“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Now: Dictation … These idealizations (as discussed in the last session) are certain kinds of psychic patterns, then, occurring at different levels. In certain terms they become the cell’s private “idea” of its own growth and development, a picture alive within the cell in terms of physical information, a part of its structure. Such idealizations provide their own impetus; that is, they will grow toward their own greatest fulfillment.

The idealizations themselves are made of “conscious” stuff. These are not inert data,¹ then. The nature of probabilities determines the framework in which these fulfillments can take place, and “frames” living developments. The structure of probabilities provides on the one hand a system of barriers, in which practical growth is not chosen or significant; and on the other hand it insures a safe, creative, rich environment — a reality — in which the idealization can choose from an almost infinite variety of possible actions those best suited to its own fulfillment.

In any system the idealization has already accepted certain kinds of events as significant, and has rejected other (quite-as-probable events) as nonsignificant. This simply provides a workable focus in which achievement and experience can happen.

(9:27.) In simple terms, you will not try to achieve something that you believe impossible within your concepts of reality. The conscious mind, with its normally considered intellect, is meant to assess the practicality of action within your world. You will literally see only what you want to see.² If the race believed that space travel was impossible, you would not have it. That is one thing; but if an individual believes that it is literally impossible for him to travel from one end of the continent to another, or to change his job, or perform any act, then the act becomes practically impossible. The idealization of motion, however, in that person’s mind, or of change, may be denied expression at any given time — but it will nevertheless seek expression through experience. This applies in terms of the species as well as individuals. Because you are now a conscious species, in your terms, there are racial idealizations that you can accept or deny. Often at your particular stage of development as a race, these appear first in your world as fiction, art, or so-called pure theory.

Thoughts have their own kind of structure, as cells do, and they seek their own fulfillment. They move toward like thoughts, and you have as a species an inner mass body of thought. Privately your thoughts are expressions of your idealizations; and while expressing those inner patterns they also modify and creatively change them. Each cell in your body is to some extent altered with each thought that you think. Each reaction of the cells alters your environment. The brain then responds to the alteration. There is a constant give-and-take. As the cells respond at certain levels to ever-changing streams of probabilities, so do your thoughts. Your body responds as you think it should, however, and so your conscious beliefs about reality have much to do with those probable experiences that you accept as a part of your intimate living.

Many of your global dilemmas seem so desperate only because in those areas you have gone as far as you can go — without going further. The problems act as stimuli in that regard. This doesn’t mean that you have to experience disasters. They are not preordained. It does mean that you have chosen certain experiences, but that these will automatically lead to further creative development if you allow them to. The idealization is one of brotherhood, in terms of your species. Biologically, in your terms, such “brotherhood” operates instinctively in the cooperation of the body’s cells, as they function together to form the private corporal structure. At your viewpoint you lose appreciation for the great individuality of each cell. You take it for granted that because the cells work so well together, they have no private uniqueness.

In other terms, however — social terms — you have yet to achieve the same kind of spiritual brotherhood possessed by your cells; and so you do not understand that the experience of your world is intimately connected with your own private experience. If you burn your finger it hurts immediately. Your body instantly begins a cooperative venture, in which adjustments are made so that the wound begins to heal. If a portion of the race is hurt it may take a while before “you” feel the pain, but the entire unconscious mechanism of the species will try to heal the wound. Consciously you can facilitate that development, and admit your brotherhood with all other living beings. The healing will take place far quicker if you do. A biological brotherhood exists, an inner empathy on cellular levels, connecting all individuals of the species with one another. This is the result of a biological idealization. It exists in all species, and connects all species.

The race suffers when any of its members die of starvation or disease, even as a whole plant suffers if a group of its leaves are “unhappy.” In the same way all members of the species are benefited by the happiness, health, and fulfillment of any of those individuals who compose it. Man can be aware of the vast medium of probabilities in which he exists, and therefore consciously choose those best suited to those idealizations that point toward his greatest fulfillment. One part of the species cannot grow or develop at the expense of the other portions for very long.

(10:36.) Give us a moment … A photograph is to some extent a materialization of an idealization carried to a certain degree. At another level, your body and your experience is a far richer fulfillment, a living, presently experienced materialization. The picture of your world is still another.