“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

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.

Your own attitudes, for example — and beliefs — about foreigners, Prentice-Hall, people’s stupidity and lack of integrity, put you in correspondence with those same beliefs on the part of others, resulting in the translation fiasco.¹ An entirely different kind of behavior could have been elicited from those same people. Like attracts like in that regard. Those same people, for example, all have, as you do, beliefs in people’s trustworthiness, and so forth — but under those conditions, at that time, you each — or rather you all — were in correspondence at many levels. The books were published. They have helped many people, and that is because you were also in correspondence as far as many of your more positive beliefs are concerned, and those did outweigh the others.

You get what you concentrate upon, and your beliefs are largely responsible for those areas in which you concentrate.

(9:14.) There are no magical methods, only natural ones that you use all of the time, although in some cases you use them for beliefs that you take for truths, when instead they are quite defective assumptions. A small example — one, incidentally, that Ruburt finally realized; but it is a beautiful instance of natural methods. He used it beautifully, even though the results were not pleasing at first. It also shows Ruburt’s growing understanding:

He heard tomorrow’s weather report (yesterday), groaned, thought of a very uncomfortable 90-degree temperature tomorrow [and] imagined himself miserable with the heat. Indeed, he began to feel warmer. In a flash he remembered previous days of discomfort, and in the next moment he projected those into the weekend. He felt trapped. Midway through this process he tried to catch himself, but he believed that his body could not handle the heat — and that belief outweighed his intent to change his thoughts, so they kept returning for perhaps ten minutes.

Your experience will follow your concentration and belief and expectation. The mind is a great discriminator. It can use its reasoning to bring about almost any possible experience within your framework.