“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

But identity is much more than this, and basic identity, while using the perceptive abilities, is not that dependent upon them. It is true that the personality is a gestalt, and that every identity has any number of potential egos. It is also true that on occasion one potential ego will take over from another. But this is all highly simplified, for the ego structure is not one thing, but a changing, never constant, actually quite informal grouping of psychological patterns. Each ego uses and interprets the organism’s perceiving apparatus in a way that in the overall is characteristic and distinctive.

This characteristic way of interpreting perceived data, and of reacting to it, is not as constant as it appears to be however. The stability and illusion of permanence is highly misleading. The four manifestations of personality all belonged to one identity, and this is perhaps the main point missed. For if the authors say that oftentimes a subordinate or potential ego will take over control when necessary in order to insure the survival of the whole, then this implies a decision that has been made; and who has made it?

While identity and consciousness are regarded as the result of primarily physical processes, then the nature of personality will never be understood.

The inner self chooses from its available potential personalities the one that it finds most adequate. Sometimes it simply makes an error, for the inner self is not a perfected thing, any more than the ego is. But identity does exist, and the ego is but a pseudoidentity formed for utilitarian reasons, and as such it is of course a part of the basic identity from which it springs.

The personality structure does not make sense unless such past experience is taken into consideration. Potentials do not simply appear, they evolve. I have told you that the most minute portion of energy possesses consciousness and has its own identity. This identity of itself is never annihilated. It may form into new gestalts but the identity is retained.

The energy that composes personality therefore consists of an inconceivable number of separate identities. These separate identities form what we call the inner self, which retains its individuality even while the energy that composes it constantly changes. There are continual groupings and regroupings, but basic identities are always retained. The potential egos within any given identity therefore retain their own individuality and self-knowledge, regardless of their relative importance in the order of command.

(As is usually the case when we do not personally know a lot of intimate details connected with the envelope object, Jane and I found ourselves unable to check all of Seth’s data. We think of these occasions as being like those where strangers would furnish the object. We could make quite a few connections however, and Seth helps out a little.

My heartiest regards to you both. I will give you some personal reincarnational material very shortly. We simply did not have time for it tonight.