“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Seth’s ideas aside for the moment, biologists faithful to Darwin’s theories don’t want to hear anything about the precognitive abilities of a species, nor do they see any evidence of it in their work. In evolutionary theory, such attributes violate not only the operation of chance mutation and the struggle for existence, but our ideas of consecutive time [which is associated with “naïve realism” — the belief that things are really as we perceive them to be]. Not that scientifically the concept of a far more flexible time — even a backward flow of time — is all that new. In atomic physics, for example, no special meaning or place is given to any particular moment, and fundamentally the past and future all but merge in the interactions of elementary particles — thus at least approaching Seth’s simultaneous time.¹⁰ At that level there’s change, or value fulfillment, but no evolution. To Jane’s and my way of thinking, if there’s value fulfillment there’s consciousness, expressed through CU’s, or units of consciousness.

(I find it very interesting, then, to consider that the theory of evolution is a creature of our coarser world of “physical” construction. Our ordinary, chosen sensual perceptions move us forward, within “the time system that the species adopted,” as Seth commented in Chapter 8 of Personal Reality. And Seth’s explanation of the moment point¹¹ encompasses the seeming paradox through which consecutive time can be allowed expression within simultaneous time.

(Within that temporal framework investigators have recently discovered great biochemical differences among human beings at the molecular level: The genetic structures of numerous proteins [see Note 5] have been shown to be much more varied than was suspected. Even more pronounced are the differences among proteins between species. Each of us is seen to be truly unique — but at the same time those studying biological evolution express concern about whether their discoveries will challenge Darwinistic beliefs. Instead, I think that what has been learned so far offers only possible variations within the idea of evolution, for the talk is still about the origin of life out of nonlife, followed by the climb up the scale of living complexity; most evolutionists think that natural selection, or the survival of the fittest, still applies.

(I’m projecting my own ideas here, but I think that in all of its complexity DNA has motives for its physical existence [as mediated through Seth’s CU’s, or units of consciousness] that considerably enlarge upon its assigned function as the “master molecule” of life as we know it. Deoxyribonucleic acid may exist within its host, whether man, plant, or animal — or bacteria or virus — in cooperative altruistic ventures with its carrier that are quite beside purely survival ones. Some of those goals, such as the exploration of concepts like the moment point [see Note 11], or probabilities [and reincarnation¹⁶], really defy our ordinary conscious perception. In terms we can more easily grasp, social relationships within and between species may be explored, starting at that biochemical level and working “upward.” Basically, then, an overall genetics of cooperation becomes a truer long-run concept than the postulated deadly struggle for survival of the fittest, whether between man and molecules, say, or among members of the same species. Once again we have consciousness seeking to know itself in as many ways as possible, while being aware all of the time, in those terms, of the forthcoming “death” of its medium of expression, DNA, and of DNA’s host, or “physical machine.”

(In the current literature I read that a typical famous scientist — one of many leaders expressing such views these days — is very pessimistic about the state of the human species, given its many dilemmas. I also note that he seems to be most unhappy while stressing his agnosticism,²⁰ which is the kind of belief system that perpetuates standard evolutionary doctrines. Building upon those limited assumptions, the individual in question tells us how ironic it is that the “new” portions of the human brain, those that have evolved within the last two million years, are responsible for the moral and technological problems our species now faces. The brain’s great creative neocortex is held especially accountable for problems that may lead to humanity’s self-destruction. None of these challenges, as Jane and I habitually call them, are seen as distorted expressions of the kind of creativity Seth has described many times.²¹

(My thought is that because of that choosing, common denominators must lie beneath the clashing beliefs about evolution, and that a good place to start looking for such unifying factors is within the theory, or the framework or idea, of simultaneous time — however one wants to try to express such a quality within serial terms. The search would be a complicated one. At the same time, I admit that ideas like this always remind me of Seth’s comments in the class session for June 23, 1970, as excerpted in the Appendix for Seth Speaks:)

(For some years now, organized religion as a whole has been suffering from a loss of faith and members, stripped of its mysteries by science, which, with the best of intentions, offers in religion’s place a secular humanism — the belief that one doesn’t need blind faith in a god in order to be morally concerned for the common welfare; paradoxically, however, this concern is most of the time expressed in religious terms, or with religious feeling. Yet science too has experienced many failures in theory and technology, and knows a new humility; at least partly because of these failures, anti-intellectualism has grown noticeably in recent years.

(The search, then, is on for new unities and meanings; a convergence, one might say, of the realities of science, nature, religion — and, of course, mysticism. By mysticism I mean simply the intuitional penetration of our camouflage reality to achieve deeper understandings relative to our physical and mental environments — and such comprehensions are what Jane seeks to accomplish through her expression of the Seth material.²⁵ In that sense, it isn’t necessary here to discuss attaining “ultimate” knowledge — it will be enough to note that as one person Jane can use her abilities to help unify a number of viewpoints. She can also bring to consciousness the idea that no matter what our individual orientations may be, collectively we do have overall purposes in the world we’ve created. This realization alone can be a transforming one; as I show in the Introductory Notes for Volume 1 of “Unknown” Reality, it can be a most useful one in practical, everyday life as well. Within that sort of framework, the evolution referred to by Seth — in whatever way it may concern the development of ideas, planets, creatures, or anything else — makes sense.)

In Volume 1, Seth carried this material a step further through his description of his CU’s, or “units” of consciousness. “I do not want you to think of these units as particles,” he said in the 682nd session (given in February 1974). “There is a basic unit of consciousness that, expressed, will not be broken down….” Also see sessions 683–84.

I think it obvious that by “energy transformation” Seth doesn’t mean that the energy (or consciousness, to my way of thinking) in our system is inevitably decreasing. I can best express it intuitively: In physics, that well-known second law of thermodynamics may usually be so reliable for us, distorted as it is, just because of our limited physical interpretation as mediated by the central nervous system.

I should add that the passages on science and scientists in Appendix 12 aren’t intended to add up to any general indictment of what are very powerful cultural forces, but to give insights into “where we’re at” at this time in linear history. Many scientists are agnostic or atheistic. However, Jane and I feel that if science represents the “search for truth,” as it so often reminds us, then eventually it will contend with the kind of gifts she demonstrates. Subjective and objective abilities, working together, can create a whole greater than the sum of its parts. A number of scientists, representing various disciplines, have written Jane about the Seth material, and many of them have expressed such views.