“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

A confident ego is indeed a prerequisite for psychic venturing, for it is only the confident ego which ultimately feels secure enough to give leeway to the inner self in the long run.

For safety’s sake a firm relationship between the ego and its environment should be considered a prerequisite for serious or extensive psychic investigation. The ego must have something to come back to. This is extremely important.

Legitimate, balanced psychic journeyings will result in a beneficial effect as far as the ego and its ability to handle its concerns are involved; and whenever such journeyings or investigations result in a lessening of egotistic control over circumstance then anyone so involved should instantly ask himself questions, and abruptly halt.

I do not speak here of acquaintances who do not understand the importance of psychic investigation. I speak now of the ego’s ability to handle itself. And psychic investigation will, and should, increase that ability if it is properly begun, and if the ego is properly related to the physical environment.

This discipline however should be followed rigorously only with a program of ego orientation, in which the ego tries to discipline itself in the most difficult manner, for this particular personality, toward freedom. He should express himself when he feels a diverse opinion, when he feels wronged. It is only when aggressions are unexpressed that they are dangerous, and the repressed rage will hold back the desired psychic development. Even chemically such anger causes reactions that will make desired states of being difficult to achieve.

The personality also contains good intellectual capacities, and he should examine psychic experience in the light of his intelligence also. There are truths which the intellect cannot perceive, but the intellect knows the ego, and represents a firm and reliable pathway between the inner self and the ego; and psychic experience—I repeat, psychic experience—will not suffer from such scrutiny.

A steady program, such as I have outlined, because of its conditioning routine, will allow the personality a progressive and safe entry into psychic experience that is firm, and will also strengthen the ego in its relation to environment. This is not to suggest that the ego is weak in this case, for it is not. But its ability to relate to others on the physical plane needs strengthening, particularly since the personality is vitally concerned with psychic investigation.