“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

When you turn off what you think of as your conscious mind, then another conscious mind clicks into focus. You have more than one conscious mind. You can experience them only one at a time, although they exist simultaneously. When you cease using the conscious mind that you know, there is another one that will take over—you do not sink into a limbo. You are used to thinking of hypnosis in this following manner: You seem to think, most of you, that the conscious mind is blocked out, and then what follows is a murky and a shadowy version of the normal conscious mind—that the subconscious, for example, deals with material that you cannot understand consciously.

You have ten fingers and you use them all. Yet, what you are saying is, “This finger is my conscious awareness and I will use it and I will not use these other nine—or if I use these other nine, I cannot use my conscious awareness.” Your fingers are all fingers and these other portions of yourself are all conscious. They may not be conscious of each other. They may not be conscious of each other, but they are conscious. They are all part of your own identity. They are all portions of your abilities and personalities...that you are meant to use.

Now. Theoretically, you can be aware of more than one consciousness at once. Practically speaking, you must close one door before you can open another. Then you can learn to have both open at the same time. What I objected to in your recording was the implication that once the conscious mind as you know it was quieted there was no other conscious mind to take over, and that the ordinary conscious mind was the only conscious mind that you have.

I do not approve of what has been said so far. And there are a few points I would like to make. You have not one, but many conscious selves. You have more than one conscious mind. What we want you to do is something quite different. We want you to change the channels of your awareness. We want you momentarily to stop using one of your conscious minds and learn how to tune into another one of your conscious minds.

(Long pause; the pace was still slow at this point.) Consciousness can be turned in many directions, obviously, both inward and outward. You are aware of fluctuations in your normal consciousness, and closer attention would make some of this quite clear. [...] You may focus upon one object almost to the exclusion of everything else at times, so that you literally are not conscious of the room in which you sit.

To some extent, all of these are small examples of the mobility of your consciousness, and the ease with which it can be used. In a strange manner, symbols can be regarded as samples of the way you perceive at various levels of consciousness. [...] Fire, for example, is a symbol made physical, so a real fire tells you obviously that you are perceiving reality with your physically attuned consciousness.

[...] Here you begin to draw into regions of consciousness in which symbols become less and less necessary, and it is a largely unpopulated area indeed. [...] Consciousness is less and less physically oriented. In this stage of consciousness the soul finds itself alone with its own feelings, stripped of symbolism and representations, and begins to perceive the gigantic reality of its own knowing.

At different levels, consciousness works with different kinds of symbols. [...] Working in one direction the soul, using its consciousness, expresses inner reality through as many symbols as possible, through living, changing symbolism. Each symbol itself then is to its own extent conscious, individual, and aware.

[...] It is perhaps easier to imagine a continuum of consciousness, for you have a body consciousness also, and that body consciousness is itself made up of the individual consciousness of each molecule that forms all parts of the body itself.

(Long pause at 4:06.) It is sometimes fashionable to say that men and women have conscious minds, subconscious minds, and unconscious minds — but there is no such thing as an unconscious mind. The body consciousness is highly conscious (underlined). You are simply not usually conscious of it. [...]

You might say that the varying portions of your own consciousness operate at several different speeds. Translations between one portion of consciousness and another goes on constantly, so that information is translated from one “speed” to another. [...] You might well wonder why the body consciousness does not simply rise up and cast off any threatening diseases: why would the body allow certain cells to go berserk, or outgrow themselves? [...]

You know that you have a conscious mind, of course. You also possess what is often called the subconscious, and this merely consists of feelings, thoughts or experiences that are connected to your conscious mind, but would be considered excess baggage if you had to be aware of them all of the time. [...]

So far in our discussion, then, we have an inner self, dwelling primarily in a mental or psychic dimension, dreaming itself into physical form, and finally forming a body consciousness. To that body consciousness the inner self gives “its own body of physical knowledge,” the vast reservoir of physical achievement that it has triumphantly produced. (Pause.) The body consciousness is not “unconscious,” but for working purposes in your terms, [the body] possesses its own system of consciousness that to some extent, now (underlined), is separated from what you think of as your own normal consciousness. The body’s consciousness is hardly to be considered less than your own, or as inferior to that of your inner self, since it represents knowledge from the inner self, and is a part of the inner self’s own consciousness—the part delegated to the body.

(Long pause.) In one way or another, that inner information had to connect each consciousness on the face of the planet. Earthly creatures must be able to react in a moment, yet the inner mechanisms that made such reactions possible were based upon calculations that could not be consciously kept in mind. In your time scheme, for example, you could never move as quickly as you do if you had to consciously work all the muscles involved in motion—or in speech, or in any such bodily performance. You certainly could not communicate on such a physical level if you first had to be aware of all of speech’s mechanisms, working them consciously before a word was uttered. Yet you had to have that kind of knowledge, and you had to have it in a way that did not intrude upon your conscious thoughts.

[...] The inner self still related to dream reality, while the body’s orientation and the body consciousness attained, as was intended, a great sense of physical adventure, curiosity, speculation, wonder—and so once again the inner self put a portion of its consciousness in a different parcel, so to speak. As once it had formed the body consciousness, now it formed a physically attuned consciousness, a self whose desires and intents would be oriented in a way that, alone, the inner self could not be.

(Pause at 9:23.) As the body became physical, however, the inner self formed the body consciousness so that the physical body became more aware of itself, of the environment, and of its relationship within the environment. Before this could happen, though, the body consciousness was taught to become aware of its own inner environment. [...] The body’s pattern came from the inner self, as all of the units of consciousness involved in this venture together formed this fabric of environment and creatures, each suited to the other.

(Pause at 10:23.) In periods of conscious “blank spots” or certain fluctuations, these memory systems are often perceived. As a rule the conscious mind with its own memory system will not accept them. When a personality realizes that such other realities exist and that other experiences with consciousness are possible, then he activates certain potentials within himself. [...] They bring together reservoirs of energy and set up pathways of activity, allowing the conscious mind to increase its degree of sensitivity to such data. The conscious mind is set free of itself. [...]

Now: Periods of reverie and creative moments of consciousness both represent excellent entryways into these other areas. In the usual creative state of consciousness, the regular waking consciousness is suddenly supported by energy from these other areas. Waking consciousness alone does not give you the creative state. Indeed, normal waking consciousness can be as afraid of creative states as it is of blank states, for it can feel that the I is being thrust aside, can feel the upthrust of energy that it may not understand.

The various levels of consciousness discussed here may appear to be very divorced from ordinary waking ones. [...] These various stages all represent different attributes and directions inherent within your own soul; clues and hints of them, shadows and reflections appear even in the consciousness that you know. Even normal waking consciousness, then, is not innocent of all other traces of existence, or devoid of other kinds of awareness. It is only because you usually use your waking consciousness in limited ways that you do not encounter these clues with any regularity.

Now: As mentioned somewhat earlier in this book, while your normal waking consciousness seems continual to you, and you are aware usually of no blank spots, nevertheless it has great fluctuations. [...] In normal consciousness, then, it seems as if there are no real other kinds of consciousness, no other areas or levels. [...]

[...] You can, and in so doing your own consciousness turns around about itself. [...] Existing in such diversified, rich environment-possibilities, the human psyche needed and developed a conscious mind that could make fairly concise and accurate “minute by minute” judgments and evaluations. As the conscious mind grew, now, so did the range of imagination. The conscious mind is a vehicle for the imagination in many ways. [...] In return imagination enriches conscious reasoning and emotional experience.

[...] It is somewhat fashionable to place feelings above conscious thoughts, the idea being that emotions are more basic and natural than conscious reasoning is. The two actually go together but your conscious thinking largely determines your emotions, and not the other way around. [...] Instead, over a period of time you have been consciously entertaining negative beliefs that then generated the strong feelings of despondency.

(Slowly:) You have not learned to use your consciousness properly or fully, so that it seems that imagination, emotions and reasoning are separate faculties, or sometimes set against each other. The mature conscious mind, once more, accepts data from the exterior world and from the interior one. It is only when you believe that consciousness must be attuned only to exterior conditions that you force it to cut itself off from inner knowledge, intuitional “voices,” and the depths from which it springs.

If you are focusing upon ideas of poverty, illness or lack, for example, your conscious mind also holds latently concepts of health, vigor and abundance. [...] The vast reservoir of energy and potential within you is called into action under the leadership of your conscious mind.

I have mentioned counterparts in a very gentle fashion, and families of consciousness, as these are related to mankind. [...] The problem is, again, that while you are focused in the world of matter, you are allied with only one aspect of your entire consciousness. In a way, you perceive your consciousness almost as you perceive the smooth surface of the coffee table (indicated). You even relate to your consciousness in an objective fashion.

Many people feel that they have a consciousness in the way that they have a car. [...] There are portions of your consciousness that move faster than light also—but while you conceive of your consciousnesses as a kind of psychological particle, then your experience of it becomes limited to the world of matter in which you believe it must exist.

The so-called laws of cause and effect operate at a certain level of consciousness. The level of consciousness itself creates the experience of cause and effect. Other portions of your consciousness are quite actively, vitally engaged at other levels, yet there is no division between you and them. [...]

The consciousness of all species interact in that fashion also, as do of course the consciousnesses within atoms. [...] Basically, then, your consciousness and your perceptions operate faster than light. [...]

[...] The meeting of body consciousness and your main consciousness requires an intense focus, in which the greatest manipulations are necessary. [...] Cellular comprehension is not tuned into by the normally conscious self, which is equally unaware of its own free-wheeling nature at “higher” levels. [...] The consciousness then leaves the body. The body consciousness stays with it.

This frequently happens in the dream state, although such a performance can be achieved in varying altered states of consciousness. At such times consciousness simply puts itself in a different relationship with time and space. [...] It is by altering its own relationship with the physical universe that consciousness can best understand its own properties, and glimpse from another vantage point that physical universe, where it will be seen in a different light. Operating outside the body, consciousness can better perceive the properties of matter. [...]

(9:48.) Such a traveling consciousness may journey within physical reality, colon: While not relating to that system in the usual manner, it may still be allied with it. [...] On the other hand, an out-of-body consciousness may also enter other physically attuned realities: those operating “at different frequencies than your own.” The basically independent nature of consciousness allows for such disentanglement.⁵ The body consciousness maintains its own equilibrium, and acts somewhat like a maintenance station.

I have said (as at 9:48) that the body can indeed carry on, performing necessary maintenance activities while the main consciousness is detached from it. [...] (Pause.) In sleep, in fact, it is not at all necessary that the main consciousness be alert in the body. Only in certain kinds of civilizations, for that matter, is such a close body-and-main-consciousness relationship necessary. There are other situations, therefore, in which consciousness ordinarily strays much further, returning to the body as a home station and basis of operation, relying upon it for certain kinds of perception only, but not depending upon it for the entire picture of reality. [...]

Consciousness — human consciousness — is not dependent upon the tissues, and yet there is no physical matter that is not brought into being by some portion of consciousness. For example, when your individual consciousness has left the body in a way that I will shortly explain, then the simple consciousnesses of atoms and molecules remain, and are not annihilated.

In many ways you can compare your consciousness as you know it now to a firefly, for while it seems to you that your consciousness is continuous, this is not so. [...] So as you are alive in the midst of your own multitudinous small deaths, so though you do not realize it, you are often “dead,” even amid the sparkling life of your own consciousness.

Now consciousness as you know it is used to these brief gaps of physical nonexistence mentioned earlier. [...] When the physical body sleeps, consciousness often leaves the physical system for fairly long periods, in your terms. But because the consciousness is not in the normally physically awake state, it is not aware of these gaps and is relatively unconcerned.

[...] Now your consciousness, quite simply, is not physically alive, physically oriented, for exactly the same amount of time as it is physically alive and oriented. [...] There are pulsations of consciousness, though again you may not be aware of them.

Again: when you are in a state that is not the usual waking one, when you have forsaken this daily self, you are, nevertheless, conscious and alert. [...] So when the attributes of consciousness are given, creativity is largely ignored. [...] My point is that the unconscious is conscious. Creativity is one of the most important attributes of consciousness, then. We will differentiate between normal ego consciousness and consciousness that only appears unconscious to that ego.

The conscious ego rises, indeed, out of the “unconscious,” but the unconscious, being the creator of the ego, is necessarily far more conscious than its offspring. The ego is simply not conscious enough to be able to contain the vast knowledge that belongs to the inner conscious self from which it springs.

[...] He presumes that consciousness must be organized about an ego structure. And what he calls the unconscious, not so egotistically organized, he, therefore, considers without consciousness—without consciousness of self. [...]

The inner self or ego is not only conscious, but conscious of itself, both as an individuality apart from others and as an individuality that is a part of all other consciousness. [...]

Consciousness or action forms all realities. What is not simply represents a possibility which consciousness may bring to life. (Long pause.) Consciousness then formed out of itself a new dimension which was the physical one. The formation, the explosion, of energy, shattered consciousness into an infinity of parts, each with all the abilities in here within consciousness itself.

Now in the same way that consciousness originated the physical dimension, you as portions of consciousness continue to maintain and create it anew. Your source of energy is that first creation, in which consciousness focused, where before it had not. [...]

Before this the generalized dimension was simply nonexistent, a vacuum, which consciousness had not yet filled. Since consciousness or action can never fully materialize itself, there are literally infinities of such nonexistent areas from which new dimensions can spring.

Consciousness therefore continually creates and maintains itself, and this includes the physical materialization, the properties of the dimension, and yet basically there is no difference between the creator in these terms and the created. Nor between inner reality, which forms physical matter, and physical objects themselves, for the atoms which are manipulated to form objects are themselves a portion of consciousness, and alive in those terms. [...]

“You” presently have a once-centered consciousness, in that “you” close off from your experience these other stages of consciousness in which other portions of your entire identity are intimately involved. These other stages of consciousness create their own realities as you create your own. The realities are, therefore, byproducts of consciousness itself. [...]

[...] As mentioned, these experiences are translated into dreams later, necessitating a return to areas of consciousness more familiar with physical data. [...] There will be a metamorphosis, therefore, of one symbol turning into many, and the conscious mind may only perceive a chaos of various dream images, because the inner organization and unity is partially hidden in the other areas of consciousness through which the reasoning mind cannot follow.

[...] Almost every individual has had bizarre experiences with consciousness, and knows intuitively that their greater experience is not limited to physical reality. [...] Your consciousness is already oriented again to physical reality; the dream, an attempt to translate the deeper experience into recognizable forms. [...]

Consciousness at different levels or stages perceives different kinds of events. [...] There are minute chemical and electromagnetic alterations that accompany these stages of consciousness, and certain physical changes within the body itself in hormone production and pineal activity.

If you use your conscious mind properly, then, you examine those beliefs that come to you. [...] If you use your conscious mind properly, you are also aware of intuitive ideas that come to you from within. You are only half conscious when you do not examine the information that comes to you from without, and when you ignore the data that comes to you from within.

[...] The conscious mind is brilliantly attuned to physical reality, then, and often so dazzled by what it perceives that it is tempted to think physical phenomena is a cause, rather than a result. [...] When the conscious mind accepts too many false beliefs, particularly if it sees that inner self as a danger, then it closes out these constant reminders. When this situation arises the conscious mind feels itself assailed by a reality that seems greater than itself, over which it has no control. [...]

Your inner self adopts the physically conscious, physically focused mind as a method of allowing it to manipulate in the world that you know. The conscious mind is particularly equipped to direct outward activity, to handle waking experience and oversee physical work.

[...] These rely mainly upon the conscious mind’s interpretation of temporal reality. The conscious mind sets the goals and the inner self brings them about, using all its facilities and inexhaustible energy.

When you are proficient you will not be swept willy-nilly into other stages of consciousness as you sleep, but will be able to understand and direct these activities. Consciousness is an attribute of the soul, a tool that can be turned in many directions. You are not your consciousness. [...] To the extent that you understand and utilize the various aspects of consciousness, you will learn to understand your own reality, and the conscious self will truly become conscious.

Often you visit such areas of consciousness in the dream state where you fall into them spontaneously, remembering in the morning a fantastic dream. Consciousness must use all of its parts and activities, even as the body must. When you are sleeping, therefore, your consciousness turns itself in many of these directions, often perceiving, willy-nilly, bits and pieces of reality that are available to it at its different stages. [...]

These ideas and concepts obviously came from consciousness. [...] The characteristic interest and abilities of the personality involved will have much to do with his recognition of the realities within this layer of consciousness.

[...] The material mentioned is available in each of the levels of consciousness given, but it must be sought out, either through conscious desire or strong unconscious desire. [...]

Now: It is well known that fluctuations of consciousness and alertness exist in the sleep state. [...] But there are also fluctuations in normal waking consciousness, rhythms of intense activity followed by a much less active period of consciousness.

[...] These gradations of consciousness are accompanied by changes in the physical organism. In the more sluggish periods of waking consciousness there is a lack of concentration, a cutting off of stimuli to varying degrees, an increase in accidents, and generally a lower body tone.

(10:28.) Because of your habits of an extended sleep period, followed by an extended waking period, you do not take advantage of these rhythms of consciousness. [...] The sharp contrasts and the high efficiency of the natural waking consciousness is barely utilized.

[...] You are asking too much of normal waking consciousness, smoothing out the valleys and peaks of its activity, demanding in some cases that it go full blast ahead when it is actually at a minimal period, denying yourself the great mobility of consciousness that is possible.

[...] The displaced powers of consciousness are still being assigned to the unconscious, and great efforts are being made to reach what seem to be normally inaccessible areas of awareness. [...] It can all be quite conscious, and utilized to enrich the reality that you know. The conscious mind is not some prodigal child or poor relative of the self. [...] You, again, have a conscious mind. You can change the focus of your own consciousness.

The conscious mind was [therefore] expected to perform alone, so to speak, ignoring the highly intuitive inner information that is also available to it. [...] Yet any individual knows quite well that intuitive hunches, inspiration, precognitive information or clairvoyant material has often risen to conscious knowledge. Usually it is shoved away and disregarded because you have been taught that the conscious mind should not hold with such “nonsense.” So you have been told to trust your conscious mind, while at the same time you were led to believe it could only be aware of stimuli that came to it from the outside physical world.

On the other hand there are those who stress the great value of the inner self, the emotional being, at the expense of the conscious mind. These theories hold that the intellect and usual consciousness are far inferior to the inner “unconscious” portions of being, and that all the answers are hidden from view. (Pause.) The followers of this belief consider the conscious mind in such derogatory terms that it almost seems to be a supercilious cancer that sprouted like a growth upon man’s psyche-impeding rather than aiding his progress and understanding.

[...] All of its infinite resources are placed at the disposal of your conscious mind, however, and for your conscious purposes.

Consciousness of self involves a consciousness of self within, amid, and as a part of action. Ego consciousness, on the other hand, involves a state in which consciousness of self attempts to divorce itself from action, an attempt on the part of consciousness to perceive action as an object. Here we see that ego consciousness, in this attempt, strives to perceive action not only as separate, but to perceive it in such a fashion that it appears to ego that action is not only separate from itself, that is separate from the ego, but that action is initiated by the ego, and a result rather than a cause of ego’s own existence.

[...] I have said that the second dilemma resulted in, and constantly results in, consciousness of self. [...] Consciousness of self is not the same thing as consciousness of ego self. Consciousness of self is still consciousness directly connected with action.

Identities are never constant, as you yourselves are not the same consciously or unconsciously from one moment to another. [...] And yet without the termination, identity would cease to exist, for consciousness without action would cease to be conscious.

(Groping for words, Jane explained that she feels as though she is “wresting” material [not implying a struggle however] from Seth or some other source with a deep part of her consciousness that is below her ego consciousness. She feels that just recently she has in some manner begun to experience concepts in a more involved, different dimension of consciousness. [...]

Now your consciousness is telepathic and clairvoyant, for example, even though you may not realize it. In sleep when (whene) you often presume yourself to be unconscious (unconsious) you may be far more conscious than you are now, but simply using abilities of consciousness that you do not accept as real or valid (valed) in waking (waping) life. You therefore shut (shup) them out of your conscious experience (experiencl). Consciousness, yours and mine, is quite independent of both (poth) time and space. And after death you are simply aware of the greater powers of consciousness that exist within you all the time.

[...] (Pause; one of many.) Consciousness has many characteristics, some of course known to you. Many of the characteristics of consciousness, however, are not so apparent, since presently you largely use your own consciousness in such a way that its perceptions appear in quite other than “natural” guises. You are aware of your own consciousness, in other words, through the medium of your own physical mechanism. You are not nearly as aware of your own consciousness when it is not operating primarily through the mediumship of the body, as it does in out-of-body states and some dissociated conditions.

The characteristics of consciousness are the same (seme) whether you are in a body or outside of one. The peaks and valleys of consciousness that I mentioned exist to some degree in all consciousness despite the form adopted (adepted) after death (deth). The nature of your consciousness is no different basically (bascially) than it is now, though you may not be aware of many of its characteristics.

You are, as I said earlier, a spirit now; and that spirit has a consciousness. The consciousness belongs to the spirit then, but the two are not the same. The spirit may turn its consciousness off and on. By its nature consciousness may flicker and fluctuate, but the spirit does not.

[...] In normal sleep, the “conscious” wave rides beneath the others, with the face of consciousness turned inward, so to speak. All the recognized characteristics of consciousness are “inverted,” probing other realities than the one you know. [...] In sleep the beta waves are not turned off — the “conscious” part of you, with its beta rhythms, is elsewhere.

[...] Here, in a highly creative, disciplined, and yet spontaneous performance, a situation is set up in which knowledge is obtained from the known frequencies, combined so that consciousness can use itself more fully, reaching into many areas closed to one range of consciousness alone. [...] In a way this is like an accelerated, chosen, well-organized “conscious” dream venture, in which Ruburt travels through mediums of consciousness until finally he, still being himself, is nevertheless no longer himself (humorously), but me.

Beta was not meant to carry the full weight of conscious activity, however, although its accelerating qualities can lead to initiations into “higher” realms of consciousness, where indeed the brain waves quicken. The other patterns (delta, theta, and alpha) are highly important to physical and mental stability, being very interwound with cellular consciousness. [...]

[...] Jane and I have seldom been concerned with trying for strict definitions of qualities like “altered states of consciousness.” All of us experience such altered states of consciousness often throughout each day, so the phrase itself should hardly mean anything mysterious — even though others usually look at Jane or me questioningly if either of us uses it in conversation.

Latently, your consciousness is capable of performing these feats, but the work cannot be done with the part of your consciousness that is strongly attached to the space-time relationship. What you think of as your conscious mind is given the task of assessing the “facts” of daily living. [...]

[...] This information cannot appear in any complete fashion within a consciousness connected with a physical brain. [...] In the dreaming state, when consciousness relates opaquely to physical concerns, glimpses of the multidimensional self can appear in dream imagery and fantasies that will symbolically express your greater existence.

If your conscious beliefs are causing you great distress, countering beneficial beliefs may be received from this source. Your being, the greater consciousness that is yourself, intersects with space and time; it is born in flesh simultaneously at many [moment] “points.” [...]

[...] Your consciousness as you think of it transcends these leaps and holds its own sense of continuity. All of this has to do with pulsations of energy and consciousness, and in one way what you think of as your life is the apparent “length” of a light ray seen from another perspective.