“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

We will resume dictation. (Pause; one of many.) Consciousness has many characteristics, some of course known to you. Many of the characteristics of consciousness, however, are not so apparent, since presently you largely use your own consciousness in such a way that its perceptions appear in quite other than “natural” guises. You are aware of your own consciousness, in other words, through the medium of your own physical mechanism. You are not nearly as aware of your own consciousness when it is not operating primarily through the mediumship of the body, as it does in out-of-body states and some dissociated conditions.

The characteristics of consciousness are the same (seme) whether you are in a body or outside of one. The peaks and valleys of consciousness that I mentioned exist to some degree in all consciousness despite the form adopted (adepted) after death (deth). The nature of your consciousness is no different basically (bascially) than it is now, though you may not be aware of many of its characteristics.

Now your consciousness is telepathic and clairvoyant, for example, even though you may not realize it. In sleep when (whene) you often presume yourself to be unconscious (unconsious) you may be far more conscious than you are now, but simply using abilities of consciousness that you do not accept as real or valid (valed) in waking (waping) life. You therefore shut (shup) them out of your conscious experience (experiencl). Consciousness, yours and mine, is quite independent of both (poth) time and space. And after death you are simply aware of the greater powers of consciousness that exist within you all the time.

Since they do, of course, you can discover them now and learn to use them. This will directly (dreactly) assist you in after-death (agter) experience. You will not be nearly so startled by the nature of your own reactions (reactone) if you understand beforehand for example that your consciousness not only is not imprisoned by your physical body, but (bud) can create other portions at will. Those who “overidentify” their consciousness with their body can suffer self-created torment (tortment) for no reason, lingering about the body. Indeed, quite the forlorn soul, thinking it has no other place to go.

You are, as I said earlier, a spirit now; and that spirit has a consciousness. The consciousness belongs to the spirit then, but the two are not the same. The spirit may turn its consciousness off and on. By its nature consciousness may flicker and fluctuate, but the spirit does not.

Consciousness does not refresh itself in sleep. It is merely turned in another direction. Consciousness does not sleep then in those terms and while it may be turned off it is not like a light.

Turning it off does not extinguish (expetnrise) it in the way that a light (like) disappears (disappeares) when a switch is turned. Following the analogy (aneleogy), if consciousness were (werse) like (light) a light that belonged (belenge) to you, even when you switched it off, there would be a sort of twilight, but not darkness (darkners).

The spirit, therefore, is never in a state of nothingness, with its consciousness extinguished. It is very important therefore that such be realized, for there …

It is very important to understand that consciousness is never extinguished….

(Seth suspended dictation on his book at my request, but during a brief interlude suggested that I have Jane turn on the rest of the lights in the room when she came out of trance. Then, I was to imagine my consciousness growing brighter and brighter, filling the room like light; I would find that all of my abilities would soon return. I wasn’t able to remember some subsequent information.

Earlier I said that you are only familiar with those characteristics of your own consciousness that you use through the mediumship of the body. You rely upon the body to express the perceptions of your consciousness. You tend, again, to identify the expression of your consciousness with the body.

In our demonstration, to which of course Joseph gave his permission, he allowed his consciousness to retreat, and to some degree began to cut off its physical expression. He was not aware consciously of his permission, simply because this kind of demonstration could not be held if the normal waking consciousness knew. It would automatically be frightened. As I spoke about the dimming of consciousness, Joseph then experienced it.

(10:55. This may be a tricky point, and it may not. Seth used the word “dimming.” Certainly some of my abilities for physical expression had withdrawn considerably, yet I had remained clearheaded and alert, and, out of habit, thoroughly occupied with trying to use them…. Nor had I become aware of any kind of heightened consciousness, or sudden telepathic or clairvoyant powers.

Give us a moment. This was an exercise, actually, in the manipulation of consciousness. Close to death, this same sort of thing happens in varying degrees when the consciousness realizes that it can no longer express itself through the mediumship of the body. If the dying person overidentifies with the body then he can easily panic, thinking that all expression is therefore cut off, and for that matter that his consciousness is about to be extinguished.

Such a belief in extinction, such a certainty that identity is about to be blotted out in the next moment, is a severe psychological experience, that in itself can bring about unfortunate reactions. What happens instead is that you find consciousness quite intact, and its expression far less limited than it was before. Joseph chose subconsciously to interrupt those methods of expression he was using at the time simply so that their interference would claim due notice.

We will be dealing now, after what I hope is suitable background material, with some chapters on the nature of existence after physical death, at the point of death, and involving the final physical death at the end of the reincarnational cycle. It was important that you understand something about the nature and behavior of your own consciousness before we could begin.

Now you acquiesced in our experiment earlier this evening, when Ruburt and you spoke at the [supper] table. Ruburt was telepathically aware of the arrangement, though not at a conscious level. The smiling portrait that Jane saw was your work in a way. Ruburt was aware of the arrangement for the demonstration, but was also somewhat alarmed at the particular way you would choose to interpret the experience. The smiling portrait was to reassure her — Jane now rather than Ruburt. You sent the reassurance. Ruburt picked it up from Joseph. Do you follow me?