“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Some of these states take place above the ego or the subconscious, although I am using the terms above or below simply for your convenience. Youthink of the ego as the center of the self, therefore I am forced to use these terms. You think the other portions of the personality revolve about the ego.

The ego is only one layer of the self that has self-consciousness. Being self- conscious, the ego attempts to be conscious only of itself. Self-consciousness results in an intense, but necessarily limited focus. It necessitates boundaries. It depends upon some sort of inner psychological decision as to what will be considered self, and therefore accepted by consciousness, and that which will be considered notself, and not accepted by consciousness.

Now, my dear friends, your self-consciousness is the self-consciousness of the ego which you know, and which you consider your self. But where this self -conscious self ends, another self-conscious self begins. The two selves, being self-conscious selves, cannot be aware of any reality but their own.

They cannot be consciously aware of each other. Now the ego interprets all it perceives mainly in terms of its self. Other portions of the self, also self- conscious, interpret what they perceive in terms of themselves.

Each layer, or each area of the whole self, imagines that it is the center of awareness, and that the whole self revolves about it. So far you have had little experience with these other “centers”—you may put that in quotation marks—but before too long we shall give you some ideas so that you may become at least slightly acquainted. Initially this will be done through suggestion on a subconscious level.

Now. You have become somewhat aware of the subconscious. This means that your ego has enlarged its conception of the self, of itself, to include certain activities of which it is now aware. Progress in the development of personality in the long run will be determined by the ability of the whole self to recognize and become aware of all of its self-conscious portions.

The subconscious is a self-conscious portion of the whole self. It is called subconscious because the ego as a rule is not conscious of it.

The subconscious, so-called, is aware to some extent of the ego, regarding it as an extension of itself, over which it does not have as much control as it would like. This is precisely however the way the ego views the subconscious, as a rule. These two self-conscious portions of the self simply happen to coincide or to coexist with some proximity, psychologically speaking.

There are other self-conscious portions of the self however, with which the ego is not at all familiar, but of which the subconscious has intuitive knowledge. These self-conscious portions of the self exist in different reality systems. Before we go into our Dr. Instream material, let me remind you however that there is a whole self, composed of these various self-conscious selves, and that a portionof the self is indeed aware of the unity that exists to form the whole psychological gestalt.