“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

These fears do not belong to what you think of as the subconscious. Then these materializations of panic and pain play about the physical body, projected by the ego, and steal the powers of the subconscious mind from their natural constructive tasks.… In other words, the ego becomes a tool to disrupt rather than to create.

The interior universe had its influence even as far as pets were concerned! The whole concept fascinated me. Seth showed us in the next session that not only animals but all living things had their primary existence in this inner world. He also carried on with his discussion of the ego and health, giving an excellent analysis of the ego’s relationship to the personality as a whole. I took what he said to heart and found myself opening up, becoming more free and creative. In this session, he also spoke about the consciousness of trees in such a way that I was never able to look at the trees outside of my window with the same old detachment. Through the sessions, the whole world seemed to come alive.

At times, the ego can hold you in a tight vice, which the dissociation breaks. This is what happened after your exercises. You have been doing very well … in allowing yourself psychic freedom. However, conscious fears cause the ego to tighten its grasp, and some effects of this nature were starting up. This is why I suggested the exercises at this time.

Incidentally, while we are on the subject, often when you thought you were dealing with a matter or a person in a dissociated manner, you were instead exhibiting a cold, conscious detatchment. This is a pose of the ego and is not to be confused with the lithe subconscious detachment which is actually warm, flexible and expansive.

As to Jane’s feeling about the tree having a certain consciousness, of course this is the case. What you have here is latent energy, vitality and capacity, with much of it withheld or suspended momentarily. The tree is dissociated in one manner. In some ways, its living forces and consciousness are kept to a minimum. It is in a state of drowsiness on the one hand; and on the other, it focuses the usable portion of its energy into being a tree.

The state of consciousness involved here is dull as compared to the highly differentiated human ability in many ways. However, in other ways, the experiences of the tree are extremely deep, dealing with the inner senses which are … also properties of treedom.

The tree makes adjustments just as you do. It listens to its growth up from the earth and to the murmer of the growth of its roots beneath. It adjusts each root ending according to what impediments might lie in its way. Without the conscious mind of man it nevertheless retains this inner consciousness of all its parts, above and below the ground, and manipulates them constantly.

And as far as motion is concerned, the tree moves upward and downward. It is quite unfair to say that it cannot transport itself, since it does so to an amazing degree; the roots and limbs moving in all directions. The inner senses of all plant life are well attuned, alert and very vital. All of these fragments have consciousness to a rather high degree, considering that man holds them in such low repute.

And I was forced to smile back sheepishly. “As long as Seth talks about philosophical stuff, I don’t mind, I guess. But when he starts going into us, into personal habits and behavior, it gets kind of close.”