet it is far better, and more practical ultimately, to concentrate upon the beneficial elements of civilization — far better to organize your thoughts in areas of accomplishment than to make mental lists of man’s deficiencies and lacks.

Despite all appearances, conditions of an exterior nature do not cause wars, or poverty, or disease, or any of the unfortunate circumstances apparent in the world. Your beliefs form your reality. Your thoughts generate practical experience. When these change, conditions will change. To add your own energy, focus, and concentration to dire circumstances in other portions of the world does not help, but adds to, such situations.

To close your eyes to them in an ignorant fashion, to wash your hands of them, so to speak, is equally shortsighted. To pretend such situations do not exist, out of fear of them, will only bring the feared reality closer. It is far better to situate yourself firmly in your own reality, acknowledge it as your own, encourage your strength and creativity, and from that vantage point view those areas of the world or of your own society that need constructive help. Purposefully in your own life, in your daily dialogues with others, in your relationships through your groups or clubs, reinforce as well as you can the strength and abilities of others.

That reinforcement will add to the personal power of all other individuals with whom those people come in contact. Find the beliefs responsible for the unfortunate conditions. If the ideas in this book were thoroughly understood, then each individual would be able to assess his or her own reality realistically. There would be no need to arm a nation in advance against another nation’s anticipated — but imaginary — attack.

(10:10.) Personal grudges would not build up, so that men or women so fear further hurts that they attempt to hide from life or relationships, or shy away from contact with others. It is not virtuous to count your failings. Self-conscious righteousness can be a very narrow road. If each of you understood and perceived the graceful integrity of your own individuality, just as you try to perceive the beauty of all other natural creatures, then you would allow your own creativity greater reign. There is order in all elements of nature, and you are a part of it.

The greater sweep of the seasons represents the reaches of your soul. You will not attain spirituality by turning your eyes away from nature, or by trying to disentangle yourself from it. You will not “glimpse eternal life” by attempting to deny the life that you have now — for that life is your own unique path, and provides its own clues for you to follow.

All That Is vibrates with desire. (Louder:) The denial of desire will bring you only listlessness. Those who deny desire are the most smitten by it. Each of your lives are miniature and yet gigantic episodes, mortal and immortal at once, providing experiences that you form meaningfully, opening up dimensions of reality available to no one else, for no one can view existence from your standpoint. No one can be you but you. There are communications at other levels, but your experience of existence is completely original, to be treasured.

Each of you is couched now in the natural world, and that world is couched in a reality from which nature emerges. The psyche’s roots are secure, nourishing it like a tree from the ground of being. The source of the psyche’s strength is within each individual, the invisible fabric of the person’s existence.

(Long pause.) Nature is luxurious and abundant in its expressions. The greater reality from which nature springs is even more abundant, and within that multidimensional experience no individual is ignored, forgotten, dismissed, lost, or forsaken. A tree does not have to ask for nourishment from the ground or the sun, and so everything that you need is available to you in your practical experience. If you believe you are not worthy of nourishment, if you believe that life itself is dangerous, then your own beliefs make it impossible for you to fully utilize that available help. In large measure, since you are still alive, you are of course nourished. You cannot close out the vitality of your own being that easily, and the vitality “squandered” on deeper bouts of depression is often greater than the energy used in creative pursuits. You are a portion of All That Is; therefore the universe leans in your direction. It gives. It rings with vitality. Then forsake beliefs that tell you otherwise. Seek within yourself — each of you — those feelings of exuberance that you have, even if they are only occasional, and encourage those events or thoughts that bring them about.

You cannot find your psyche by thinking of it as a separate thing, like a fine jewel in an eternal closet. You can only experience its strength and vitality by exploring the subjective reality that is your own, for it will lead you unerringly to that greater source of being that transcends both space and time.

(10:40.) Now, briefly: The overall stance of the species is largely maintained by the waking-sleeping patterns that you mentioned recently. In such a fashion, one large portion of the species focuses in physical reality while the other large portion holds a secure foothold in inner reality —

— working on the interior patterns that will form the next day’s realities, and providing probable previews of future events. Waking and sleeping reality is therefore balanced in the world mind — not the world brain.

I will give you more on this. I had forgotten it when I ended the session prematurely. Ruburt’s hesitation was caused this evening by misplaced nostalgia at ending our book. You are both indeed beginning a new, more productive, surprisingly pleasant and somewhat extraordinary period of your lives. And now I bid you a fond good evening.

(Volume I of “Unknown” Reality came out in the fall of 1977 — and by then Seth was well into his latest, The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events, even though this book, Psyche, hadn’t yet been typed for publication. I was still working on the notes for Volume 2 of “Unknown” Reality.

(Jane’s writing on William James also developed into a book: The Afterdeath Journal of an American Philosopher. So during Seth’s dictation of this present manuscript, she produced on her own the Cézanne and James books. Surely all of the creativity cited in this note is the “proof of the pudding,” then — evidence of the psyche’s richness and abilities. Jane displays those attributes in her own way, of course, yet their equivalents are inherent in each of us, waiting to be used.)