“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

“It sounds too melodramatic,” I said. “The Seth Material will be published, and you’ll help the world — it’s too much! We’ve only had sixteen sessions! I mean … well, I’m not some poor deluded idiot with the idea that I can solve the world’s problems. And Malba didn’t sound terribly bright; at least Seth is intelligent and knows what he’s talking about. But what’s the use in speaking for anyone else? This way I’m trying to figure out if Seth is independent or not … [and] worrying about a Malba, too.”

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 is also aware of its environment to an astonishing degree. It maintains constant awareness and the ability to adjust itself in two completely different worlds, so to speak — one in which it meets little resistance in growing upward and one composed of much heavier elements into which it must grow downward. Man needs artifical methods to operate effectively on land or in water, but the so-called unconscious tree manages nicely in two worlds as diverse, certainly, as land and water, and makes itself a part of each.

Man’s ego causes him to interpret everything else in light of himself. He loses much in this manner. The ego can be compared to the bark of a tree. The bark is flexible, vibrant, and grows with the growth beneath. It is a tree’s contact with the outer world, the tree’s interpreter and, to some degree, the tree’s companion. So should man’s ego be.

If, for example, our tree bark grew fearful of stormy weather and began to harden itself against the elements, in a well-meaning but distorted protective spirit, then the tree would die. This is what the ego does when it reacts too violently to purely physical data. As a result, it stiffens, and then you have, my well-meaning friend, the cold detachment with which you at one time faced the world.

The material on trees fascinated me, though. Vegetation was not just alive, but aware. And yet, in a strange way, the world was also in a trance. The session inspired the following poem that I wrote a few days later.