“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(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?

(9:10.) Behind the actors in the dramas, there are more powerful entities who are quite beyond role-playing. The plays themselves, then, the religions that sweep across the ages — these are merely shadows, though helpful ones. Behind the frame of good and evil is a far deeper spiritual value. All religions, therefore, while trying to catch “truth” must to some large degree fear its ever eluding them.

For example, the main character in a religious historical drama may or may not consciously be aware of the ways in which such information is given to him. And yet it may seem to him that he does know, for the nature of a dogma’s origin will be explained in terms that this main character can understand. The historical Jesus knew who he was, but he also knew that he was one of three personalities composing one entity. To a large extent he shared in the memory of the other two.

(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.

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.

(“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.

(“The entity was born once as John the Baptist, and then he was born in two other forms. One of these contained the personality that most stories of Christ refer to…. I will tell you about the other personality at a later time. There was constant communication between these three portions of one entity, though they were born and buried at different dates. The race called up these personalities from its own psychic bank, from the pool of individualized consciousness that was available to it.”

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.

(Our discussion at break concerned several other points I thought readers might be interested in: One was the zealot designation Seth applied to Paul. At first I’d thought he was going to say there was a connection between Paul, or Saul, and the Zealots, one of the religious sects the Jewish people had been divided into in Judaea in the first century A.D. The Holy Land was occupied by the Romans then, and Paul was a Jew and a Roman citizen. I’d been reading about these sects recently in a book on the Dead Sea Scrolls, and had been somewhat puzzled by my interest in both the scrolls and the sects; but after hearing Seth tonight I assumed he wasn’t going to say much about these subjects.

As these changes come about, new areas will be activated in the brain to physically take care of them. Physically then, brain mappings will be possible in which past-life memories are evoked. All of these alterations are spiritual changes in which the meaning of religion will escape organizational bounds, become a living part of individual existence, and where psychic frameworks rather than physical ones form the foundations for civilization. (Pause, eyes closed, at 11:05.)

I am including this information in this chapter on religion because it is important that you realize that spiritual ignorance is at the basis of so many of your problems, and that indeed your only limitations are spiritual ones.

Now, mankind lacks such a focus. The third personality will represent that focus. There will be, incidentally, no crucifixion in that drama. That personality will indeed be multidimensional, aware of all its incarnations. It will not be oriented in terms of one sex, one color, or one race.