“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(In Volume 1 of The Early Sessions this sensation, as I call it, is dealt with following Session 23, in Session 24, and following Session 25, among others. I have experienced it frequently during psychological time since then. It is much richer and more varied than the more usual thrilling one notes upon a moving occasion. In the above instance, the initial source of the sensation appeared to stem from outside the body, and the waves against my ears had a tangible, solid quality that is difficult to describe.

There is one small point I wanted to mention this evening, merely for future reference: We have hardly begun any thorough study of the dream universe, and have dealt with it mainly in connection with other discussions. We will however discuss it in detail, and we will use dreams from your own notebooks as examples in this study.

Suggestion is therefore one of the characteristics of action. The term suggestion is a poor one. As it operates within your system, and within the human personality, the word expectation is a much better term. Nevertheless, expectation is only one phase, for the same kind of inner directive activity is pertinent within all forms of action.

The integration of the whole personality as a psychological unit, and as an effective psychic gestalt, is obviously dependent upon the free and unimpeded flow of action. Any impediments here can be most threatening to the integrity of the personality itself, for one aspect of the personality would benefit at the expense of other aspects.

The inner self here, through intuitive insight, can usually recognize whether an action is an impeding or a constructive one for the purposes of the personality involved. Even an action which appears blatantly as an impeding action, may temporarily serve as a constructive one. It may then turn into an impeding action.

We will discuss what you call suggestion in more practical terms, for your particular uses. Nevertheless it is necessary that its basic nature be understood. The ego simply cannot judge, as a rule, whether an action is a constructive or an impeding one, for the personality as a whole.

It can judge whether an action is a constructive or an impeding one for itself. Upon many occasions the purposes of the ego coincide with the purposes of the whole personality, but upon many occasions the purposes of the ego do not coincide with the best purposes of the whole personality. And in such cases the ego is not equipped to judge, except for itself.

You can indeed to a large measure train yourself to react to constructive rather than impeding suggestions. This merely means that you will, or may to some extent, choose the direction in which action within you will move. This also implies that some part of the personality does the choosing, and is capable of distinguishing a constructive suggestion from an impeding one. And here it is necessary that we discuss more thoroughly the nature or characteristics of constructive suggestions versus impeding ones, for one may turn into the other.

No one portion of the personality should be allowed to block the free flow of energy or action. Impeding actions are easily recognized by their effects, psychological or physical, upon the human system. An illness is the result of an impeding action, generally speaking, but there are exceptions to this case, as others.

When the personality is well integrated, then even when it operates as a separate unit the ego still fulfills the basic purposes of the personality as a whole. It is the communication between the very areas of the self which is so important here, as in many other matters. It is possible for the ego to realize its position as but one part of the whole personality, while it still behaves in a directive manner toward physical manipulation.

For all actions merge one into the other, and none are truly independent; and all units merge one into the other, and all boundaries shift, and are arbitrarily chosen. Boundaries are the results of the limitations of perception, for a unit seems to end where perception of it ceases.