“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

This can work, and should work, to your advantage. However when there is a distortion, as when an ulcer is created, then we begin what can indeed be a vicious circle, for the idea and the reality of the ulcer is then accepted as part of the self-image. And as such it is then more or less automatically recreated.

It may indeed sound like an oversimplification. However, you are exactly what you think you are, and every thought is mirrored in the physical matter of the human organism. This does not happen by some sort of occult magic. It is not the result of some mumbo jumbo. Since each individual creates subconsciously the physical matter of his own image, then it follows that the condition of this image is his own responsibility.

And that which you have constructed, you then respond to through the outer senses, and you react to what you have subconsciously created. It is important that these matters be understood when you are concerned with how to change or alter a physical condition, for the change will come from within or it will not come.

With your outer senses, you perceive but the camouflage physical reality which the physical senses are equipped to perceive. In the dream universe you are however free, and familiar, with both space and time in a manner which is denied you in the waking state. Where indeed are your dream locations? Where in space is the street upon which you walk in a dream?

The location does not exist within your physical system, but the dream location is a reality. It is a superimposed value which you have created, and which is valid and vivid. A dream unfolds. Miles may appear before your inner vision. Are then these miles contained within your head? Are these miles contained within the small skull? Obviously not. But here we are closer to that reality which is beyond space as you know it.

You may in a dream experience two or three hours in a flash of physical time. You have not aged two or three hours. The experience of space and time within the dream universe comes very close to the pure expression of the inner self. For here, free from the ego, the self is relieved of the necessity of constructing ideas into physical reality.

This we have called the value climate of psychological reality. It is what you may consider your counterpart of physical space. After a short break, we will discuss then your misconceptions concerning space, for you will see that your idea of space is the result of your own physical perceptions. Where you can perceive nothing, you presume to call empty space, but where you perceive nothing there is much.

(The value climate of psychological reality has been designated by Seth as the first of the basic laws of the inner universe, and was first discussed in the 44th session, in Volume 2.

There are perspectives of reality which you yet do not understand. You should understand clearly the ways in which you create these physical images, for they need not imprison you as they often do.

Speaking earlier concerning the dream universe, there are many things I left of necessity unsaid. I was saying that any dream location exists in actuality, when you experience it in a perspective which has nothing to do with your idea of space, but which has a depth and a reality at least as valid.

The ego cannot make your heart beat. Why then do you find it difficult to believe that you are more than the ego, for in dreams you meet portions of yourself. You construct realities, and you are indeed familiar with the dream universe that consciously you ignore. And your experience within the dream universe is as vivid and as valid and as real, in every respect, as your waking experience.

You shut off stimuli to concentrate on other stimuli. This is a simplified example of how in the dream state you shut out stimuli usually accepted by the ego, and become conscious of other realities that you usually ignore in the waking state.

I do not want to give you too many details too quickly. The inner ego, however, you may think of as another face that looks inward. We are using an analogy, and an analogy that is for simplicity’s sake only. We may say therefore, starting from the outer environment, that you would have first of all what you consider the ego, which I will call the outer ego.

The following basic subjects are necessary for an understanding of what we are trying to say, particularly for any practical application: the construction of physical matter; the psychological and electrical gestalt that results in the formation of a self; the nature of the dream universe; the electrical system, as it is related to both the physical universe and the inner psychic gestalt; the nature of action; mental enclosures; mental genes; and again, all of these subjects in relationship to their reality as action.

It is imperative, first of all, that the following be understood. We are dealing with words. Words involve us necessarily with symbols, and symbols are merely terms for what you do not understand. Everything, whether—

A thought is an action. A dream is as much an action as a breath is an action. Although we speak in terms of separation, all reality is a part of action. When we divide action in order to discuss it, we in no way change the reality of action, nor alter its nature.

Actions have an electrical reality. Your outer senses do not perceive electrical realities of this nature. Nevertheless, you are a gestalt of electrical actions. Within the physical matter of your chromosomes there are electrically coded systems. These are not the chromosomes themselves. The chromosomes are the physical materialization of the inner electrical data.

There is, in no circumstance, any closed system. Action therefore flows within all systems and realities. Your physical senses are therefore adapted to deal with a particular camouflage system. They are therefore only equipped to perceive the realities within the physical camouflage field.

This does not, however, mean that this is the only reality. It is simply the only reality that you perceive with the physical senses. In order to perceive other realities, you must therefore switch from your outer senses to the inner senses, for the inner senses are clearer, and are equipped to perceive action and reality as it exists independently of the distortions given to it by the physical senses.

For, because you perceive reality in a limited fashion only, this in no way affects the basic nature of reality itself. The ego attempts to stand apart from action, to view action as the result of ego. However, again, the ego’s attempt to stand apart from action in no way changes the basic nature of action itself, and the ego merely limits its own perception.

(Finally, we sat in the living room and Jane once more began to speak for Seth. I had put my notebook away and did not get it. Jane sat on the couch and I leaned back in a comfortable chair. Her eyes were closed, her voice quiet. The short session was somewhat like a conversation between Seth and me, although I did not ask too many questions. What follows is a summary, made up from memory immediately after the session ended. Resume at 11:45 PM.)