“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Until an individual gains enough confidence in the concept of a safe universe, he or she will hang on to many of those attitudes. They are disturbing because at one stage they are only felt but not understood for what they are. If you are convinced that your world is not safe then it seems sensible to protect yourself in questionable areas by expecting the worst so that you will be prepared. Unfortunately such expectations, of course, are disadvantageous. They have, however, a strong basis in your society from childhood up. “Wear a sweater or you will catch a cold.” A simple enough suggestion, it seems, a preventive measure. Yet in that innocent remark lies the assumption that the cold can be expected rather than, say, a normal state of health.

When the race began physical focus it learned to behave in a more or less permanent-appearing environment, and so it developed a suitable self that also appeared to be permanent enough for a time within that world.

The more unsafe the world is felt to be, then the more important protection is, and the more threatening, expression. Repression becomes the order of the day. The species however will always react against repression, no matter what its source, and so will the individual. On the whole the species is beginning to change its psychological sense of selfhood. There are periods in history when this happened before, and a new kind of civilization resulted. The earliest Jewish traditions represent one such change. The beginning period of the Egyptian civilization another, the birth of Christ another, and the beginning of the scientific age.

The world, however, was seen as unsafe to one degree or another in each. Each era set up various methods meant to protect man against the environment itself, or against the gods. In terms of physical existence man’s consciousness has not progressed enough along the path it had chosen, so that it could afford to admit the oneness of inner and outer reality.

Man wanted to separate himself from nature, but in so doing lost the animal’s great trust in it. At the same time he forged a new kind of consciousness. That, combined with nature’s knowledge of itself, will lead to the new dimensions of experience necessary. In your private lives you see many of the results of the unsafe universe. In the mass world you see far more.

Personally, Ruburt understands however that he exaggerated the negative elements of his condition, thinking that he was being realistic. He did not realize that before. When you look at the world and interpret its condition in the same way, you end up in an impossible situation as a people, for your learned coping mechanisms themselves reinforce the situation.