“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

But all things have consciousness, and in those terms possess a soul-nature. There are no gradations as to soul. Soul is the life within everything that is. Of course the fetus “has a soul” — but in the same way, if you think in those terms, then each cell within the fetus must be granted a soul (leaning forward with humorous emphasis, voice deeper). The course of a cell is not predetermined. Cells are usually very cooperative, particularly as they form the structures of the body.³

The cells are not inferior as far as you are concerned, even though they form part of the structure of your physical being. They are not even less conscious. (Emphatically:) They are conscious in a different fashion. There is no need to “romanticize” them, or to think of them as little people, but each of them possesses a highly focused consciousness, and a consciousness of self. You like to think — again — that only your own species possesses an awareness of its own selfhood. There are different kinds of selfhood, and an infinite variety of ways to experience self-awareness.

I think it very likely that aborted fetuses and those infants who die early in “life” — say within a few months after birth, especially — never intended to stay long within camouflage (physical) reality to begin with; the consciousnesses within those small human structures came just to momentarily sample our world of matter, whether from inside the womb or out of it. Considering their viewpoints, it’s not tragic that they “die” unborn, or at such young ages, although in ordinary terms the parents involved will almost certainly mourn deeply. (Perhaps these notions will be of some limited comfort to those who have written us with related questions.)