“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

You think that the soul is a white wall with nothing written upon it, and so your idea of sacrilege is to shit upon it, not realizing that the shit and the soul are one, and that the biological is spiritual; and that, again — if you will forgive my homey concept — flowers grow from the shit of the earth. And in a true communion, all things of this life return to the earth, and are consumed and rise up again in a new life that is never destroyed or annihilated, though always changing form.

So, when you shrink from such words or such meanings, why do you shrink? Because you do not trust the biology of your being or the integrity of your soul in flesh. You are people. You are made of the stuff of the earth, and the dust from the stars has formed into the shit that lies in piles — warm piles that come from the beasts and the creatures of the earth. And that shit fertilizes the flowers and the ground, and is a part of it.

(In that same class, however, Seth also brought our biological nature “down to earth” in most literal terms. His material was hilarious, provocative, and profound — all at once. I know one thing: Seth’s delivery won’t be soon forgotten. It’s also one that may startle those who are used to quiet and proper “spirit guides.”

Now many of you here use the word “shit.” You apply the term in a derogatory manner to yourselves, and you think: “I am full of shit.” And where does the great spectacular reality, the physical reality of your earth, spring from? Why is shit not considered sacred and blessed and glorious? You think of shit, unfortunately, as the antithesis of good; and when you play around it or with it, you think you are being childish at the best, and wicked at the worst.

(With emphasis:) In a matter of speaking (underlined), the birds and the insects are indeed living portions of the earth flying, even as, again in a matter of speaking (in parentheses) (with a smile and again with an emphasis upon the word “matter”), bears and wolves and cows and cats represent the earth turning itself into creatures that live upon its own surface. And in a matter of speaking, again, man becomes the earth thinking, and thinking his own thoughts, man in his way specializes in the conscious work of the world—a work that is dependent upon the indispensable “unconscious” work of the rest of nature, a nature that sustains him (all very intently). And when he thinks, man thinks for the microbes, for the atoms and the molecules, for the smallest particles within his being, for the insects and for the rocks, for the creatures of the sky and the air and the oceans.

[...] He looks at physical reality for the rest of physical reality: He is earth coming alive to view itself through conscious eyes—but that consciousness is graced to be because it is so intimately a part of earth’s framework.

[...] In the terms of this discussion the other creatures of the earth actually awakened before man did, and relatively speaking, their dream bodies formed themselves into physical ones before man’s did. [...]

(“Has earth ever known before a civilization as complicated as ours?”)

(“Seth, have you ever been on earth in two or more incarnations at once?”)

[...] Fragments not on earth plane at same time as entity. [...]

(“Why were animals here on earth for so long before man?”)

I do not fear that the earth will lead

the earth grows about me, and all is given

I come unknowing upon the face of the earth

the fruits of the earth grow about me

While you were
sleeping,
all the cupboards
of the earth
were filled.
Mother Earth
sought out each
need.

While you were
weeping,
your tears fell
as sweet rain
drops on small
parched hills
that rise in worlds
you cannot see,
though you are known
there.

While you were
sleeping,
Mother Earth
filled all the
cupboards of your
flesh
to overflowing.
Not one atom went
uncomforted
in worlds that
are yours,
but beyond your
knowing.

[...] When she read it to me I knew at once that it would go here, for a few words she certainly sang of the basic theme of these essays—of the sublime, immortal consciounesses of the earth and All That Is, of that loving redemption that consciousness always makes possible somehow, somewhere, in the eternal private world of each of us, and that each of us always seeks:

2. Seth has told us almost from the beginning of the sessions that in our terms the earth we know is but the latest in a series of earths that have existed in the same “space,” or “value climate of psychological reality.” [...] From Session 29, for February 26, 1964 (just 16 years ago): “There are endless planes upon your earth, or rather endless planes occurring simultaneously with your earth. Your solid earth is not a solid to inhabitants that would seem to take up the same space as your earth. [...]

When you ask: “When did the world begin?” or “What really happened?” or “Was there a Garden of Eden?”, you are referring to the world as you understand it, but in those terms there were earths in the same space before the earth you recognize existed,² and they began in the manner that I have given you in the early chapters of this book. [...]

(10:03.) In the case of earth the grid of perception is simply used differently, certain areas becoming prominent in some eras, and less prominent in others. Using your idea of time, I can only say that when the entire gestalt of consciousnesses that formed a particular earth have formed its reality to the best of their abilities, fulfilling their individual and mass capacities as far as possible, then they lovingly turn over that grid to others, and continue to take part in existences that are not physical in your terms. [...]

[...] Here’s the note Jane wrote this morning and inserted in Volume 77, where I’m keeping a few sheets of paper to record the next session: “Something from Seth over the weekend—only got a little—something about earth’s grid of perception being so constructed that…. [...]

[...] He now encounters his experience from within a body that must be fed, clothed, protected from the elements—a body that is subject to gravity and to earth’s laws. [...] He sees himself suddenly, in a leap of comprehension, as existing for the first time not only apart from the environment, but apart from all of earth’s other creatures.

[...] (Louder:) He will grow the flower of the intellect—a flower that must have its deep roots buried securely within the earth, and yet a flower that will send new psychic seeds outward, not only for itself but for the rest of nature, of which it is a part.

[...] He instantly began to explore (pause), to categorize, to point out and to name the other creatures of the earth as they came to his attention.

They saw that the earth was simply changing its forms, but that the identity of each unit of consciousness survived—and so, although they saw the picture of death, they did not recognize it as the death that to many people now seems an inevitable end.

[...] When lightning strikes the earth, it changes it. [...] The great overall inner trust with which you were born forms the basis for the encompassing reliability of the physical earth. Your body dwells in the earth as you dwell in your body. [...] The smallest atom has its own kind of built-in integrity, upon which all of its organizations and alterations are based, so generally there is a gestalt kind of permanence within the body of the earth.

[...] You are inside the body of the earth in those terms. As cells within your body influence it, so does your body affect the larger body of the earth. [...]

[...] There are even connections that can be made, for instance, between epilepsy and earthquakes, where great energy and instability come together, affecting the physical properties of the earth.

Such emotional nonphysical qualities are unstable, and affect the deep electromagnetic integrity of the earth’s structure. [...]

(Very rapidly:) “Earth is a nice place, but I wouldn’t want to live there.” A twist on an old quote, I believe—but the fact is, you are physical creatures because you do like to live on earth, you do like the conditions, you do enjoy overall the particular kind of challenge and the particular kind of perception, knowledge and understanding that the earthly environment provides.

(With many pauses to start:) Dictation: During this period that we have labeled as belonging to the dreamers, certain subjective actions took place as the “structure” of earthly tuned consciousness formed the phenomena of “the self.”

[...] 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. [...]

[...] First of all you had the inner self, the creative dreaming self—composed, again, of units of consciousness, awareized energy that forms your identity, and that formed the identities of the earliest earth inhabitants. [...]

You each have your own earth god. The term may not be the best, but it is meant to express that portion of you that is as yet unexpressed in your terms — the idealized earth version of yourself, which you are becoming. The idealized earth version is not meant to mean a perfect self in flesh at all; instead, it represents a psychic reality in which your own abilities fulfill themselves in relationship with your earthly environment to the fullest extent possible, within the time and place you have already chosen.

That earth-god portion of yourself attempts to direct you through probabilities. [...] The earth-god concept can be consciously used, but only to your greatest advantage if you understand the purposes of your conscious mind and its relationship with your biological nature.

[...] They are indeed connected with flora and fauna, but also with the animals and yourselves, and they are the “earth gods” that Ruburt imagined as a young person.

In the meantime, when incarnations on the planet earth are finished the entity moves toward this goal anyway. In any case by the time that this goal is reached on the earthly plane, those who have passed from it will have evolved in ways of which even I can only dream. [...]

[...] You are almost finished with incarnations on the earth, so much so that the physical bodies will return completely and unfragmented upon your physical death. This is always the case in the final earth life. [...]

[...] This is not to say that psychic love of earthly phenomenon is not with you. [...] Even on other planes the sensual nature and appreciation of the earthly habitat is maintained.

[...] The board however cannot learn to grow, even though you stick it in the earth.

In these circumstances, when the personality attaches itself at conception, there is almost without exception strong past-life connections between parents and child, or there is an unceasing and almost obsessional desire to return to the earthly situation — either for a specific purpose, or because the reincarnating personality is presently obsessed with earthly existence. [...] The personality can simply realize that it takes to physical experience well, is presently earth-oriented, and finds earthly atmosphere a rich dimension for the growth of its own abilities.

[...] Other personalities who never completely take to earthly existence may hold off full entry for some time, and even then always remain at a certain distance from the body. [...]

[...] They work well with earth materials, and translate their ideas with great force into physical terms. [...]

[...] They look upon earthly life as highly experimental. [...]

[...] The geese looked very vulnerable against the massive roll of the earth beneath them, but this was an illusion: Like every other entity on earth, each one of those birds knew very well what it was doing. [...]

I used the term “before the beginning,” then, and I will speak of earth’s events in certain sequences. [...]

But a child born to two parents is also an offspring of the earth, its tissues as surely a part of earth as any tree or flower, or burst of ocean spray. A human child, true; but an offspring in which the entire history of the earth is involved — a new creation arising not just from two parents, but from the entire gestalt of nature, from which the parents themselves once emerged; a private yet public affair in which the physical elements of earth become individualized; in which psyche and earth cooperate in a birth that is human, and in other terms, divine.

[...] The physical elements return to the earth to become the basis for other life.

While there was no mating period, still there was a close biological relationship between the species and the earth, so that women naturally conceived when situations of climate, food supplies, and other elements were beneficial.

[...] And there was a tremendous effort involved individually to get spring going—to get the buds out...that the good things that we do that we don’t realize...you know we think of war—and we see all the evil we do; and that the good things we do, we often don’t realize—and that we actually form the seasons—the spring, the other seasons; and that the earth itself, the physical earth, is like the Garden of Eden in our subconscious. [...] And that when spring comes, it’s a creative—a tremendous achievement—on the part of each individual on the earth and in this section of the country, because we have done it. [...]

[...] For you can consider the body of the earth and all that you know—the trees and the seasons and the sky—to some extent as your own contribution—the combination of spontaneity and discipline that gives fruit to the earth. [...]

Now: Dictation (on The Nature of the Psyche: Its Human Expression): As the earth is composed of many environments, so is the psyche. [...] From your point of view these might appear alien, and yet they are as much a part of your psyche as your motherland is a portion of the earth.

The psyche, however, while being earth-tuned in your experience, also has many other systems of reality “to contend with.” [...]

[...] Symbols are as natural to your minds as trees are to the earth. [...]

“… you are a part of nature, and that is your saving grace—that no matter how you try to leave that framework you exist within it, so that you communicate with earth at other levels, even if you refuse to be aware of that communication. You help the earth survive, no matter how you might at times deny that heritage.”

[...] They became so terrified of the natural earth, with its pounding rains and wind that they literally crept into the bowels of the earth and lived there feeling as triumphant, when they set up a civilization within the earth, as you will feel when you set one up outside of the earth. [...]

[...] To put a hole into the earth is violent. To pluck up a flower from the earth is violent. [...]

[...] These people thought then that violence would be wiped away from the face of the earth, and they hoped to begin a race of people that would not know violence. [...]

[...] Now as you consume the animals so one day will your physical body return to the earth and help form other animals. [...]

For unnumbered centuries, you had largely self-contained, unique “sophisticated” civilizations, intensified centers, situated in prime natural territories, but completely unknown one to the other, with thousands of miles of wild earth between, that was explored only by the most daring. There are many such remains still buried, and as earth changes occurred, many were hidden completely—and yet may “turn up” once more in the great future, as still other earth transformations happen.

[...] But I saw similarities of course between those various news events happening in far portions of the earth today, and the thought that the American and European civilizations had existed for so long on the same planet, yet completely unknown one to the other.

Poett was quite taken with me (amused)—but the story is not earth-shaking, and for a time others have entered in ahead. [...]

[...] In that early experience it seemed, surely, that the snake was a living portion of the earth, rising from the bowels of the earth, rising from the hidden source of all earth gods. [...] It seemed to come from the womb of the earth, and to possess the earth’s secret wisdom. [...]

[...] In his life [each] man is embarked upon a cooperative venture with his own species, and with the other species, and dying he also in that regard acts in a cooperative manner, returning his physical substance to the earth. [...]