“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

They help you interpret the universe in horizontal terms, so to speak. In studying the deeper realities within and “behind” that universe, the instruments are not only useless but misleading. I am not suggesting that their use is futile, however — merely pointing out the limitations inherently involved.

Give us a moment … Such gadgets can be useful only if they show you that such alterations are naturally possible. Otherwise, with your ideas of applied science and technology, the gadgets will be the pivoting point, and the ideas of manipulation will be stressed. In other words, unless the ideas behind objective science are altered, then gadget-produced altered states will almost certainly be used to manipulate, rather than free, consciousness.

I am not making a prediction here. I am simply pointing out one probability that exists. There have indeed been civilizations upon your planet³ that understood as well as you, and without your kind of technology, the workings of the planets, the positioning of stars — people who even foresaw “later” global changes. They used a mental physics. There were men before you who journeyed to the moon, and who brought back data quite as “scientific” and pertinent. There were those who understood the “origin” of your solar system far better than you. Some of these civilizations did not need spaceships.⁴ Instead, highly trained men combining the abilities of dream-art scientists and mental physicists cooperated in journeys not only through time but through space. There are ancient maps drawn from a 200-mile-or-more vantage point — these meticulously completed on return from such journeys.

1. Once again (as in Note 7 for the last session), I quote Seth from the 45th session: “Any investigation of the basic inner universe, which is the only real universe, must be done as much as possible from a point outside your own distortions … To get outside your own universe, you must travel inward … Your so-called scientific, so-called objective experiments can continue for an eternity, but they will only probe further and further with camouflage [physical] instruments into a camouflage universe … The subconscious, it is true, has elements of its own distortions, but these are easier to escape than the tons of distortive camouflage atmosphere that weigh your scientific experiments down.”

2. Seth’s material about technology and science leading to inner realities reminds me of two related examples that I’ve become aware of recently through my own reading. The first one involves a more intimate inner reality than the second, yet both pose interesting questions. Each reader can probably give similar illustrations. (However, as I wrote in Appendix 1, “I’m not interested in knocking our technology, but in pointing out coexisting inner factors that I’m sure are just as important.”)

My first example concerns the development of biofeedback machines in the 1960’s. With one of these devices the individual was to learn to control, when necessary, his or her own blood pressure, or any of certain other involuntary body functions. Doubtlessly such self monitoring is an example of the “loving technology” that Seth mentioned in his final delivery for the last Session; yet we now understand that the early claims for biofeedback were considerably exaggerated. Within a more reasonable context the technique will take its place in our medical systems, but in each case what we learn will surely point up the need to understand our individual inner realities; i.e., what caused the high blood pressure, or whatever, in the first place?