“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.

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.

He continued, however, to remind himself that he was not going to worry about tomorrow today, regardless. He told himself that the prediction might be wrong, and he began with his intellect to pile up evidence that could in one way or another bring about a different, more beneficial experience. He did this by recognizing the way he had earlier been building up the picture in the old manner, by collecting all the evidence that fitted it. He used the same process, only for a more beneficial picture, and the process works. You have only to become aware of it.