“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.

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

I am not an artist, but I know what I like as much as anyone else does.

(The theme of the dream had interested me pictorially from the beginning, I told her, but I’d almost lacked the nerve to try a rendition of it in paint. Late last week I started the charcoal drawing for the painting, however, figuring I could only try to see what I could do… So far, so good.)