“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Even so, as I worked on this appendix I wondered again and again why I was investing so much time in it. The answers proved to be simple once I understood. Then I ended up shocked to discover how little real evidence there is to back up the idea of evolution, and fascinated by the limits of scientific thinking. I was quite surprised at my reactions. Somehow Jane and I always understood, to make an analogy, that Seth’s kind of “simultaneous” reincarnation [or anyone else’s kind, for that matter] wasn’t acceptable in our Western societies at this time in history; we could trace out many reasons why this is so. But some time passed before I realized that our ruling intellectual establishments were advancing notions about evolution that were not proven in scientific terms — then teaching these “facts” to succeeding generations. Finally, the humor of the whole situation got through to me: As some have very clearly noted, in the biological and earth sciences especially, circular reasoning often predominates: The theory of evolution is used to prove the theory of evolution.

(The “value climate of psychological reality” first mentioned in the [44th] session just quoted, is also dealt with through analogy in the 45th session. Portions of that material are given as Appendix 8 in Volume 1; in that session also Seth stated that “value expansion becomes reincarnation, and evolution and growth.” [Seth’s own kind of simultaneous time, of course, easily accommodates all three concepts, although this appendix isn’t concerned with reincarnation.]

(To a student:) Now last week, when Ruburt [Jane] was speaking about the natives who are such expert dreamers, you asked: “But why are they not more progressive?” Yet I know you realize that your own progress as a civilization will, in your terms, come to a halt unless you advance in other directions. This is what your civilization is learning that you cannot rape your planet, that life did not begin as some isolated [substance] that in the great probabilities of existence met another [similar substance], and another, and then another, until a chain of molecules could be made and selves formed. Using an analogy, neither does consciousness exist as simple organisms separated by vast distances, but as a complicated gestalt.

A close analogy to this material can be found in remarks Seth made in the 682nd session for that first volume: “The idea of one universe alone is basically nonsensical. Your reality must be seen in its relationship to others. Otherwise you are always caught in questions like ‘How did the universe begin?’ or ‘When will it end?’ All systems are constantly being created.”

4. This paragraph and the preceding one were used as a footnote for the 637th session in Chapter 9 of Personal Reality. That session, held 18 months ago, contains material appropriate to this appendix: As an analogy, Seth compares the “evolution” of souls in terms of value fulfillment to cellular growth in our physical reality.

17. These excerpts from Seth’s material in the 690th session, for Volume 1, furnish a close analogy to the sort of “time” available to molecular consciousness: “… biological precognition is firmly based in the chromosomes and genes, and reflected in the cells … The cells’ practically felt ‘Now’ includes, then, what you think of as past and future, as simple conditions of Nowness. They maintain the body’s structure in your poised time only by manipulating themselves in a rich medium of probabilities. There is a constant give-and-take of communication between the cell as you know it in present time, and the cell as it ‘was’ in the past, or ‘will be.’”