“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(A long pause at 10:06.) The brain can be called simply the physical counterpart of the mind. By means of the brain the functions of the soul and intellect are connected with the body. Through the characteristics of the brain, events that are of nonphysical origin become physically valid. [...]

[...] (With gestures, and forcefully.) This is the result of the focusing and yet limiting behavior of the physical brain, for effective survival behavior in your reality depends upon time reactions. [...]

(Pause.) This bouncing back of energy into itself is the meaning of the dream state, in which experience that is basically nonphysical is embarked upon, and is then interpreted as a dream through the brain. [...] Your dream, though clearly remembered, is already a translation of the physical brain. [...]

[...] Your physical brain automatically converts such data into temporal terms so that many of your significant, remembered dream experiences are already translations by the time you recall them. [...]

[...] There are as yet undiscovered, bizarre changes in the brain during certain dream states, an acceleration that quite literally propels the consciousness out of its usual space-time continuum into those other realities from which it comes.

[...] The action is transformed and translated, and is sent to the brain where its effects directly are felt, and the brain then initiates reactions. [...]

[...] The mind, as separate from the brain, the mind exists purely and simply in the electric system or field, and does not project itself directly into the physical field although its effects appear within it.

[...] Dimensions do indeed exist within this electrical field of which I have spoken, and it should be understood that I speak of an independent electrical field, and not of the weak, apparent electrical effects that can be observed within the brain or nervous system. [...]

The physical brain as you know it is but the camouflage mechanism belonging to the physically oriented self. In some cases, severe damage is done to the brain, and yet rationality continues. In these cases the mind behind the brain operates as always. When the individual is convinced that his activities are completely dependent upon the physical brain, then he is incapacitated almost completely by any injury to it. The brain itself contains knowledge that comes through the inner senses, and this knowledge would simply not be available to it, if it were dependent upon physical data completely.

[...] Any material that is important for the body’s contact with outer camouflage patterns is given to the brain. The subconscious, so-called, is a connective between mind and brain, between the inner senses and the outer senses. [...]

Mental enzymes belong to the mind rather than the brain, although they function through both and use chemical properties of the physical body in their operation.

[...] As far as Jane’s or Ruburt’s subconscious is concerned, I make contact with you through both of your subconsciousnesses (Jane’s pronunciation); but through that larger portion which actually exists between planes, which is the property of the mind, not the brain, and which deals with the inner senses. [...]

[...] The brain consists of two independent coiled hemispheres lying side by side and joined by a common base. [...] Brain-wave patterns from each hemisphere often vary, as do those from the different lobes making up each side. No two brains are alike, however.

[...] The experiences, however, affect the right hemisphere of the brain, and in such a way that abilities are released in somewhat the same manner as an adolescent’s.

The brain is a camouflage pattern. [...] Your camouflage universe, on the other hand, takes up space and has an existence in time, but it is not the real and basic universe, any more than the brain is the mind.

[...] The mind does not take up space, and yet the mind is the value that gives power to the brain. [...]

[...] I am telling you that the basic universe exists behind all camouflage universes in the same manner, and taking up no space, that the mind exists behind the brain.

The size of the brain has little to do with this beyond a certain point. The number of electrical connections are important, however, and even the old portions of the brain are affected by them. [...]

Under ordinary circumstances, data is received through the physical senses and then interpreted by the brain. When a clairvoyant event is perceived, the data is received by the mind, then given to the brain which then interprets it. [...]

I mentioned in your last session that your scientists do not realize that man has, indeed, evolved since the development of the brain. [...]

New paragraph: In somewhat the same manner, your physical brain is a doorway that triggers activity in your mind. Your beliefs then are largely responsible for the areas of the brain that you activate, and for the resulting nonphysical action of the mind.

[...] Seth also comments on the hemispheres of the brain in that session.)

[...] The portions of the brain not used during highly focused physical life are turned on, as they also are in infancy and in certain stages of adolescence. [...]

I’m well aware of current scientific theories about the supposed separate functions of the two hemispheres of the brain: The left half is said to control logical activities like writing, while the right half is responsible for the intuitive artistic abilities. [...] At least the whole brain (its hemispheres are connected deep within by the corpus callosum) must contain that necessary basic creative ability that may then be apportioned out — but only to an extent, I think — between the hemispheres. Barring physical injury/surgery, there must be more communication between its halves (via the corpus callosum) than the brain is given credit for. There’s so much we don’t know yet about the brain (let alone the mind!). [...] I think the divisions charted for the brain so far may be too strict, that beliefs about such separations may get in the way of our perception of the brain’s beautifully whole operation.

With winged brains
We swoop and swirl
Inside the blue bell
Of the outer world.

[...] You have one brain, it is true, but you allow it to use only one station, or to identify itself with only one mind of many.

These minds all work together to keep you alive through the physical structure of the brain. [...]

[...] He activates certain portions of the brain that connect it to another mind, that people do not as yet realize they possess.

Existence in this field has great importance, particularly as far as the physical brain mechanism is concerned, and there are far more connections here than your scientists have yet discovered. [...]

Now again: regardless of current scientific thought, there are at least three different kinds of electric force which your scientists have not yet discovered, and one of these has much to do with the intensity of thoughts as they are formed in the intangible mind, and translated to the physical brain and then into action, as the case may be.

[...] The brain, which exists physically, is a part of the mind in the electric structure. [...]

(Pause.) Your brains are not empty, but well-oiled machines ready to whirl into activity at your births. They are provided with a propensity to learn — and the rudiments of knowledge as you understand it exits within the brain (intently). In those terms, now, the brain thinks before birth. [...]

[...] According to its tenets, any such feeling of conscious choice is instead the reflection of the brain’s attitude at any given time. [...]

[...] To study psychology exclusively in terms of the brain’s effect upon the physical body is likewise hampering and limiting, for the brain is merely that portion of, that very small portion, of the mind which is apparent within matter. As such within your physical field the brain is subject to the laws of your field. [...]

His probable brain can only translate so much of this (tonight’s session) at one time.

The size of the brain has little to do with any of this beyond a certain point. The number of electrical connections are important however, and even old portions of the brain are affected by them. The old portions of the brain are not the same as they were. [...]

[...] I mentioned in our last session that the scientists did not realize that man has indeed evolved since the development of the human brain. [...]

[...] Again, for many centuries, there were innumerable species of man-in-the-making, in your terms; various postures, and even types of manipulation, as well as alterations in brain size and activity. [...]

(Portions of the article in yesterday’s newspaper, I should add, dealt with the recent discoveries of skeletal fragments in East Africa that indicate the coexistence of several varieties of ancient man and preman; the latter being creatures who looked rather human but whose brains, it is believed, remained apelike. [...]

The physical brain alone cannot pick up these connections with any great success. The mind, which is the inner counterpart of the brain, can at times perceive the far greater dimensions of any given event through a burst of sudden intuition or comprehension that cannot be adequately described on a verbal level.

Both portions of this world mind, or world brain, therefore, operate in exaggerated fashions, so that their own characteristics are almost caricatured, untempered as it were by other portions, as if perhaps in an individual the left and right portions of the brain were artificially functionally separated. [...]

What is perfectly clear to one portion of that world brain may not be perceived at all by the other side, and vice versa. [...]