“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Simply stated, this is one of the thumbnail passages that explain Seth’s concept of God:

“He is not human in your terms, though he passed through human stages; and here the Buddhist myth comes closest to approximating reality. He is not one individual, but an energy gestalt.

“In actuality, following the image through, and strictly as an analogy, there would also be an infinite number of threads both above and below your own, all part of one inconceivably miraculous webwork. Yet each thread would not be one-dimensional but of many dimensions, and conceivably, if you knew how, there would be ways of leapfrogging from one thread to the other. You would not be forced to follow any particular thread in a single-line fashion.

“Without shortcuts or even average progression, any such Self A would travel Thread A along the narrow line toward infinity. At some point, however, Thread A would turn into Thread B. In the same manner, Thread B would turn into Thread C and so forth. At some inconceivable point, all of the threads would be traversed. Now on Thread A, Self A would not be aware, in his present, of the ‘future’ selves on the other threads. Only by meeting one of these other selves can he become aware of the nature of this strange structure through which he is traveling.

“The purpose is, quite simply, being as opposed to nonbeing. I am telling you what I know, and there is much I do not know. I know that help must be given one to the other, and that extension and expansion are aids to being.

“At first, in your terms, all of probable reality existed as nebulous dreams within the consciousness of All That Is. Later, the unspecific nature of these ‘dreams’ grew more particular and vivid. The dreams became recognizable one from the other until they drew the conscious notice of All That Is. And with curiosity and yearning, All That Is paid more attention to Its own dreams.

“This was in your terms a primary cosmic dilemma, and one with which It wrestled until All That It Was was completely involved and enveloped within that cosmic problem.

In other words, the whole frame of reality according to Seth includes far more than reincarnation and development within the physical system that we know. We have many sessions dealing with the nature of other realities, and sessions on “cosmology” that can’t be included in this book because of the space requirements. One of the most important points, I think, is that God is not static Himself. Whole blocks of Seth material discuss the potentials and makeup of consciousness as it is manifested in molecules, man, and pyramid energy gestalts. All of these are intimately connected in a cosmological web of activity. But as Seth says, “Even this overall pyramid gestalt is not static. Most of your God concepts deal with a static God, and here is one of your main theological difficulties. The awareness and experience of this gestalt constantly changes and grows. There is no static God. When you say, ‘This is God,’ then God is already something else. I am using the term ‘God’ for simplicity’s sake.

“Entities, being action, always shift and change. There is nothing arbitrary about their boundaries. Some personalities can be a part of more than one entity. Like fish, they can swim in other streams. Within them is the knowledge of all of their relationships.

“The personality of God as generally conceived is a one-dimensional concept based upon man’s small knowledge of his own psychology. What you prefer to think of as God is, again, an energy gestalt or pyramid consciousness. It is aware of itself as being, for instance, you, Joseph. It is aware of itself as the smallest seed. … This portion of All That Is that is aware of itself as you, that is focused within your existence, can be called upon for help when necessary.

“The responsibility for your life and your world is indeed yours. It has not been forced upon you by some outside agency. You form your own dreams, and you form your own physical reality. The world is what you are. It is the physical materialization of the inner selves which have formed it.” But if God cannot be objectified, what about Christ? Seth says that he did not exist as one historic personage. “When the race is in deepest stress and faced with great problems, it will call forth someone like Christ. It will seek out and indeed from itself produce the very personalities necessary to give it strength. …

“There were three men whose lives became confused in history and merged, and whose composite history became known as the life of Christ. … Each was highly gifted psychically, knew of his role, and accepted it willingly. The three men were a part of one entity, gaining physical existence in one time. They were not born on the same date, however. There are reasons why the entity did not return as one person. For one thing, the full consciousness of an entity would be too strong for one physical vehicle. For another, the entity wanted a more diversified environment than could otherwise be provided.

“The entity was born once as John the Baptist, and then he was born in two other forms. One of these contained the personality that most stories of Christ refer to. … I will tell you about the other personality at a later time. There was constant communication between these three portions of one entity, though they were born and buried at different dates. The race called up these personalities from its own psychic bank, from the pool of individualized consciousness that was available to it.”

My class is small but students range in age from sixteen to sixty. One evening we were discussing student riots. Carl and Sue are both in their early twenties. They had been upholding ideas of nonviolence and peace. The older adults began complaining about the rioters with some bitterness, however, until Sue said with some heat: “Well, I’m against violence, too. But sometimes it’s justified—”

“When every young man refuses to go to war, you will have peace. As long as you fight for gain and greed, there will be no peace. As long as one person commits acts of violence for the sake of peace, you will have war. Unfortunately it is difficult to imagine that all the young men in all of the countries will refuse to go to war at the same time. And so you must work out the violence that violence has wrought. Within the next hundred years that time may come. Remember, you do not defend any idea with violence.