“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

A study of the correlations with their distortive effect would seem to yield entirely different data. Only an observer from without the three-field system of universes could judge that one action, and not three, had occurred. It will be simplest to discuss at first such correlations occurring within the dream universe, and the universe of matter, since the dream universe is closest to you in both psychic and electromagnetic terms.

As we progress and pick up the study of our dream universe once more, we will be involved also with the study of mental events as they occur within both systems. And because I am presently uninvolved within your system, it is possible for me to give instances as they occur of such mental actions, as they are perceived in both the universe of matter and the dream universe.

These acts are not only interpreted differently, they also of course have effects which are caused not only by the initial action but also by the distortive appearance of the action in a given system. The reaction to such a mental act is made not only to the act itself; but the reaction is made to the appearance of an initial act, as it is projected into the second system.

Its very appearance or projection into a second system, therefore, causes an apparent change in the act itself. To all effects and purposes such an action becomes a different one, while in actuality it is the same.

If you will again recall our material on the fifth dimension, you will see how this must be the case. It will be far more simple to see such a distortive effect of one mental action as it occurs in the dream and matter universes. In all such cases the mental action occurs simultaneously in all systems in which it will have a reality; in which it can be used as a reference point in other words.

All mental actions are not used as reference points in all systems. I will not go into the reasons for this now.

There may be the appearance of a time lapse of one kind or another between mental actions and their appearance or projection into other systems, but this is a distortive effect. Such distortive effects, such distortions, are often correlated within a given system, and accepted as a foundation for the nature of reality. And all further data is then accepted according to the easiness with which it can be accepted within this framework, the distortions being mistaken for the actuality behind them.

All systems, and this is a general statement, all systems are to some extent interinvolved. This applies to the smallest and the largest systems.

I have said and I will repeat: In fact, there are no closed systems. They may appear closed to those within, but they are not closed, and there are openings in what appear closed places. We will deal directly in our future dream material with specific mental actions, and with the different appearance of the actions in the dream and matter universes.

This will involve as much work as we have already done on the nature of matter, and will involve us further in that discussion. I must always pick up multitudinous threads as we go on, in order to make even one point clear. The habit, when it becomes vigorous, of trying to view your system from the outside will serve you greatly.

Keep in mind here, though a discussion will wait for quite a while, that a like relationship occurs between the dream universe and the world of negative matter. There is surrounding this threefold system an envelope, so to speak, of uncamouflaged psychic phenomena. In other words, psychic energy gestalts, of which we will speak much later. They are important however; and from what you now know you realize that these energy forms represent mental enclosure units, operating in the same manner as our earlier ones of which we spoke when discussing the early development of energy within the physical field.

These therefore for all intents and purposes close ranks, encompassing the three systems and accepting no further additions at this given time. As they evolve they may attract other energy forms, and build extensions to the system.

The inwardness, or inward energy which forms all these systems, is the inventive stabilizer; and yet in its search it ever creates new outlets that result in creative chaos, a lack of temporary balance which is then balanced. It is from the inwardness then, operating through its forms, that all innovations come, and from which the most seemingly unexpected developments can be expected.