“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.

(But to some degree many scientists outside physics regard such esoteric particle relationships as being of theoretical interest mainly within that discipline; the concepts aren’t seen as posing any threat to biology, zoology, or geology, for instance, nor do they tinker with naïve realism. The biological sciences can cling to mechanistic theories of evolution by employing the conservative physics of cause and effect to support their conclusions while being aware, perhaps, of the tenets of particle physics. Such “causal analysis” then proves itself over and over again — a situation I wryly note, that’s akin to the criticism I’ve read wherein the theory of evolution is used to prove the theory of evolution. [I mentioned such circular reasoning near the beginning of this appendix.]

(I want to add here that our real challenge in knowing our own species, and others, may lie in our cultivating the ability to understand the interacting consciousnesses involved, rather than to search only for physical relationships supposedly created through evolutionary processes. The challenge is profound. The consciousnesses of numerous other species may be so different from ours that we only approximately grasp the meanings inherent in some of them, and miss the essences of others entirely. To give just two examples, at this time we are surely opaque to the seemingly endless search for value fulfillment that consciousness displays through the “lowly” lung fish and the “unattractive” cockroach. Yet those entities are quite immune to our notions of evolution, and they explore time contexts in ways far beyond our current human comprehension. As far as science knows, both have existed with very little change for over 300 million years.

(But, I asked Jane recently, why do our sciences and religions take it all so seriously? I wasn’t really too earnest. If we truly owe our physical existence to the chance conglomeration of certain atoms and molecules in the thickening scum of a primordial pond or ocean [to discuss only mankind here], then certainly we’ll never come this way again in the universe; and moreover, our emotional and intellectual attributes must rest upon the same dubious beginning. Aside from the lack of evidence to back up such “scientific” speculations, what thinking or feeling values, I wonder, can make such a belief system so attractive? Surely very limited ones in linear terms, fated to never get beyond those incessant questions about what came before the beginning. To paraphrase some other material Jane wrote not long ago: “But the earth and all upon it are given. To imagine that such an entire environment is an accident is intellectually outrageous and emotionally sterile.”

Science Convinces Me of Magic

Science convinces me of magic

(Jane and I certainly do not hold creationist views [see Note 1]. As I wrote near the beginning of this appendix, to go very far into religious history would lead away from the subject matter I planned to cover; but to us science is as far away from Seth’s philosophy in one direction as religion is in the opposite direction. The species’ religious drives have been around a lot longer than its scientific ones, however, so I found myself looking for broad correlations between the two, in that under each value system the individual carries a very conscious sense of personal vulnerability. Before Darwinism, to use that concept as an example, man at least felt that God had put him on earth for certain purposes, no matter how much man distorted those purposes through ignorance and war. According to Judaism and Christianity, among many religions, man could seek forgiveness and salvation; he had a soul. After Darwin, he learned that even his physical presence on earth was an accident of nature. He was taught — he taught himself — that ideas of souls and gods were ridiculous. Either way, this very fallible creature found himself vulnerable to forces that consciously he couldn’t understand — even though, in Seth’s view, down through the millennia man had chosen all of his religious and antireligious experiences.

(As far as I can discover, science pays very little attention to any philosophical questions about why we’re here, even while most definitely telling us what’s true or not true. And while postulating that life is basically meaningless or goal-less [DNA doesn’t care what its host looks like, for instance], science fights awfully hard to convince everyone that it’s right — thus attaching the most rigid kind of meaning or direction to its professional views! [If I were very cynical, I’d add here that to Jane and me it often seems that science wants only what science believes.] At the same time, in mathematical and biological detail much too complicated to go into here, the author of many a scientific work in favor of evolution has ended up by undermining, unwittingly, I’m sure, the very themes he so devoutly believes in. I’ve hinted at some of those paradoxes in certain notes [mainly 5 through 8] for this appendix.

(Within such a gloomy framework, then, I think it legitimate to ask how the species can consciously stress its accidental presence in the cosmos, yet demand that its members be the most “moral” of creatures. If science insists that there was, and is, no design or planner behind man’s emergence, then how can man be expected to act as if there was, or is? Seth hasn’t said so yet, but I think such contradictions play an important negative role in present world conditions. The attitude that life is a godless thing is so pervasive — and not only in Western cultures — that in Seth’s terms it can be called an invisible mass core belief.

If it were scientifically inclined, the body would know that such spontaneous performance was impossible, for science cannot explain the reality of life itself in its present form, much less its origins. Consciousness within the body knows that its existence is within the body’s context, and apart from it at the same time.

(My position after writing this appendix is that in scientific and religious terms we know little about our world [and universe], its origins, and its amazing variety of forms, both “living” and “nonliving.” Our own limitations may have something to do with our attitudes here, yet Jane and I have become very careful about believing science or religion when either one tells us it can explain our world, for each of those disciplines ignores too much. No matter what the source of this camouflage reality may be, our conscious lack of knowledge and understanding as we manipulate within it, through naïve realism or any other system of belief or perception, ought to make us humble indeed; all arrogance should be transcended as we become more and more aware of the limitless beauty, complexity, and mystery that surrounds us, and of which we are part. Jane and I just don’t think it all came about through chance! The mind can ask too many questions to be satisfied with mechanistic explanations, and nurturing that characteristic of dissatisfaction alone may be one of the most valuable contributions the Seth material can make.

(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.

(Now we read late surveys that show an increase in religious faith, and statements to the effect that science does not claim to reveal absolute truth, that any scientific theory is valid only until a variance is shown. Jane and I certainly aren’t turned on to realize that a major religion, for instance, teaches the “facts” of man’s basically corrupt and sinful nature; surely a religion in the best sense can offer beliefs superior to those! At the same time, we take note of the latest efforts of biological researchers to explain how, millions of years ago, a primitive DNA molecule could begin to manufacture the protein upon which life “rides,” and thus get around the contradiction posed in Note 8: What made the protein that sustains the processes of life, before that life was present to make the protein? The scientists involved hope the new hypothesis will survive further tests and become “fact,” thus giving clues to the riddles of origins and evolution. But to briefly paraphrase material Jane came through with not long ago [and which, again, will eventually be published]: “How does one deal with new facts that undermine old facts, in whatever field of endeavor? Do you say that reality has changed? Upon examination, facts give.”

(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.)

6. Ever since Seth came through with the material in this (44th) session 10 years ago, I’ve been interested in comparing his second law of the inner universe with the second law of thermodynamics of our “camouflage” physical sciences. Both deal with energy, yet to me they’re opposites. At the same time I see them as linked through our distorted perception of that inner reality, thus pointing up Seth’s statement just given, that “the so-called laws of your camouflage universe do not apply to the inner universe.” (When this session was held Jane knew nothing of the three laws of thermodynamics, or how they define energy/heat relationships in our universe. Nor is she concerned with them now, per se; they’re simply outside of her interests.)

It’s often been claimed that Darwin’s natural selection, while ruling out any question of design or a planner — God, say — behind living matter, leaves unexplained the same question relative to the structure of nonliving matter, which in those terms obviously preceded life. I’d rather approach that argument through another statement Seth made in Chapter 20 of Seth Speaks (in the 582nd session): “You are biologically connected, chemically connected with the Earth that you know….” How is it that as living creatures we’re made up of ingredients — atoms of iron, molecules of water, for instance — from a supposedly dead world? In the scientific view we’re utterly dependent upon that contradictory situation. No one denies the amazing structure or design of our physical universe, from the scale of subatomic particles on “up” (regardless of what cosmological theory is used to explain the universe’s beginning). The study of design as one of the links between “living” and “nonliving” systems would certainly be a difficult challenge — but a most rewarding one, I think — for science. I have little idea of how the work would be carried out. Evidently it would lead from biology through microbiology to physics with, ultimately, a search that at least approached Seth’s electromagnetic energy (EE) units and units of consciousness (CU’s). Yet according to Seth, both classes of “particles” are in actuality nonphysical; as best words can note, they have their realities on scales so minute that we cannot hope to detect them through our present technology….

15. In microbiology, the first stages of the exciting and controversial “genetic engineering” are at hand. This long-sought goal of science involves the very sophisticated recombination of DNA from such different life forms as plants and mammals, say, into new forms not seen on earth before. Such work has been called vital for the understanding of many things — the genetics of all species, the control of at least some diseases, great improvements in the quality of food plants, and so forth. It’s also been called outright interference with the evolutionary constraints that prevent the interbreeding of species. Although risks may be present in DNA research, such as the unforeseen creation of new diseases, it seems that within strict safeguards recombinant techniques are here to stay.

Once again, however, it’s obvious that as a whole, science is far removed from Seth’s idea that each of us — whether that “us” is a human being or a molecule of DNA — creates our own reality. And what if we can learn to assemble sections of DNA from various life forms into new forms? To at least some extent such basic genetic substances would cooperate in the efforts at recombination: for no matter what kind of life developed, it would represent a gestalt of myriad consciousnesses, embarking upon unique explorations.

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.

The material in Volume 1 on the dream-art scientist, the true mental physicist, and the complete physician (as well as on science in general), applies here. See sessions 700–4.