“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(When Jane was young Marie had in all seriousness often warned her “When I die, I’ll come back and haunt you.” During those years Marie was in her late 20’s and early 30’s, and already incapacitated by arthritis; and, to quote Seth from a session held in 1964, she had “… often spoken vehemently of Ruburt’s birth being a source of disease, and pain, that is of her arthritis … If Ruburt’s mother had it to do over, she would not have the child — and the child hidden within the adult still feels that the mother actually has the power, even now, to force the child back into the womb and refuse to deliver it …”

Platonic thought saw this inner world as perfect.⁴ As you think of it, however, perfection always suggests something done and finished, or beyond surpassing, and this of course denies the inherent characteristics of creativity, which do indeed always seek to surpass themselves. The Platonic, idealized inner world would ultimately result in a dead one, for in it the models for all exteriorizations were seen as already completed — finished and perfect.

In your terms, the inner world does represent Idea Potential as yet unrealized — but those ideas and those potentials do not exist outside of consciousness. They are ideals set in the heart of man,⁵ yet in other terms he is the one who also put them there, out of the deeper knowledge of his being that straddles physical time. Existence is wise and compassionate, so in certain terms consciousness, knowing itself as man, sent future extensions of itself out into the time scheme that man would know, and lovingly planted signposts for itself to follow “later.”

Give us a moment … Man is himself made as much of God-stuff as earth-stuff, so in those terms now the god in himself yearned toward the man in the god, and earth experience. Not understanding yourselves,⁶ you have tried to put the idea of God outside of yourselves and your living framework. Through various exercises in this book, I hope to acquaint each of you with the inherent oneness of the inside and outside realities, to give you a glimpse of your own infinite nature even within the bounds of your creaturehood — to help you see the god-stuff in the man-stuff. In other terms, this can help you see the potentials of your species and break down the barriers of limiting thoughts. I would like to change your ideas of human nature. To some extent this will entail humanizing your idea of divinity. But oddly enough, if that is done you will end up seeing the divinity in man.

(10:35. Jane’s delivery had been average; and, she said now, the session would be a short one. It was. When Seth came through again in a few minutes he said, humorously: “Tell Ruburt I said ‘Happy Birthday’” — then gave a page of material for Jane on another subject. End at 10:48 P.M.

Every so often Jane hears from a female reader who wants to know why Seth often uses the male gender in his books, especially in passages like those in tonight’s 696th session. A little reflection will show that in spite of the “sexist” implications it would be quite difficult to present such material in other ways, so common is the use of “man,” “he,” “his,” and “him.” In the English language we often don’t have the right word, one meaning male and female equally, with which to represent the species. Many times “humanity” doesn’t fit. Nor do we like to substitute “it,” since it’s neuter and devoid of feeling as far as we’re concerned. We also don’t want to become involved with rewriting Seth’s material: We’re sure that when he produces passages cast in the male gender, his intentions are anything but prejudiced in favor of that sex.

“Obviously, Seth’s purpose is to explain what he can within the framework of that language, rather than to change the language itself — as would be necessary, for example, to escape its often prejudiced nature. This prejudice appears most obviously in its sexual aspects: ‘Mankind’ for the species in general, and ‘he’ in referring to the individual member. Linguistically this leaves the female out in the cold — and in more ways than one — for the masculine intent is clear.