“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

As a rule, secondary personalities are given their energy as a direct result, so to speak, of a too-rigorous and rejecting ego. In many, though not all instances, such a secondary personality may represent simply the whole personality’s quite healthy attempts at expression that have been too long denied. You get a regrouping of unifying principle actions, and a division of energies about two different ego systems.

It should be obvious that in Ruburt’s case no such habitual rejections by his ego have backed up in this manner. The secondary personality, however, is of course a reality in many circumstances. It can be considered as an impeding action in the same manner that an illness can be considered, but its overall value, or detrimental effects must be judged, again, as with an illness, on the overall service or disservice which it performs for the whole personality.

Without such a secondary regrouping of actions for example, a much more serious open breakage, a deep personality cleavage, might in some cases result. In some cases the secondary personality is, again, an emergency measure that will eventually tide the whole personality over, allow for the expression of actions before their explosion completely disrupts the personality system; and then the secondary personality structure may be dispensed with for all practical purposes, to be recalled however upon another emergency.

In such a case the secondary personality may represent the best of the available alternatives that can be practically taken by the personality to maintain itself. The impeding action, then, would have a survival value.

In some cases of course the secondary personality would be a severely impeding one, stealing away the main energies. However, it must be understood that from the whole personality’s viewpoint, a strong ego, that is a dependable one, and one that will also allow necessary expression, is a necessity. Therefore from the standpoint of the whole personality, the adoption of a new ego, so to speak, with a more practical grouping of unifying principles, could be the best solution of the previous ego, the previously dominant ego, (if it) had been an incapable one.

In this case the so-called secondary personality would express the whole personality to better advantage, and actually reinforce its permanence and identity. After your break, we will discuss the purposes of the ego to some degree.

The basic personality would be fearful of such communications, knowing instinctively the weakness of the ego. The ego would be extremely insecure. On the other hand, the personality would almost welcome a strong organizing force, regardless of its source, and could tend to latch onto it as much as possible. A study of secondary personalities is most fascinating, since such a study would give you an excellent idea of the manner in which the ego in general is formed, for it is but a unity of energy under auspices of the strongest actions characteristic within the given personality system.

These energies are naturally drawn from within the whole personality. What is not generally recognized is the fact that the ego itself constantly changes. It is only when the change is unusually vivid, and definitely perceivable, that you speak of secondary personalities. But the main characteristic drives of any given personality shift continually; for all its attempts in the opposite direction, the ego must change just to exist, and its very permanence is dependent upon its flexibility.