“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now: in The Nature of Personal Reality we discussed the nature of private beliefs. Some day there can be a book called The Nature of Cultural Reality.

To some extent Ruburt is beginning to move in that direction now, in Psychic Politics—particularly with his codicils. First of all, of course, you do choose the culture into which you are born. The belief system is like a mental and spiritual climate. To some extent or another each individual alive alters that climate, so that even if there were no revolutions there would be constant change, sometimes gradual and sometimes sudden.

People’s beliefs do form the cultural system, which then exerts its influence upon the individual. The cultural system is not imposed however from some outside source, and it is not biologically predetermined. It has its biological aspects, of course; but war, for example, is not a biological culmination of an aggressive instinct (period).

Since it is formed by beliefs held by natural creatures, culture is, as Ruburt states, as natural as your physical environment. Once you are born into a particular time and country, you do grow up in an almost invisible but definite environment of concepts, assumptions, and predetermined ideas that serve as a basis from which your own individual beliefs spring. There is a constant give-and-take between any individual and his cultural system.

(Pause.) He freed himself in important areas, yet all the time struggling against certain basic seeming inconsistencies. You are also tinged by some of these beliefs as he is, for they represent those cultural colorations upon which all of your other systems are based.

I do not want to frighten you—but if we ever do The Nature of Cultural Reality, it will be a fine book.

Ruburt suddenly found himself then exploring very strange grounds indeed—and without the earlier sustaining hope. For all the recognized systems were wanting. He did not have to examine each one minutely, for his abilities, after some familiarization, left him with the knowledge of their merits. The stated discernible hypotheses of the various systems are one thing—but their invisible root assumptions are something else. Ruburt tried to put his understanding to practical use in terms of daily life, your relationship, work, finances, his classes, yet he found himself with definite physical hassles. You have encountered them through your relationship with him. In certain areas you both have blazed ahead. Those deeply seated, invisible, cultural assumptions still operated, however. Some of them you both dismissed for the very simple reason that they never temperamentally suited you to begin with. Others you dismissed because you grew in wisdom.

Now Ruburt wrote about it just lately (in Psychic Politics?), but he still does not realize how persuasive (pervasive?) this one particular cultural belief is, and only by accepting it does his physical condition make any sense.

As mentioned earlier, Ruburt’s sex, as Jane, was also connected, for he carried the beliefs of his culture that a woman would be ridiculed twice as quickly as a man. In the meantime he seemed to have, in a certain way, nothing concrete to offer in terms that he felt people could understand—nothing for them to grab a hold of.

This is also based on cultural-sexual beliefs. He is afraid that you will not love him if he does not take the traditional woman role, and that if he does not he has no right to expect such gallantry. Both of you, however, were highly suspicious of sexuality in connection with your work, and you, Joseph, did feel it a trap, which is why you married late. Ruburt tried to hide what he thought of as characteristics that would frighten you—but the need itself was only camouflaged.

Here I want to show how invisible cultural beliefs operate individually. You know about them, so it seems you are aware. Yet you do not realize how firmly you accept them. I do not mean just you here (period).

Now—a closing remark.... Your organizational structures are based of course on cultural beliefs. I will not go into them now as they apply to organizations—but we do not need that structure. There are inner communications far more potent, and we are working with those.

(Humorously:) if you could be really correlated with my time, then you could have The Nature of Cultural Reality in no time.

(A note: It does seem a shame that Cultural Reality is there, ready for the giving or receiving. It’s transmission is a couple of years away, though, according to the way Jane and I have been producing these books. I did mention one thought to Jane that would speed things up. Simply let Seth dictate the book—any book—minus any notes on my part. Then I would only have to transcribe it and type the manuscript. Jane could write a lengthy Intro or Preface if she cared to, explaining all the mechanics, the trances, etc., connected with the book’s production.