“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

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.

In these continuous exterior religious dramas, the Hebrews played a strange role. Their idea of one god was not new to them. Many ancient religions held the belief of one god above all others. This god above all others was a far more lenient god, however, than the one the Hebrews followed. Many tribes believed, quite rightly, in the inner spirit that pervades each living thing. And they often referred to, say, the god in the tree, or the spirit in the flower. But they also accepted the reality of an overall spirit, of which these lesser spirits were but a part. All worked together harmoniously.

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.)

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.

(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.

(Slower now): All of this material now given must be considered along with the fact that beneath these developments there are the eternal aspects and creative characteristics of a force that is both undeniable and intimate. All That Is, in other words, represents the reality from which all of us spring. (Pause, one of several.) All That Is, by its nature, transcends all dimensions of activity, consciousness, or reality, while being a part of each.

(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.

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.

The effect of opposites results, then, from a lack of perception. Since you must operate within the world as you perceive it, then the opposites will appear to be conditions of existence. These elements have been isolated for a certain reason, however. You are being taught, and you are teaching yourselves to handle energy, to become conscious cocreators with All That Is, and one of the “stages of development” or learning processes includes dealing with opposites as realities.