“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The cells and molecules, forming their psychic gestalt into a particular human physical structure, are separated from what you might call the outer environment, and yet they are also connected to the outer environment more than they are separated from it. It is the inner ego, and the inner vitality and the inner ego’s determination, along with the cooperation of all the cells that compose the physical body, that enables such a particular structure as the human body to exist as a separate construction, and to maintain the necessary sense of identity.

In actuality, since all atoms and molecules possess the potentiality to form in so many varieties, and since the atoms and molecules possess their own generalized consciousness, there is basically a strong inner cohesion and relationship between all cells and molecules, regardless of their patterned structural formation, and the human structure is connected to all other such psychio-physical constructions.

The important point here is that identity cohesion is projected upon the human physical structure from within, that is, from the inner ego by way of the inner senses. This of course includes the consciousness also, that is inherent in the separate molecules and atoms that compose the cells.

The fact remains that the outer senses induce a conscious focusing along certain limited lines, grouping perceptions and comprehensions in a narrow fashion, and limiting the practical and imaginative range that consciousness might otherwise take. With these sessions you are yourselves broadening the range of your own consciousness, and therefore of your own abilities, with my help.

Yet you are more limited than this by far. It is important for the race of men now to begin to use and experiment with the inner senses, since for the potentialities of humanity to be fully realized, new concepts must arise which cannot arise in the limited scope he now permits himself. Because the cells and molecules in general have consciousness, because they contain within themselves a capsule comprehension of the universe as a whole, and because they contain the ability to form into an almost infinite variety of form, there is a kinship between every atom and molecule, a basic enduring connection, regardless of the separate appearance which is seen using the outer senses.

Here we run into something that will be difficult for me to explain to you. Any particular self theoretically could expand his consciousness to contain the universe and everything in it. The closed-in, solitary, isolated self of which you are so proud is, as I have said, an arbitrary formation, containing the core of identity; and you seem to prefer, psychically speaking, to stay at home.

They feared that their selves would be annihilated. Such a development as we are considering involves instead an expansion or extension; in the same manner that the expanding universe takes up no space, but expands in terms of value fulfillment, so the expanding consciousness would take up no space, but would also expand in terms of value fulfillment. This is your new frontier, your new challenge.

I have mentioned that the individual cells and molecules, atoms and other basic structures, definitely gain in their formation into the gestalt of a more complicated structure, being able to participate in experiences and value fulfillments that would otherwise not be possible for them in their own simpler isolated form. This is of prime importance.

When you realize that the self has no boundaries, then you can begin to make progress. Since consciousness to begin with does not exist in space, then there is no reason why the consciousness cannot so expand beyond its set limitations, and theoretically continue to do so. Such an expansion would give excellent impetus and value experience to those basic components, the cells and molecules, experience that would be retained and utilized. When so-called space travel becomes truly popular, truly practical, it will come along these lines.

The self will truly utilize the atoms and molecules; the consciousness will travel by this method. The particular physical body will then be known for what it is: a cooperative psychic gestalt, a psychio-physical structure formed together by the inner ego, utilizing atoms and molecules that are in themselves living and conscious.

We will be deliberate for a moment to get this material through, since I know it is difficult for you. I want to make these points to lead up to the main one. Consciousness comes first, and forms the physical body in ways that I have described. Nevertheless there are no real boundaries that separate self from nonself.

In the beginning entry to your plane requires a simple energy unit, a sperm, a simple but potent capsule that contains all the future potentiality. After entry into your plane, the self or identity, the consciousness, without any physical act, can leave the physical body, expand, travel through the medium of atoms and molecules, and completely reassemble.

(Later, Jane told me that as she was delivering this material aloud, she also contained within another parallel channel of thought from Seth, as she often does. This time she was quite aware of Seth’s concern lest anyone, upon reading this section of the material, commit suicide in a misguided effort to prove that it is possible for the consciousness to get along without the physical body. Jane said that at times she is aware of as many as three separate, parallel streams of thought, at the same time as she is giving voice to one of them.)

This seems strange because you do not fully comprehend that the energy, the vitality that is individualized into consciousness forms the physical body; and once it appears on your plane it can leave the body and reassemble itself. It would represent no more in one way to the atoms and molecules through which it passed, than the wind that passes through the treetops.

But as the mind represents, and it does, motion and excitement to the trees, so would the consciousness, as it rustled through the cells and molecules of so-called space, represent refreshing experience and momentary new satisfactions.

The consciousness, with its source in the inner universe, being not bound by time or space, is in a position to expand along the lines that I have mentioned. The physical body in a large degree is not. Do not mistake me. For practical purposes, theory aside, you could not maintain allegiance to your plane, live out a normal life span for example (and this is necessary) while separate from the physical body.

Nevertheless, you can leave the physical body and reassemble it. I am sorry to say that if you have a bad gall bladder, the reassembled body will also have a bad gall bladder, since it is the consciousness who has caused the illness to begin with. Even if you leave the body momentarily you do not leave your problems behind, or at least you must come back to them.

There is a temporary and initial, barely perceivable enlargement, a deep pulsing in the manner of a beating forth of cells and molecules—actually a sort of pulsation resulting in a minute but definite enlargement of tissue. You experience this in slow motion. Completed, the process would represent what would appear to be a propulsion of consciousness or self from the tissues.

Now. Since the identity-consciousness is composed of the combined and cooperating generalized consciousness of all the body’s atoms and molecules, and the consciousness of the inner ego, these molecular consciousnesses that once or initially found expression in forming their physical construction, no longer do so; but are competent to do so again when the self-consciousness so demands.

The combined molecular consciousnesses, retaining identity, form a gestalt consciousness that is the ego, the outer ego, that is in turn utilized by the consciousness of the inner ego. The inner ego being unhampered by the laws of your plane, once having entered your plane at physical birth, can therefore leave the physical body and then reconstruct it.

Since the conscious ego is composed of the gestalt molecular consciousness, then when it leaves the physical body it takes the molecular consciousness with it, and this molecular consciousness is therefore present to aid in future construction. However, since you must deal with physical laws while dwelling upon the physical plane, you cannot dispense entirely with the physical constructions, but in such extensions of consciousness you must utilize other physical molecules and atoms.