“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

([Gene]: “Isn’t the object of the game to play the game—not to create or probe?”)

The probing is necessary. Some games are necessary and always relevant.

You are yourself in these terms the game.

You are creating your own limitations. (Too fast to follow word for word. Seth admits he is part of the game and was, in a sense, created by Gene. He says that Gene is dealing in artificial terms, not real ones.) You and I are part of the same reality.

[...] You should try to help him in this game—understanding how it works. Even if you want to play it with him, it is extremely important that it is an “as if” imaginative game.

Now certain habits should automatically drop away if the game is played correctly. He is not dressing with the freedom of an ordinary healthy good-looking young woman, for example, so he must dress for the role in his “as if” game. [...]

If the “as if” game is played correctly the dressing habits will change automatically, again without stress. [...] This is one area where both of you will have to watch, contrasting the game against immediate physical data.

Done properly this game will be played almost automatically, but the entire mental patterns will change and hence the physical. [...] The “as if” game will increase the suggestions’ worth by dissipating habitual areas of thought that combat them.

[...] If your child believes that a particular illness is caused by a virus, then suggest a game in which the youngster imagines the virus to be a small bug that he or she triumphantly chases away with a broom, or sweeps out the door. Once a child gets the idea, the youngster will often make up his or her own game, that will prove most beneficial.

In all cases of illness, games or play should be fostered whenever possible, and in whatever form. [...] Card-playing and family games such as Monopoly are actually excellent practices, and play in any form encourages spontaneity and promotes healing and peace of mind.

(4:29.) Some playful behavior on Ruburt’s part would be of considerable benefit — and this would be even better if the two of you could possibly indulge in some kind of play together, even if only mind games were involved — games with no particular purpose, except fun.

To a child, play and work are often one and the same thing, and parents can utilize imaginative games as a way of reinforcing ideas of health and vitality. [...]

In periods of play the child actually often continues some games initiated quite naturally in the dream state. These include role-playing, and also games that quite simply involve physical muscular activity. [...]

[...] If you retain it and remember children’s games, then the affair will be entirely enjoyable; and even if you experience events that seem frightening, you will recognize them as belonging to the same category as the frightening events of a child’s game.

I mention this here simply to point out the similarity between some dreams and some children’s games, and to show that all dreams and all games are intimately involved with the creation and experience of events.

GAMES THAT ANYBODY CAN PLAY.

[...]

You cannot apply the rules of your game to the universe however, nor project them in such a manner and expect any valid results. Still, playing the game will sharpen your perceptions and give you certain qualities that will allow you to understand reality once you cease playing the game.

[...] Jane kept on speaking as Seth.) You could say that various time systems are like games, and there are many of them; and in each one the rules and the goals are different. In your system one of the rules is that you forget you are playing a game in order to concentrate better on the affairs at hand.

The game however is for a purpose. [...]

(Humorously:) How you do in the game will affect your score elsewhere, in other words. [...]

You are playing games with yourselves. [...] You are setting up a game of checkers—one part of you is playing one game and another is playing another game. [...]

[...] It is not enough to play games. [...]

We have been playing games for you, using pretty colors. [...]

[...] Some Sumari play games. They are lovely games, but they are games. [...]

[...] And yet you see they understand very well, and again, it is a game, for he pretends that he does not know what he knows. [...]

[...] You throw them around like a ball in a game. [...]

[...] I will see that you get one, then you will have to play other games. [...]

Now if you all want to play games some night, we will have some fun with the table. In the meantime, beneath the fun and games, feel your own vitality. [...]

[...] Innumerable play events can occur with varying intensity, yet generally speaking the results cease when the game is over. The child plays at being an adult, and is a child again when his parents call, so the effects of the game are not long-lasting. [...]

Play then at another game, and pretend that you are of the opposite sex. [...]

[...] All of this is done somewhat in the way that a child plays, through the formation of creative dream dramas in which the individual is free to play a million different roles and to examine the nature of probable events from the standpoint of “a game.”

[...] In a way dreams are of course composite behavior — mental and psychic games that suit the purposes of mind and body alike. [...]

[...] Perhaps a game connection.” Games figure prominently in chapter five of the dream book. [...] There were many kinds of games to be indulged in at the playground in waking life. In addition, in her recurring dream Jane kept recreating a series of games at the playground, in a section where there were none. There is more to the dream, but enough is said here to make the game connection.

[...] See the recurring childhood playground dream, mentioned in the data dealing with the interpretation of “a game connection.” [...] In the dream Jane constructed a set of games, involving physical apparatus like swings and jungle gyms, in a section of the playground where in physical life none existed. [...]

[...] Perhaps a game connection. [...]

[...] Yet Seth not only took him on, but in some way I still don’t understand, he used Gene’s own terminology and jargon to beat him at his own game—and with humor and grace.

[...] Some games are necessary and always relevant.”

“Isn’t the object to play the game … not to create or probe?”

“You are yourself the game, in those terms.”

[...] They should be regarded as creative exuberant games. [...]

[...] The games that you play or habitually observe will, of course, tell you much about the kind of organization that occurs in your own experience. [...]

[...] The exercises I will suggest have to do with games “that anybody can play,” then — with the natural joyful manipulation of the imagination that children employ.

[...] The next chapter will be called: “Games That Anybody Can Play. [...]

[...] They can accept roles in somewhat the same way that children play at being sick, and in extreme cases some children find the game becomes only too real.

[...] The child wanted out, finally, but did not know how, for he had allowed the destructive game to become real.

[...] The man could stop the game.

Crossword puzzles and other word games will also benefit, even if only done mentally. [...]

The more actively and fully such a diversion can be indulged, the better, of course, and yet the mental playing of games can be quite fruitful, and serve to give the conscious mind a needed rest.

(Pause.) If such an individual can convince himself or herself that somehow the entire affair is more in the nature of a game, then you can have at times some success, because in a game the conscious mind is willing to make allowances, and to “pretend.” [...]

[...] It does not regard art as a game, exactly, but it does not expect the same rules to apply, either, to a painted apple on a canvas and a real one. [...]

[...] “Cowboys and Indians” was our gang’s favorite game back in Sayre in the late 1920s, and as we roamed the nearby fields all of us made believe we killed our enemies and/or were killed ourselves. We had great fun, and used to play such games to the point of exhaustion.

Jane added that her group of playmates hadn’t engaged in the same sort of games that mine had. [...]

(Long pause at 9:20.) New sentence: if you cannot put your disillusionment aside, then you can at least use the idea of such a program as a creative exercise, a creative game that you play with one portion of your consciousness —a game that might just possibly have some creative benefits whose effects might just possibly crop up in the middle of your more practical considerations. [...]

The emphasis should be upon arousing your own individual and joint creative healing abilities—in other words, magical properties of your own minds and hearts, and such intent is bound to put you ahead of the game. [...]

[...] Play a waiting game. [...]

[...] You are the bishop in the game. [...]

[...] It developed that John had recently given one of his young sons a chess set; the boy knew the game to some extent and wanted to teach John. [...]

Let Ruburt remember the playfulness of games. [...]

[...] When you play that game, you are playing a poor game. [...]

And I still enjoy childlike games. I do not skip a rope or dance through the hula but I amuse myself with thoughts and games that you have long forgotten. [...]

[...] Play that game now and then. [...]