EXPLORATIONS. A STUDY OF THE PSYCHE AS IT IS RELATED TO PRIVATE LIFE AND THE EXPERIENCE OF THE SPECIES. PROBABLE REALITIES AS A COURSE OF PERSONAL EXPERIENCE. PERSONAL EXPERIENCE AS IT IS RELATED TO “PAST” AND “FUTURE” CIVILIZATIONS OF MAN

(9:38.) To return to our main subject of the moment: The fact is that the so-called process of evolution is highly dependent upon the cooperative tendencies inherent in all properties of life and in all species. There is no transmigration of souls, in which the entire personality of a person “comes back” as an animal. Yet in the physical framework there is a constant intermixing, so that the cells of a man or a woman may become the cells of a plant or an animal,⁴ and of course vice versa. The cells that have been a part of a human brain know this in their way. Those cells that now compose your own bodies have combined and discombined many times to form other portions of the natural environment.

(The 704th session was held a week ago. In it Seth gave the heading for Section 4, just before finishing his evening’s work with a few minutes of personal information for Jane and me. He’s remarked more than once that he’ll close a session by dictating the heading for the next chapter, or whatever, “so that Ruburt [Jane] knows what I am doing. It gives him confidence.” But I’d say his procedure also helps satisfy Jane’s spontaneous impatience about learning what’s coming next in the material.

In your terms, consciousness of self did not develop because of any exterior circumstances in which your species won out, so to speak. In fact, that consciousness of self in any person is dependent upon the constant, miraculous cooperations that exist between the mineral, vegetable, and animal worlds.³ The inner intent always forms any exterior alteration. This applies on any scale you use. Consciousness forms the environment. The environment itself is conscious (forcefully). Atoms and molecules themselves operate in their own fields of probabilities. In their own ways, they “yearn” toward all probable developments. When they form living creatures they become a physical basis for species alteration. The body’s adaptability is not simply an adjusting mechanism or quality. The cells have inner capabilities that you have not discovered. They contain within themselves memory of all the “previous” forms they have been a part of.

(The second session quoted is the 634th [for January 22, 1973] in Chapter 8 of Personal Reality. [...]

[...] Certainly individual and mass beliefs will be involved [along with the natural and unnatural guilt Seth discussed in the sessions making up Chapter 8 of Personal Reality]. [...]

[...] I suggest that the entire 634th session in Personal Reality be read with this appendix, for in it Seth explored some connections between animal and man — including the evolution [my emphasis] by man of “certain animal capacities to their utmost.” [...]

[...] 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. [...]