“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(That concentration upon places to live reminded us of families, of course — “regular” families as well as Seth’s families of consciousness. While I drove us back to our apartment house for supper we discussed the incredibly complicated roles and events surrounding those different kinds of organizations — whereupon Jane came up with a most apt phrase: “The genealogy of events….” She laughed, then added: “As families of people have their genealogies, so do families of events.”⁴

The Sumari characteristics do not exist in isolation, of course. To one extent or another, each family of consciousness carries within it the characteristics inherent in all of the families. There is, therefore, great diversity.

The Sumari abilities are highly creative ones, however. To a large extent they have been inhibited in your society. I have been speaking of them here so that each individual can learn to recognize his or her own degree of Sumariness. The playful, creative elements of personality can then be released. These qualities are particularly important as they add to, temper, or enhance the primary characteristics of the other families of consciousness.

(Pause.) If you are a “reformer,” a “reformer by nature,” then the Sumari characteristics, brought to the surface, could help you temper your seriousness with play and humor, and actually assist you in achieving your reforms far easier than otherwise. Each personality carries traces of other characteristics besides those of the family of consciousness to which he or she might belong. The creative aspects of the Sumari can be particularly useful if those aspects are encouraged in any personality, simply because their inventive nature throws light on all elements of experience.

The psyche as you know it, then, is composed of a mixture of these families of consciousness. One is not superior to the others. They are just different, and they represent various ways of looking at physical life. (Pause.) A book would be needed to explain the dimensions of the psyche in relation to the different families of consciousness. Here, in this manuscript, I merely want to make the reader aware of the existence of these psychic groupings. I am alert to the fact that I am using many terms, and that it may seem difficult to understand the differences between probable and reincarnational selves, counterparts and families of consciousness. At times contradictions may seem to exist. You may wonder how you are you in the midst of such multitudinous psychic “variations.”

To some extent you can actualize portions of your own unknown reality, and draw them into the experienced area of your life. There is an obvious relationship between one note and another in a musical composition. Now in terms of physical families and in larger terms of countries, there is a relationship between realities, which constantly change as the notes do. To some extent your reality is picked up by your contemporaries. They accept it or not according to the particular theme or focus of their lives.

12. A note added later: I’m sorry to write that Seth didn’t discuss historical probabilities in the 736th session, or national counterparts either. I forgot to remind Jane of those topics before that session, just as I forgot to ask Seth about them while he was speaking. Several more sessions were held before I discovered the lapse, which occurred partly because I hadn’t typed the 735th session yet, and neglected to refer to my handwritten notes, and partly because in the meantime Seth had returned to his material on the families of consciousness. My error was unfortunate, since I feel that his information would have been most original, enhancing future sessions.