“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Your own subconscious is the fountain of your individuality and personality; from it springs your talent. When the ego becomes too concerned with daily matters, with worry, then it becomes far less effective. The freely working subconscious — or the inner you — is completely capable of taking care of all practical considerations and will use the ego as a tool to do so.

The viruses and infections were, of course, present. They always are. They are themselves fragments, struggling small fragments, without intention of harm. You have general immunity, believe it or not, to all such viruses. Ideally, you can inhabit a plane with them without fear. It is only when you give tacit agreement that harm is inflicted. To some degree, household pets are dependent upon your psychic strength. They have their own, it is true, but, unknowingly, you reinforce their energy and health.

When your own personalities are more or less in balance, you have no trouble at all looking out for these creatures and actually reinforcing their existence with residues of your creative and sympathetic powers. In times of psychological stress — or in periods of crises — quite unwittingly you often withhold this strong reinforcement. …

In the cats’ deaths, both inherited the peculiar illness, which was a virus, that killed them. In the case of the first cat, you were able to reinforce its strength and maintain its health for some time. Then you needed your energies for yourselves. The second cat barely enjoyed such reinforcement at all and quickly succumbed. (We’d obtained both kittens from the janitor at the art gallery. Both had the same mother.)

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.

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.

The awareness is focused along certain lines. The tree lives through its inner senses, experiencing many sensations and reacting to many stimuli of which you are unaware. Minute earth tremors, even the motion of small ants about its lower trunk — these are recognized and experienced. Such invisibilities as humidity, radioactivity and all electrical values are felt as quite real things to your tree.

Much of the session had been directed to him. He sat, taking notes, as Seth dictated, stopping now and then to stare at him as he made a point. The session continued until nearly 1:00 A.M. The rest of it went into an analysis of the previous ten years, and was directed at both of us. All of this was fascinating, incidentally, and full of psychological insight that greatly helped us both.

“Uh-huh. Not really.” I said. But in the beginning, at least, I wasn’t used to probing psychological analysis directed at Rob or myself from an invisible personality — or anyone else. Now we wonder how we managed to function effectively without all the knowledge about ourselves that we’ve received from Seth through the years.