“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Seth comments on weather tonight. He began the session very quietly, and took many pauses, including a number of long ones, as the session progressed.)

Some of this, again, is difficult to explain (pause), but in a fashion the intellect is a cultural (underlined) phenomenon. Period. It is amazingly resilient, in that according to the belief structures of any given historical period, it can orient itself along the lines of those beliefs, using all of its reasoning abilities to bring such a world picture into focus, collecting data that agree, and rejecting what does not.

This flexibility allows the species great variation overall in its psychological and cultural and political and religious activities. (Long pause.) When any system of reasoning becomes too rigid, however, there are always adjustments made that will allow other information to intrude — otherwise, of course, your belief systems would never change.

Your species shares with the other species a feeling of kinship for its kind. There is a great give-and-take of ideas. You end up, then, with a consensus, generally speaking, as to what a reasonable picture of agreed-upon reality is. Your system has frowned upon many experiences, considering them eccentric behavior in an adverse fashion, since your belief systems have so regimented behavior, and so narrowly defined sanity. (Long pause.) The intellect, I want to stress, is socially oriented. It is peculiarly suited, of course, to react to cultural information. (Pause.) It wants to see the world as it is seen by the minds of others. Through that kind of action it helps form your cultural environment, the civilization of which you are justly proud.

I am speaking about the intellect here for our discussion, but remember it is everywhere cushioned also. There are backup systems, in other words (amused). If the intellect believes that the world (pause) is a threat to existence, then that belief will alter its intents, of course, and therefore the body’s activities. The beliefs of the intellect operate then as powerful suggestions, particularly when the intellect identifies with those beliefs, so that there is little distance between the intellect and the beliefs that it holds as true.

(Pause in an intent delivery.) I am doing my best to explain the very practical aspects of the intellect’s beliefs, and their strength in drawing experience to you. At one time you both had difficulty with understanding some of these ideas. (Pause.) Your own relationship, your private beliefs about the sort of persons you wanted individually for mates, brought about incalculable actions that led finally to your meeting — yet it all happened “quite naturally,” of course. Your beliefs bring you into correspondence with the elements likely to lead to their affirmation. They draw from Framework 2 all of the necessary ingredients. They elicit from other people behavior that is in keeping with those beliefs.