“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(Pause, then humorously:) You “know” that a chair is not going to chase you around the room, for instance — at least the odds are against it. You know this because you have a reasoning mind, but that particular kind of reasoning mind knows what it knows because at deep levels the cells are aware of the nature of probable action. The beliefs of the conscious mind, however, set your goals and purposes. “You” are the one who decides to walk across the floor, and then all of these inner calculations take place to help you achieve your goal. The conscious intent, therefore, activates the inner mechanisms and changes the behavior of the cells and their components.

In far greater terms, the goals set consciously by your species also set into operation the same kind of inner biological activity. The goals of the species do not exist apart from individual goals. As you go about your life, therefore, you are very effectively taking part in the “future” developments of your species. Period. Let us look for a moment at the private psyche.

For an exercise, keep notes for a day or so of all the times you find yourself thinking of probable actions,² large or small. In your mind, try to follow “what might have happened” had you taken the course you did not take. Then imagine what might happen as a result of your chosen decisions. You are a member of the species. Any choice you make privately affects it biologically and psychically.

You can literally choose between health and illness; between a concentration upon the mental more than the physical, or upon the physical more than the mental. Such private decisions affect the genetic heritage of the species. Your intent is all-important — for you can alter your own genetic messages³ within certain limits. You can cause a cell, or a group of cells, to change their self-image, for example; and again, you do this often — as you healed yourselves of diseases because of your intent to become well. The intent will be conscious, though the means may not be. Period. In such a case, however, the self-healing qualities of the cells are reinforced, and the self-healing abilities of the species are also strengthened.

Give us a moment … (Long pause, eyes closed.) There are lands of the mind.⁵ That is, the mind has its own “civilizations,” its own personal culture and geography, its own history and inclinations. But the mind is connected with the physical brain, and so hidden in its [the brain’s] folds there is an archaeological memory. To some extent what you know now is dependent upon what will be known, and what has been known, in your terms. The “past” races of men live to that extent within your Now, as do those who will seemingly come after. So, ideally speaking, the history of your species can be discovered quite clearly within the psyche; and true archaeological events are found not only by uncovering rocks and relics, but by bringing to light, so to speak, the memories that dwell within the psyche.

5. Jane herself first mentioned “lands of the mind” during break in the 703rd session, which was held some three weeks ago — but she’d picked up the phrase from Seth. See the notes at the close of that session, in Volume 1.