“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Good evening.

(“Good evening, Seth.”)

Such religious dramas focus, direct, and, hopefully, clarify aspects of inner reality that need to be physically represented. (Long pause, eyes closed.) These do not only appear within your own system. Many are also projected into other systems of reality. Religion per se, however, is always the external facade of inner reality. The primary spiritual existence alone gives meaning to the physical one. In the most real terms, religion should include all of the pursuits of man in his search for the nature of meaning and truth. Spirituality cannot be some isolated, specialized activity or characteristic.

Exterior religious dramas are important and valuable only to the extent that they faithfully reflect the nature of inner, private spiritual existence. To the extent that a man feels that his religion expresses such inner experience, he will feel it valid. Most religions per se, however, set up as permissible certain groups of experiences while denying others. They limit themselves by applying the principles of the sacredness of life only to your own species, and often to highly limited groups within it.

The Hebrews conceived of an overseer god, an angry and just and sometimes cruel god; and many sects denied, then, the idea that other living beings beside man possessed inner spirits. The earlier beliefs represented a far better representation of inner reality, in which man, observing nature, let nature speak and reveal its secrets.

(9:45.) The Hebrew god, however, represented a projection of a far different kind. Man was growing more and more aware of the ego, of a sense of power over nature, and many of the later miracles are presented in such a way that nature is forced to behave differently than in its usual mode. God becomes man’s ally against nature.

The early Hebrew god became a symbol of man’s unleashed ego. God behaved exactly as an enraged child would, had he those powers, sending thunder and lightning and fire against his enemies, destroying them. Man’s emerging ego therefore brought forth emotional and psychological problems and challenges. The sense of separation from nature grew. Nature became a tool to use against others.

Sometime before the emergence of the Hebrew god these tendencies were apparent. In many ancient, now-forgotten tribal religions, recourse was also made to the gods to turn nature against the enemy. Before this time, however, man felt a part of nature, not separated from it. It was regarded as an extension of his being, as he felt an extension of its reality. One cannot use oneself as a weapon against oneself in those terms. (Pause.)

In those times men spoke and confided to the spirits of birds, trees, and spiders, knowing that in the interior reality beneath, the nature of these communications was known and understood. In those times, death was not feared as it is in your terms, now, for the cycle of consciousness was understood.

Man desired in one way to step out of himself, out of the framework in which he had his psychological existence, to try new challenges, to step out of a mode of consciousness into another. He wanted to study the process of his own consciousness. In one way this meant a giant separation from the inner spontaneity that had given him both peace and security. On the other hand, it offered a new creativity, in his terms.

Man tried to form a new realm, attain a different kind of focus and awareness. His consciousness turned a corner outside of itself. To do this he concentrated less and less upon inner reality, and therefore began the process of inner reality only as it was projected outward into the physical world.

Before, the environment was effortlessly created and perceived by man and all other living things, knowing the nature of their inner unity. In order to begin this new venture, it was necessary to pretend that this inner unity did not exist. Otherwise the new kind of consciousness would always run back to its home for security and comfort. So it seemed that all bridges must be cut, while of course it was only a game because the inner reality always remained. The new kind of consciousness simply had to look away from it to maintain initially an independent focus.

(10:24.) God, therefore, became an idea projected outward, independent of the individual, divorced from nature. He became the reflection of man’s emerging ego, with all of its brilliance, savagery, power, and intent for mastery. The adventure was a highly creative one despite the obvious disadvantages, and represented an “evolution” of consciousness that enriched man’s subjective experience, and indeed added to the dimensions of reality itself.

To be effectively organized, however, inner and outer experience had to appear as separate, disconnected events. Historically the characteristics of God changed as man’s ego changed. These characteristics of the ego, however, were supported by strong inner changes.

We’ll have a good chapter.

The inner self is in a state of constant growth. The inner portion of each man, therefore, projected this knowledge outward. The need, the psychological and spiritual need of the species, demanded both interior and exterior alterations of great import. Qualities of mercy and understanding that had been buried could now surface. Not only privately but en masse they surged up, adding a new impetus and giving a natural “new” direction — beginning to call all portions of the self, as it knew itself, together.

(10:45.) Behind all faces there is one face, yet this does not mean that each man’s face is not his own. The further religious drama of which I have spoken, in your terms still to come, represents another stage in both the internal and external dramas in which the emergent ego becomes aware of much of its heritage. While maintaining its own status, it will be able to have much greater commerce with other portions of the self, and also to offer to the inner self opportunities of awareness that the inner self on its own could not procure.

The journeys of the gods, therefore, represent the journeys of man’s own consciousness projected outward. All That Is, however, is within each such adventure. Its consciousness, and its reality, is within each man, and within the gods he has created. That last is in small letters, and gods shall always be in small letters. All That Is is capitalized.

(10:55. The pace had been consistently fast, and my writing hand felt it. As Seth had promised, it was a good chapter. Jane said she could feel him pause briefly at times to make sure that she chose just the right word while delivering the material. She would still be in trance, she said, and even speaking, but Seth would wait. Yet she didn’t remember any of the material at break. Resume at 11:08, with the air conditioner still on.)

Now: Such an alliance sets up certain fields of attraction. A man who attaches himself to one of the gods is necessarily attaching himself largely to his own projections. Some, in your terms, are creative, and some destructive, though the latter are seldom recognized as such.

Let me take this moment to state again that there are no devils or demons, except as you create them out of your belief. As mentioned earlier, good and evil effects are basically illusions. In your terms all acts, regardless of their seeming nature, are a part of a greater good. I am not saying that a good end justifies what you would consider an evil action. While you still accept the effects of good and evil, then you had better choose the good.

They represent, however, deep unities that you do not understand. Your conception of good and evil results in large part from the kind of consciousness you have presently adopted. You do not perceive wholes, but portions. The conscious mind focuses with a quick, limited, but intense light, perceiving from a given field of reality only certain “stimuli.” It then puts these stimuli together, forming the liaison of similarity. Anything that it does not accept as a portion of reality, it does not perceive.

In your terms, the ideas of good and evil help you recognize the sacredness of existence, the responsibility of consciousness. The ideas of opposites also are necessary guide lines for the developing ego. The inner self knows quite well the unity that exists.

I bid you a fond good evening; and (with smiling emphasis) we were in great form last evening.

(“You certainly were. Thank you, Seth, and good night.”