“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

In such a case, however, the shiftings still come from within. The active gestalt of the personality is indeed so complex, the actions that compose it are so intertwined, that only the deep, interior intuitions of the personality involved will ever come close to a complete understanding of the workings of the particular personality system.

Such understanding simply cannot follow logical lines. The intellect may indeed grasp some of this understanding from the intuitions, but the intellect itself is aware of only minute portions of the whole personality. Again, this is not meant to minimize the value of the intellect. The fact remains that answers sought by a personality can only be found through a traveling within the actions that compose the self. Within our last session, I explained some of the basic psychological heritage that resides within the action makeup of the personality. There is no escaping this heritage, and it is so important that without it the personality system could not be built up.

The very nature of the ego and of the personality is formed by the ability to choose between actions or stimuli; but life as it is not connected to a highly differentiated ego, rejoices in all stimuli, as sensation, whether it is pleasurable or painful, for these distinctions do not exist in your terms. In the beginning of our sessions I spoke in a general manner, for example, saying that trees and plant life had a consciousness, but not a developed ego system. The tree, therefore, is conscious of the pain connected with, say, the severing of a limb.

The personality exists in a diffused fashion within the physical system, and it therefore is most basically composed of those biological heritages, and those heritages that are a property of cellular structure, long preceding multicellular existence.

We have to some extent explained the reality of the personality within the electrical system. We have to some extent explained its basic origin within inner reality. We have explained the fact that the potentialities of the personality and of the self are basically unlimited. But during its alliance within the physical system, it is diffused within the cellular structure, and interrelating actions between the biological system, the electrical system, and the personality structure actually form the reality of the human individual.

(See the following sessions in Volume 3 for material on the electrical system: 122 to 128, 131, 135, among others, and 162, 164 in Volume 4.)

You cannot probe into the one system without affecting the others. It is basically meaningless to consider the personality as separate from the simultaneous actions of which it is composed. The personality, as you know, has also a reality within the dream universe. It should be obvious that in a most basic and practical manner the personality however is not involved with physical time to any degree. Only a part of the personality, the ego, is so involved. It is obvious of course that the personality system will react to stimuli that seem, to the ego, to be far divorced in time. That is, the personality may react to a stimuli in the present that occurred originally twenty years ago, to the ego’s understanding of time.

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.

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.

A very delicate network of imbalances is here maintained. The ego must not be too rigid, or too much a disciplinarian, or it ceases to speak for the whole personality, and becomes a warden, imprisoning the main expressive urges of the deeper self. It must not on the other hand be composed of too disorganized a system of actions, for in this case it is not capable of maintaining a consistent sense of identity or purpose, and is not strong enough to act in a magnetic manner, that will attract or hold the basic energies of the personality.

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.