“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(With many pauses:) Part of the difficulty arises from the current (pause) scientifically-oriented blend of rationalism. It lies in the way in which the individual is defined. As a species, you think of yourselves (pause) as the “pinnacle” end of an evolutionary scale, as if all other entities from the first cell onward somehow existed in a steady line of progression, culminating with animals, and finally with man the reasoning animal. (In parentheses: with all of that progress occurring of course by chance, incidentally.)

New sentence: In your historical past, when man identified his identity with the soul, he actually gave himself greater leeway in terms of psychological mobility, but eventually the concept of the soul as held resulted in a distrust of the intellect. (Pause.) That result was the inevitable follow-up of dogma. Period. Part of man’s latest over-identification with the intellect is, of course, an overreaction to those past historical events. Neither religion or science grant other creatures much subjective dimension, however: You like to think of yourselves, again, as the reasoning animal in terms of your species.

The animals possess a consciousness of self, and without the human intellect. You do not need a human intellect to be aware of your own consciousness. Animals, it is true, do not reflect upon the nature of their own identities as man does (pause), but this is because that nature is intuitively comprehended. It is self-evident.

(Long pause at 9:10.) The natural person is understood perhaps more clearly by considering any person as a child. In a fashion the child discovers its own intellect, as it discovers its own feelings. Feelings come “first.” The child’s feelings give rise to curiosity, to thoughts, to the operation of the intellect: “Why do I feel thus and so? Why is grass soft, and rock hard? Why does a gentle touch soothe me, while a slap hurts me?”

In most cases children grow up, of course (pause), although in the vast overall picture of nature (pause) a goodly proportion of individuals do indeed take other courses. They serve other functions, they have other purposes, they take part in life through a different cast of action. They affect life while themselves not completely immersed in it. They die young. They are aborted. They remain, however, an important element in life’s overall picture — part of a psychological underpainting that always affects later versions.

(9:27.) You are taught to submerge the very intuitive abilities that the intellect needs to do its proper work — for the intellect must check with the feeling portions of the self for feedback, for support, for knowledge as to biological conditions. Denied that feedback, it can spin on endlessly in frenzied dry runs. (Long pause.) At each moment, from the most microscopic levels the body (pause) in one way or another is ascertaining a constant picture of its position within physical reality. That picture is composed of millions of ever-changing smaller snapshots, as it were — or moving pictures is better — determining so many conditions, positions and relationships that they could never be described. You end up with a predominating picture of reality in any given moment — one that is the result of the activity of psychological, biological, and electromagnetic stratas. One picture is transposed upon the others, and calculations made constantly, so that all of the components that make up physical existence are met, and intersect to give you life.

One of the intellect’s main purposes is to give you a conscious choice in a world of probabilities. To do that properly the intellect is to make clear, concise decisions, on its level, of matters that are its concern, and therefore to present its own picture of reality to add to the entire construct. (Long pause.) On the one hand you have been told to identify yourselves almost completely with your intellects. On the other hand, you have been taught that the intellect, the “flower of consciousness,” is a frail, vulnerable adjunct — again, a chance creation, without meaning and without support — without support because you believe that “beneath it” lie “primitive, animalistic, bloody instincts,” against which reason must exert what strength it has.

(Pause.) With Ruburt: The new orientation is bringing results, and the results do appear effortlessly.² The affair with Mitzi (one of our cats) did involve action at other levels — a magical orientation. Ruburt is doing well. Have him remember that creative activity goes on within him all of the time, and he is often most active precisely when he is not aware of it. He is only aware of those moments when creative activity surges into his conscious awareness, and by then much of the “work” has already been done.

He is not responsible for other people’s realities, but he is responsible for his own. Give us a moment … .(Pause, eyes closed). The ill woman’s reality does not threaten his own in any way. The situation, however, shows that he sometimes still thinks he should be able to solve all problems, and to know all the reasons for any given sorrow or tragedy. The intellect cannot handle that kind of information at that level.

Some answers come when you are ready for them. Then they come naturally, as a matter of understanding and comprehension. The question of life’s tragedies still cannot be answered satisfactorily at the level at which either of you — or anyone else — is currently asking it. I can give hints and clues and explanations that are quite valid within that context (intently). (Long pause.)