“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The atoms that compose the fetus have their own kind of consciousness. The volatile awareness-consciousnesses that exist independently of matter, form matter according to their ability and degree. The fetus, therefore, has its own consciousness, the simple component consciousness made up of the atoms that compose it. This exists before any reincarnating personality enters it. The consciousness of matter is present in any matter — a fetus, a rock, a blade of grass, a nail.

The reincarnating personality enters the new fetus according to its own inclinations, desires, and characteristics, with some built-in safeguards. However there is no rule, then, saying that the reincarnating personality must take over the new form prepared for it either at the point of conception, in the very earliest months of the fetus’s growth, or even at the point of birth.

(Pause at 9:32.) Various methods of entry are adopted. If there is a strong relationship between the parents and the child-to-be, then the personality may enter at the point of conception if he is extremely anxious to rejoin them. Even here, however, large portions of self-awareness continue to operate in the between-life dimension.

Some personalities are drawn to enter at conception as a result of seemingly less worthy motives — greed, for example, or an obsessional desire that is partially composed of unresolved problems. Other personalities who never completely take to earthly existence may hold off full entry for some time, and even then always remain at a certain distance from the body. At the other end of the scale, before death the same applies, where some individuals remove their focus from physical life, leaving the body consciousness alone. Others stay with the body until the last moment. In the early days of infancy, there is not a steady focus of the personality in the body in any case.

Now: In all cases the decisions have been made ahead of time, as I told you. The reincarnating personality is aware, therefore, when the conception for which it has been waiting takes place. And while it may or may not choose to enter at that point, it is drawn irresistibly to that time and point in space and flesh.

Until the new personality enters, the fetus regards itself as a part of the organism of the mother. This support is suddenly denied at birth. If the new personality has not entered earlier to any full extent, it usually does so at birth, in order to stabilize the new organism. It comforts the new organism, in other words. The new personality, therefore, will experience birth to varying degrees according to when it has entered this dimension.

When it enters at the point of birth, it is fairly independent, not yet identified with the form it has entered, and acting in a supportive role. If the personality entered at conception or sometime before birth, then it has to some extent identified with the body consciousness, with the fetus. It has already begun to direct perception — though perception has begun whether or not it is so directed — and it will experience the shock of birth in immediate, direct terms.

(10:19.) There will be no distance between the personality and the experience of birth, then. The newly entered personality, as a consciousness, flickers, in that there is a while before stabilization takes place. When the child, particularly the young child, is sleeping, for example, the personality often simply vacates the body. Gradually the identification with the between-life situation dwindles until nearly full focus resides in the physical body.

Those mentioned earlier who enter at the point of conception are usually highly anxious for physical existence. They will, therefore, be more fully developed and show their individual characteristics very early. They seize upon the new body and already mold it. The control over matter is vigorous, and they usually stay within the body, dying either in accidents where death is immediate or in sleep or with a disease that strikes quickly. They are manipulators of matter as a rule.

As a rule, now, those who do not enter your plane of existence until the point of birth are less able manipulators in those particular terms. They are the mean, if such a term can be used, the mean or average.

It is almost impossible to speak of when the personality enters the physical body without discussing the ways in which it leaves it, for all this is highly dependent upon personal characteristics and attitudes toward physical reality. Decisions as to future lives may be made not only in between-life conditions but also in dream states in any given life.