“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

In the same way in the midst of life, you dwell with so-called ghosts and apparitions, and for that matter you yourselves appear as apparitions to others, particularly when you send strong thought-forms of yourself from the sleep state, or even when unconsciously you travel out of your physical body.

There are obviously as many kinds of ghosts and apparitions as there are people. They are as alert or as unalert to their situation as you are to your own. They are not fully focused in physical reality, however, either in personality or in form, and this is their main distinction. Some apparitions are thought-forms sent by survival personalities out of lingering deep anxiety. They portray the same compulsive-type behavior that can be seen in many instances in your ordinary experience.

(9:44.) They are in themselves quite harmless. Only your interpretation of their actions can cause difficulties. Now in the middle of life, of life conditions, you also appear on occasion as ghosts in other levels of reality, where your “pseudoappearance” causes some comment and is the ground for many myths — and you are not even aware of this.

Now I am speaking generally. Again, there are exceptions where memory is retained, but as a rule ghosts and apparitions are not any more aware of their effect upon others than you are when you appear quite unconsciously as ghosts in worlds that would be quite strange to you.

There are other much easier methods. I have explained to some degree the way images are constructed out of an available field of energy. You perceive only your own constructions. If a “ghost” wants to contact you therefore, he can do so through telepathy, and you can yourself construct the corresponding image if you desire. Or the individual might send you a thought-form at the same time that he telepathically communicates with you. Your rooms are full now of thought-forms that you do not perceive; and again, you are as much a ghostly phenomenon now as you will be after death. You are simply not aware of the fact.

Some dead friends and relatives do visit you, projecting from their own level of reality into yours, but you cannot as a rule perceive their forms. They are not more ghostly, or “dead,” however, than you are when you project into their reality — as you do, from the sleep state.