“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

“Now whether or not a medium is in a trance that is as deep as the Atlantic Ocean, the medium will not be a pure channel. The ego simply will be bypassed, but the other layers of the self, and the neurological structures particularly, will continue to operate as always. They will be altered by the perceptions that pass through them.”

“Information can rarely flow like crystal-clear water, with the medium [as] a faucet to be turned off and on at will. It must be sifted through the layers of the medium’s personality. The nervous system reacts to the data even as it translates it. Nothing is neutral in those terms. The information is received and translated, as it must be, into mechanisms which the nervous system can handle and interpret. Like any perception, the information then becomes a part of the nervous system’s structure. It cannot be otherwise.

“Any perception instantly alters the electromagnetic and neurological systems of the perceiver. In your terms this is what a perception is: an alteration of neurological structure. The receiving mechanisms themselves change, and are changed by that which they perceive. I am speaking here of the physical nature of any perception.

“It is a logistic contradiction to imagine, with your physical structures, that any perception can be received without the perceiver’s inner situation being altered. I am trying to make it as clear as possible—information automatically blends with, is intermingled with, and enmeshed with, the entire physically valid structure of the personality.

“Any perception is action and it changes that upon which it acts, and in so doing, it is itself changed. The slightest perception alters every atom within your body. This, in turn, sends out its ripples, so that as you know, the most minute action is felt everywhere.”

Seth goes on to give examples of the various kinds of distortion that can occur in normal and extrasensory perception. “Now, Ruburt, or any individual in a low mood, might misinterpret information, overstating pessimistic elements. Persons given to the need for self-punishment will consistently misinterpret any perception in this manner.”

As Seth continues to explain the nature of perception, it becomes obvious that physical perception itself shapes reality into certain forms. Even extrasensory perception must be translated into physical terms, if we are to be consciously aware of it. The Seth Material reveals what is beneath the normal reality that we know, but the very translation into words must necessarily distort the meaning.