“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The psychology class was as much interested in Seth’s reality as in the nature of personality, as he well knew. Smiling, Seth said, “One other point: These sessions are scheduled, and therefore operate under certain controlled conditions. Ruburt’s own personality is in no way threatened by them, and his ego has been carefully coddled and protected. It has not been shunted aside. Instead it has been taught new abilities. … I was not artificially ‘brought to birth’ through hypnosis. There was no artificial tampering of personality characteristics here. There was no hysteria. Ruburt allows me to use the nervous system under highly controlled conditions. I am not given a blanket permission to take over when I please, nor would I desire such an arrangement. I have other things to do.”

Seth says that even in this life, each of us has various egos; we only accept the idea of one ego as a sort of shorthand symbolism. The ego at any given time in this life is simply the part of us that “surfaces”; a group of characteristics that the inner self uses to solve various problems. Even the ego as we think of it changes constantly. For example, the Jane Roberts of now is different from the Jane Roberts of ten years ago, though “I” have not been conscious of any particular change of identity.

That night Seth was just beginning his material on personality as action. The ideas he presented are basic to his overall theories of identity, and since he deals with some of the characteristics of consciousness, they are also a basis for later material on the God concept.

“It is a mistaken notion, however, that identity is dependent upon stability. Identity, because of its characteristics, will continually seek stability, while stability is impossible. This is our second dilemma.

Seth says that the physical body and its senses are specialized equipment to allow us to live in physical reality. To perceive other realities, we have to use the Inner Senses—methods of perception that belong to the inner self and operate whether or not we have a physical form. Seth calls the universe as we know it a “camouflage” system, since physical matter is simply the form that vitality—action—takes within it. Other realities are also camouflage systems, and within them consciousness also has specialized equipment tailored to their peculiar characteristics. But the Inner Senses allow us to see beneath the camouflage.