“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Jane preferred that Seth simply start in where he had left off on the chapter — a feat I was sure he was quite capable of. “But I don’t care what he does,” she laughed, “as long as we have a session.” She was somewhat nervous because of the break in dictation, in spite of my reassurances. She was strongly interested in seeing that Seth finished his book, although she still has to read most of it.

(9:05.) Psychic or psychological identification is of great import here and is indeed at the heart of all such dramas. In one sense, you can say that man identifies with the gods he has himself created. Man does not understand the magnificent quality of his own inventiveness and creative power, however. Then, say that gods and men create each other, and you come even closer to the truth; but only if you are very careful in your definitions — for how, exactly, do gods and men differ?

The inner self alone, at rest, in meditation, can at times glimpse portions of these inner realities that cannot be physically expressed. These values, intuitions, or insights are given each to each according to his understanding, and so the stories told about them will often vary.

The third personality, mentioned many times by me, has not in your terms yet appeared, although his existence has been prophesied as the “Second Coming” (Matthew 24). Now these prophecies were given in terms of the current culture at that time, and therefore, while the stage has been set, the distortions are deplorable, for this Christ will not come at the end of your world as the prophecies have been maintaining.

(9:20.) He will not come to reward the righteous and send evildoers to eternal doom. He will, however, begin a new religious drama. A certain historical continuity will be maintained. As happened once before, however, he will not be generally known for who he is. There will be no glorious proclamation to which the whole world will bow. He will return to straighten out Christianity, which will be in a shambles at the time of his arrival, and to set up a new system of thought when the world is sorely in need of one.

(9:25.) By that time, all religions will be in severe crisis. He will undermine religious organizations — not unite them. His message will be that of the individual in relation to All That Is. He will clearly state methods by which each individual can attain a state of intimate contact with his own entity; the entity to some extent being man’s mediator with All That Is.

You may make a note here that Nostradamus saw the dissolution of the Roman Catholic Church as the end of the world. He could not imagine civilization without it, hence many of his later predictions should be read with this in mind.

Now there will be several born before that time who in various ways will rearouse man’s expectations. One such man has already been born in India, in a small province near Calcutta, but his ministry will seem to remain comparatively local for his lifetime.

He will lead man behind the symbolism upon which religion has relied for so many centuries. He will emphasize individual spiritual experience, the expansiveness of soul, and teach man to recognize the multitudinous aspects of his own reality.

(“There were three men whose lives became confused in history and merged, and whose composite history became known as the life of Christ…. Each was highly gifted psychically, knew of his role, and accepted it willingly. The three men were a part of one entity, gaining physical existence in one time. They were not born on the same date, however. There are reasons why the entity did not return as one person. For one thing, the full consciousness of an entity would be too strong for one physical vehicle. For another, the entity wanted a more diversified environment than could otherwise be provided.

Now Saul went to great lengths to set himself as a separate identity. His characteristics, for example, were seemingly quite different from those of the historical Christ. He was “converted” in an intense personal experience — a fact that was meant to impress upon him the personal and not organizational aspects. Yet some exploits of his in his earlier life have been attributed to Christ — not as a young man, but earlier.

Now he did not create them on his own, and thrust them upon historical reality. (Jane paused, a hand to her eyes.) He created them in so far as he found himself forced to admit certain facts: In that world at that time, earthly power was needed to hold Christian ideas apart from numberless other theories and religions, to maintain them in the middle of warring factions. It was his job to form a physical framework; and even then he was afraid that the framework would strangle the ideas, but he saw no other way.

Paul tried to deny knowing who he was, until his experience with conversion. Allegorically, he represented a warring faction of the self that fights against his own knowledge and is oriented in a highly physical manner. It seemed he went from one extreme to another, being against Christ and then for him. But the inner vehemence was always present, the inner fire, and the recognition that he tried for so long to hide.

His was the portion that was to deal with physical reality and manipulation, and so these qualities were strong in him. To some extent they overruled him. When the historical Christ “died,” Paul was to implement the spiritual ideas in physical terms, to carry on. In so doing, however, he grew the seeds of an organization that would smother the ideas. He lingered after Christ, [just] as John the Baptist came before. Together the three spanned some time period, you see.

John and the historical Christ each performed their roles and were satisfied that they had done so. Paul alone was left at the end unsatisfied, and so it is about his personality that the future Christ will form.

(10:27.) In the next century, the inner nature of man, with these developments, will free itself from many constraints that have bound it. A new era will indeed begin — not, now, a heaven on earth, but a far more sane and just world, in which man is far more aware of his relationship with his planet and of his freedom within time.

(1. Seth had intended the word zealot, as applied to Paul, to be descriptive of his temperament — not a reference to the Zealot sect. A note, added later: More was to come on Paul and the Zealots, though.

This personality will refer to the historical Christ, will recognize his relationship with that personality; but within him the three personality groupings will form a new psychic entity, a different psychological gestalt. As this metamorphosis takes place, it will initiate a metamorphosis on a human level also (emphatically), as man’s inner abilities are accepted and developed.

The results will be a different kind of existence. Many of your problems now result from spiritual ignorance. No man will look down upon an individual from another race when he himself recognizes that his own existence includes such membership also.

(10:55.) No sex will be considered better than the other, or any role in society, when each individual is aware of his own or her own experience at many levels of society and in many roles. An open-ended consciousness will feel its connections with all other living beings. (Pause.) The continuity of consciousness will become apparent. As a result of all this the social and governmental structures will change, for they are based upon your current beliefs.

Man’s experience will be so extended that to you the species will seem to have changed into another. This does not mean there will not be problems. It does mean that man will have far greater resources at his command. It also presupposes a richer and far more diverse social framework. Men and women will find themselves relating to their brethren, not only as the people that they are, but as the people that they were.

(Both of us were getting tired. We were also hungry, so we thought of ending the session and watching an old mystery or horror movie on TV while we had something to eat. Then I remembered that Seth hadn’t given headings for the first eight chapters of his book. He’d told us not to worry about this in Chapter Seventeen. Could he give the headings now, or would Jane have to go over that early material first? Impossible as it seemed, well over a year had passed since she had stopped reading the book, session by session, early in Chapter Four. Resume at 11:39.)