“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

At certain levels the brain can handle simultaneous material, of course, even though you may be conscious of only a smattering of it. The body is aware of multitudinous simultaneous stimuli that consciously escape you, and is able to act on the information. This includes all kinds of sense data that are not consciously pertinent. (Intently:) Because of the particular kind of ego-orientation that the race decided upon, however, many probabilities of development inherent in the species have been latent. Inherently the physical brain is capable of dealing with more than one main line of consciousness. This does not mean the development of dual personality, by the way. It means the further expansion of the concept of identity: “You” would not only be aware of the you that you have always known, in the same way that you are now, but a deeper sense of identity would also arise.

To a very limited extent, the different civilizations and cultures with which you are historically familiar represent a dim glimmering of the various qualities of consciousness and their varieties of experience. But as there are physical species, so there are what you may call species of consciousness also (intently).⁵

(11:08.) There are even now in your species a number of different kinds of consciousness; different in that the physical life-situation is qualitatively experienced in ways that are not native to you in your culture; different in that the entire fabric of meaning, interpretation, experience, and life itself is “alien” to the kind of experience with which you are familiar. This does not mean that such differences occur as the result of cultural backgrounds or situations, for some such individuals exist within your own culture, and some with your kind of consciousness exist in cultures where they are a minority. I am simply saying that on your earth now there are species of consciousness, though that is probably not the best term. You have been so obsessed with exterior differences, especially of color and nationality, that you have completely ignored these other far more important variations in the form that consciousness takes in relation to physical life within your race — the race of man.

(Pause at 11:15.) In terms of your personal experience, the Sumari⁶ is a case in point. The members of each “species” — and you had better put that in quotes — of consciousness relate to physical experience in their characteristic ways, even viewing time, space, and action differently. They orient to their bodies in their own particular manners. Each group does possess a different relationship with the body, with nature, and with the world in general.

5. Seth’s first use of “species of consciousness” came after 11:38 in the last session. And added later: He comes up with another evocative phrase, “civilizations of the psyche,” in the 715th session in Volume 2 of “Unknown” Reality. Much of that session can be taken as an extension of his material here on the qualities of consciousness that have existed on the earth. In the 715th session, Seth also lets fall some rather humorous comments on Jane’s own mixed reactions when she first encountered such hints of the “multidimensionality of your beings.”