“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

This study alone would involve an introduction into a knowledge of other fields of actuality. Biology has made many strides, but it must finally be concerned with that intangible which is behind all organisms, and it will be forced to the initiation of an entirely new field, along the lines of basic organic psychology. It will be forced to recognize the innate ability of all cells for what we may call telepathy, for there will be no other solution in answering many questions.

In the most simple of living structures telepathy is a necessity for communication, particularly before the inside energy is concentrated sufficiently to form any sort of more complicated pattern or nerve structure. Even when such nerve structures and physical complications are evolved telepathy operates, still a necessity as a communications system within the physical structure, and still handling data which cannot be carried through any physical medium, simply because it is untranslatable by its nature into physical materialization.

These points are all extremely important. Much will be said yet to clarify the term telepathy itself, since there are many types, which you should be able to see from what I have said. This in itself is a complicated subject, and yet when I am finished it will be shown that telepathy is an intimate, innate ability within all cells.

Now. On its simplest level, and this is hardly simple, but on its most basic level, what you call telepathy operates in the following manner.

Telepathy on this level is the intangible, nonmaterial communication of inner energy, or inside energy, to the physical materialization of itself within the physical field. This elementary telepathy is not the communication of thought as such, but is the communication of intent, desire and purpose. It is therefore the communication of inner energy to various still-forming aspects of itself, a blazing, so to speak, of invisible paths or bridges. And at the same time the laying down of these intangible paths serve as the inner framework over which or upon which future physical lines or structures will be laid.

You can perhaps now see where this so-called astral body has its origin and purpose. It is actually the intangible but actual framework formed by inner energy, about whose lines or, actually, reference points, the physical framework is constructed. Now. This sort of elementary telepathy has existed as a necessity since the first formation of inner energy into matter. Some of our past sessions, particularly those explaining the initial appearance of matter, will set you clear, and you will see that the explanations I gave you then would have to involve such elementary telepathic communication between cells.

As inner energy forms more complicated gestalts through the processes that I have earlier explained, then inner energy continues its communication with the physical matter that it creates about it. When inner energy desires to construct a more complicated gestalt, then it must telepathically communicate this intent and purpose through the matter which it collects about itself, forming a more complicated inner telepathic pattern first, that can then be filled in with physical matter. The manners in which telepathy operates are difficult to explain because of the divergence of definition held by the ego and by the inner self of any given individual. To the human being it must appear that telepathy is a mental or psychic communication occurring between two or more entirely separate selves. The ego, you see, has one definition for the self, and its own idea of the limitations of itself.

The ego considers itself the self, and considers anything outside of its self as being either nonself or another such separate identity, and so the individual man is led to believe that telepathy is basically a communication between two or more basically alone, separate and aloof selves. Telepathy does not operate at the level of the ego, although its actions may protrude into the domain of the ego. Telepathy operates within the inner self, within various levels, different levels of the subconscious, where the ideas of separation and limitations of self are not nearly so limiting.

The type of telepathy which is most commonly thought of as telepathy is of course not the elemental type of which I spoke earlier, but a different variety. This particular, more advanced telepathy could not and did not occur in its most complicated form until the development within your plane of psychically developed personalities. This development involved separations and concentrations of energy into self-conscious identities. This development was an advancement, yet this advancement led also to a separation and objectifying of consciousness, into dual segments of subject and object.

This may not be a very apt analogy, but the principles are sound behind the analogy. This is complicated to explain, and yet an explanation is sorely needed, for telepathy operates mainly when similarities and attractions are set up, when like attracts like; and not, as it would seem, when as it appears one alien or separate identity is connected with another.

What I am trying to get across here is that, because of the superficial studies done so far, it seems that telepathy operates with separateness because of the limitations set by the ego on the definition of self. It is the similarity, or sympathy, of those in telepathic communication that makes telepathy possible. The limited idea of the self held by the ego clouds and distorts the main issue, for the ego is not conscious of the underlying bonds of sympathy that serve to merge, momentarily, the identities involved.