“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

This is in itself an expression of the dualism of which I have spoken. Evolution does not of course apply only to the human species, and as I have said consciousness on your plane exists in all things. When your friend asked his question he was, I believe, referring to the point at which self-consciousness entered into so-called inert form.

You know now that so-called inert form has consciousness. To some degree it even possesses self-consciousness, and so there is no point at which self-consciousness entered, so to speak, with the sound of trumpets. Consciousness, to a degree, was inherent in the first materialization physically upon your plane.

Self-consciousness entered in very shortly after, but not what you are pleased to call human self-consciousness. I certainly do not like to wound your egos in this manner. However the fact remains, and I can hear you all yell foul, that there is no actual differentiation between the various types of self-consciousness.

You are either conscious of self or you are not. On your plane self-consciousness exists as a rule. A tree is conscious of itself as a tree. It does not think of itself as a rock. A dog knows it is not a cat. What I am trying to point out to you here is this supreme egotistical presumption that self-consciousness must of necessity involve humanity per se. It does not.

The beginnings of human consciousness, on the other hand, began as soon as multicellular groupings began to form in field patterns of a certain complexity. While there was no specific point of entry as far as human consciousness was concerned, there was a point before which human consciousness as such did not exist. Self-consciousness did exist. The consciousness of being human in your terms was fully developed in the caveman, but—and I cannot emphasize this enough—the human conception was alive in the fish.

All this involved an idea of, and I hesitate to say advancement, but an idea of change along certain lines. We have spoken of mental genes. These are more or less psychic blueprints for physical matter, and in these mental genes existed the pattern for your human type of self-consciousness. It did not appear constructed, that is in constructed form, for a long period of physical time however, and we have discussed psychological time as being part of what I will call for now an inner time sense.

This human self-consciousness existed in psychological time and in inner time long before you as a species constructed it in terms of your particular camouflage patterns. For your friend’s sake I will simplify this, saying that human consciousness was inherent and latent from the beginning of your physical universe.

Indeed like you, my dear Joseph. In your case, Joseph, and I have said this many times, you overcompensate now for past, shall I say fleshiness, by a most unnecessary esthetic and self-punishing attitude. Philip on the other hand is performing no such compensations, except for the one instance of choosing a good-looking wife and therefore permitting himself to treat her kindly.

There is behind the ego a stronger and more vivid self. There is even a more self-conscious self of which he remains in ignorance. And again as I have said, evidence for this self can be and will be received.

I am not saying that you should not believe the evidence of your senses; I am waiting for you to say that. We know that our so-called tables are not solid. Even your science knows this now, and yet your eyes see the table as solid. Face up to it, my dear lovelies: Your senses lie. The table is a conglomeration of quickly-moving atoms and molecules but you see it as a table, and you see it as solid. Your senses, and again this is to bring John-Philip up to date, your senses are perceptors of a camouflage physical world which is created by the inner self through the use of mental enzymes in a pattern set by the mental genes.

Had you been more helpful in the circumstances of last evening, you would not have had to turn your emotions inward in a self-destructive manner. I am so fond of you, my pigheaded Joseph, that it pains me severely to see you so misuse yourself. And as for towering-strength Ruburt, don’t depend upon this too far, for a weaker tower of strength I have never seen.

Ruburt picked up some communications from me last night. One which he did not get clearly was that you can take some consolation in the fact that your whole self is not as deeply affected by your present parents as you would suppose, and I promise to help you attain further important freedoms from any bad influences along this line, in a manner that will still allow you to help them without hurting yourself.