“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(This afternoon Jim Tennant, who was scheduled to be a witness tonight, called Jane at the gallery and told her he would be unable to attend the session because his wife is in the hospital.

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.

Man, staying within the core of his arbitrarily designated selfhood, can in truth be compared to early physical man, cowering within his cave. You have learned to venture forth into the physical universe. You have not learned to venture forth from an arbitrarily designated selfhood, into an extended environment that knows no space or time. Such a possibility, such a future development in no way involves a denial of self, a dissolving or sweeping away of self, an annihilation of self. Many cavemen doubtlessly feared for their personal survival when they ventured forth upon the earth in daylight.

This arbitrary limitation set upon the individual self is put upon it by its reliance upon the outer senses, as a method of perceiving reality. The outer senses are excellent tools of perception for limited circumstances. However, man has relied upon them so long, and with such cringing dependence, that now they threaten to hamper his own growth and development.

The various species and the multitudinous varieties of life in your universe could with much validity be compared to cells, organs, or limbs of some gigantic creature. There is no reason to feel that man is insignificant, or that the individual is impotent or at the mercy of forces he can neither perceive nor comprehend. To the contrary, the individual, any individual, is supremely important, necessary; and his, or even its, ability to use its energy constructively, but most of all to expand in terms of value fulfillment, is more vital than I can say.

(I was now most interested in taking some measurements from both Jane and myself while our hands felt this way, as Bill Macdonnel had helped me do in the 47th session, when we found definite physical evidence of finger enlargement. Not being able to do this at the moment however, I did recall Seth’s very definite statements in the 49th session, page 63, concerning his most conservative attitude toward demonstrations.)

(Also, glimpse of teen-age boy in light clothing and sneakers trying to crack some walnuts on a painted wood floor by stamping down on them energetically with his left foot. I heard or felt the thump of his foot on the floor. 3/4 back view of full figure. It might be noted that today while in a grocery store I noticed some walnuts, for some reason; ordinarily do not pay attention to them.