“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Faster at 10:45:) The god concept then was an aid, and an important one, to man’s emerging ego. To develop its sense of specialization, the ego forgot the great cooperative venture of the earth. If a hunter literally knows his relationship with an animal, he cannot kill it. On deeper levels both animal and man understand the connections. Biologically the man knows he has come from the earth. Some of his cells have been the cells of animals, and the animal knows he will look out through a man’s eyes.³ The earth venture is cooperative. The slain beast is tomorrow’s hunter. In terms of ego consciousness, however, there were stages of growth; and the god concepts that spoke of oneness with nature were not those that served the ego’s purposes in the line of development as you understand it (deliberately).

Now: In one way or another religions have always followed, again, the development of your consciousness, and so they have served its purposes and yours; and they have always reflected, though distorted, those greater inner realities of your being. In historic terms, as you understand them, the “progression” of religion gives you a perfect picture of the development of human consciousness, the differentiation of peoples and nations, and the growth of the ideas of the “individual.”

Because of the ego’s particular line of development, you have experimented with artificial drugs and chemicals, both in foods and for medicinal purposes, as well as for “religious” enlightenment. Some of the effects of LSD⁷ and other artificial psychedelic drugs give you a hint of other probable directions your consciousness might have followed, or might still follow. As the experiments are conducted, however, and in the ignorance of the framework, the conscious mind takes a subordinate position. Instead, using methods other than drugs, it could be taught to expand its knowledge far more safely, to organize it in ways that could be most advantageous. Still, some of the experiments do give hints of certain aspects of one of the species’ probable developments.

(Another one-minute pause.) Give us a moment … The “unknown” reality sustains you and the web of life as you understand it. Your conscious concepts must enlarge so that the conscious self can understand its true nature. As you think of it, consciousness is barely — barely — half developed. It has learned to identify with one small group of neurologically accepted responses. Portions of the brain not used lie latent, waiting for the recognition that will trigger them into activity (intently). When this happens, the mind will become aware of the rich bed of probabilities upon which the ego now rides so blindly.

[...] This automatically meant that emerging man, in that framework, must let go of a certain kind of animal comprehension that was extremely valuable overall, but could inhibit ego growth … For many centuries there was no clear-cut differentiation between various species of man and animal … There were also, of course, parallel developments in the emergence of physical man. [...] At the same time a great give-and-take was occurring at all levels — including vegetation, for example — so that together the creatures and the earth worked out the kind of stability best suited for the particular kind of developments that were to emerge.

[...] Many individuals show variations that actually represent future developments of consciousness; we’re experimenting with these probabilities … There are actually species of consciousness, but we don’t recognize them as such. [...]

Jane’s first published material on dreams (precognitive and otherwise) can be found in chapters 4 and 5 of The Coming of Seth (original title: How to Develop Your ESP Power).