“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Any perception is action; it changes that upon which it acts, and in so doing it is itself changed. The slightest perception alters every atom within your body.²⁴ This, in turn, sends out its ripples, so that as you know, the most minute action is felt everywhere.

24. In the 464th session I made sure that I asked Seth to elaborate upon his statement in the last session: “The slightest perception alters every atom within your body.” He came through with his answer just before first break:

“Returning to the material on perception, there are changes in the positive and negative atomic charges, alterations of movement inside the atoms in the smaller particles, a change in pulsation rate. The activity of atoms is actually caused by perceptive qualities. To begin with, atoms do not just move within themselves because they are atoms. The constant motion within them is caused by the unending perceptive nature of any consciousness, however minute in your terms. Does that answer your question?”

Seth continued: “Each of the particles within the atom is perceptively aware of all of the other particles within that same atom. They move in response to stimuli received from each other, and to stimuli that come from other atoms … Each atom within a cell, for example, is aware of the activity of each of the other atoms there, and to some extent of the stimuli that come to the cell itself from outside it.

“The entire act has its own electromagnetic reality, and the event is actually electromagnetic motion. The movement within the atoms, mentioned earlier, is therefore basically a part of the entire perceived event. Does this make the issue plainer for you?”

(To go into modern knowledge of the components of the atom can be a very complicated task, so I’ll note only that such particles are regarded as actually being packets of energy, or “probability patterns,” that can also manifest themselves as waves; both the particle and the wave aspects are legitimate in space-time. An atom, then, is composed of a “heavy” positively charged nucleus orbited by “lighter” negatively charged electrons. Generally speaking, these positive and negative qualities could be those Seth referred to in the 464th session.

The electron is the lightest particle known to have mass and charge, and its internal structure — whatever it may be — is unknown. The atomic nucleus is largely made up of more massive protons and neutrons, but investigation within the nucleus has either uncovered or produced many other subatomic particles as well — over 200 of these, some of them very unstable, are presently known. According to Seth, of course, all of the particles or probability patterns discussed here would be composed of the much, much smaller CU’s, or units of consciousness.