“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Psychic identity does not need to set up barriers in order to recognize selfhoods. One personality can therefore be a portion of more than one entity, and still retain its own identity, its own individuality. Various groupings of experience exist. It is your concept of time that highly limits your idea of individuality.

It seems to you that any personality worth its salt must have a series of memories, of events that existed in the past and progressed to a present and a future. Since time does not exist in such a manner, then you must not project your ideas of time upon basic reality.

The various ego structures therefore exist simultaneously. They are entirely outside of any such framework. They are aware of your perception of time, but it means nothing to them. The various egos of any personality do not think of themselves as having existed one before the other.

It follows then that I am aware of the other Seth personality, and he of me. Because of your time misconceptions you make serious errors whenever you attempt any predictions into life after death, or life within other systems than your own. It is most difficult for you to conceive of an ego who experiences events not in serial form. When any contact is attempted in so-called mediumistic situations, then it is expected that the survival personality will “remember,” in quotes, events as you do; but events no longer exist in that way.

Now. If such is the case with personalities so closely allied with your own, then you can perhaps understand how alien your idea of time is to personalities that have never existed within your physical system. They are used to experiencing events not in any time sequence. Instead moment points are experienced fully, developments opening simultaneously, and “events” are recognized as psychic and psychological happenings not necessarily connected with any exterior circumstance.

You must understand that in any way your situation, and any that you know of physical reality, is highly artificial. It is the mass creation formed by your inner ideas. The time concept is but one example, and it is responsible for many of your most cherished misconceptions. You must form ideas into physical materialization in order to recognize the force behind the ideas you are learning to use and understand. However such materializations are only necessary at certain levels. The time scheme appears valid only within that framework.

When idea no longer needs physical materialization, then the time concept is useless. Intensity of experience and value fulfillment takes time’s place. Developments open, in your terms, at once. Organization of inner events is managed according to the inner interests of the various personalities and the intensities with which any given event is experienced.

Therefore you are hampered in your attempt to understand personalities who do not exist within your system, for identity is not therefore structured in any kind of a time sequence, and what you call memory flies out the window.

An entity does not “remember” when a portion of it existed within your system. In its time that portion simply is. The time concept leads then to a limited idea, for you cannot conceive of an identity without memory of the past in your (underlined) terms.

This is also responsible for the fact that it is difficult to understand how one personality, while retaining its individuality, can be a portion of more than one entity, and we will have more to say on that subject as we continue with the time concept.

At one time the personality’s sister was a father to the present personality. Since many of the building plans involved the construction of various kinds of temples, the personality has always been interested in acquiring knowledge concerning the nature of reality. There has been little concern with commerce. There is a need on the present personality’s part to understand its own nature, and to use its abilities constructively. The personality has not come to grips with itself truly, but has the inner persistence and intuitiveness to do so.

An over-insistence upon sticking to one subject imposes limitations. There is no boundary line between for example experience and time, nor any natural separation. Such artificial ones may make neater paragraphs, Joseph... (Humorously.

To the question, What is time?, the following answer might quite rightly be given:

Time is an apple. Time is no apple. Time (smile) is a worm in an apple. Time is a worm not in an apple; and yet such definitions will be absolutely meaningless to most people, for they can only think of time in terms of days or hours, and they do not think of time as experience itself, or quite simply, being.

The apple is time. It is an event. It is the so-many-odd days or months that have gone into its production in your terms, or years that have gone into production of the tree. It is as much an event of time as it is an event of space.

My last remarks were meant to clear up if possible some of the misconceptions that you have concerning your own time concept. Keep in mind that the concept is only valid within your present circumstances,however.