“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Long pause.) One particular experiment in consciousness may be pursued by one species, for example, and that knowledge given to another, or transferred to another, where it appears as “instinct.” Here it will be used as a basis for a different kind of behavior, exploration, or experiment. I have said that evolution does not exist as you think of it, in any kind of one-line, ape-to-man time sequence.^l No other species developed in that manner, either. Instead there are parallel developments. Your time perception shows you but one slice of the whole cake, for instance.

(Long pause.) In a larger sense the same applies to any given species. You are your selves in time, then, because of the selves that exist before and after you in time. On a cellular basis this is true. In psychic terms it is also true. Your thoughts and feelings are quite as real as your cells. They also form organizations. Your desires go out from you in time, but in all directions. On the one hand as a species your present forms your future, but in even deeper terms your precognitive awareness of your own possibilities from the future helps to form the present that will then make that probable future your reality.

In physical terms you may want a new city, so now you begin urban renewal, colon: Architects draw plans that first were dreams, of course; inside their minds, preparations are begun, buildings torn down. In very simple terms the architect’s dream can be called a precognitive event, inserted from a probable future into the present. The physical planning carried out is in line with the envisioned future, and brings it about. In greater terms the race has plans for itself; only these are based on a much vaster comprehension of the probable issues, abilities, and conditions involved. (Pause.) A people’s recognized god represents such a psychic plan, projected out as an ideal. It will be followed by physical organizations, structures meant on a different level to help achieve such a “spiritual” evolution.

The spiritual and the biological cannot be separated. Their purposes and reality merge. Give us a moment … (Long pause at 10:19.) I will have much more to say concerning this later in the book. For now simply let me mention that any gods appearing among you must always be of your time, while expressing ideas and concepts that must shoot beyond your time into the future, and serve as psychic stimuli strong enough to effect future changes. When, in historic terms, the race was in the process of adopting a necessary artificial separation of itself from the rest of nature; when it needed to be assured of its abilities to do so; when it took upon itself the task of a particular kind of specialization and individual focus, it needed a religion that would assure it of its abilities.

While it (ego consciousness) recognized its deep oneness with the earth and all creatures, it could not at the same time develop those abilities of specialization and its own particular unique focus. The growth of separate tribal cultures, for example, and later of nations, could emerge only through a sense of separation, and a certain kind of alienation. This, however, allowed for a diversity that could not otherwise be achieved under the accepted conditions. (Pause.) The seemingly local Jewish god (Yahweh/Jehovah) ended up in one way or another by destroying the Roman Empire, and in so doing brought about a complete reorganization of planetary culture.

Rising ego consciousness then would have its religious reasons for domination and control. The pope became God the Father personified, but that god had indeed changed from the old Jewish Jehovah. Christ, historically speaking, had altered that concept enough so that at least God the Father was not quite as capricious as Jehovah. (Pause.) Some mercy came to the forefront. Growing ego consciousness could not run rampant over nature. On the other hand, holy wars and ignorance would keep the population down. The church, however — the Roman Catholic Church — still held a repository of religious ideas and concepts that served as a bank of probabilities from which the race could draw. The religious ideas served as social organization, much needed, and many of the monks managed to preserve old manuscripts and knowledge underground. Those who were allied with religious principles, now, mainly survived, and brought forth communities and descendants who were protected. Psychic and religious ideas, then, despite many drawbacks, served as a method of species organization. They are far more important in terms of “evolution” than is recognized. Religious concepts from the beginning kept tribes together, provided social structures, and insured physical survival and the protection that made descendants most probable.

(Long pause.) Other democratic societies had existed in the past, but in them democracy was still based on one religious precept, though it might be expressed in different ways — as, for example, in the Greek city-states (in the sixth and fifth centuries B.C.). The Holy Roman Empire united a civilization under one religious idea, but the true brotherhood of man can be expressed only by allowing the freedom of man’s thought under the banner of cooperation; and only this will result in the fulfillment of the species, with developments of consciousness that in your terms were latent from the beginning.

(Pause at 11:42.) Give us a moment …