“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

And that self tells you that there is a reality beyond human reality, beyond human characteristics that you know... And within that reality even I am dwarfed and there is knowledge that can never be verbal. And there is experience that cannot be translated in human terms. Although this type of existence seems cold to you, it is a clear and crystal-like existence in which things are known that are beyond your comprehension... in which no time is needed in your terms for experience... in which the inner self condenses all human knowledge that has been received by you through your various existences and reincarnations... has been coded and exists indelibly.

Know that within your physical atoms now the origins of all consciousness still sings and that all the human characteristics by which you know yourselves still exist within the eye of all our consciousness never diminished but always present; your individualities never diminished... not only never diminished but gaining in experience.

There is no need to worry about your friend (Ruburt). We want you to realize that there is more than your human reality. We want you to realize that there is consciousness without form, that there is consciousness with will and vitality that comes to you from beyond even those places that your Seth knows. We want you to realize that though it is hard for us to communicate, we spoke with your race before your race learned language. We gave you mental images and upon these images you learned to form the world that you knew.

The beginnings of human consciousness, on the other hand, began as soon as multicellular groupings began to form in field patterns of a certain complexity. While there was no specific point of entry as far as human consciousness was concerned, there was a point before which human consciousness as such did not exist. [...] The consciousness of being human in your terms was fully developed in the caveman, but—and I cannot emphasize this enough—the human conception was alive in the fish.

This human self-consciousness existed in psychological time and in inner time long before you as a species constructed it in terms of your particular camouflage patterns. For your friend’s sake I will simplify this, saying that human consciousness was inherent and latent from the beginning of your physical universe.

I do become impatient, though I shouldn’t, with this implied insistence that evolution involves merely the human species, or rather that all evolution must be considered some gigantic tree with humanity as the supreme blossom.

Humanity’s so-called supreme blossom is the human ego, and this is at times a poisoning blossom indeed. [...]

Many deficient individuals in their way are as vital to the development of humanity as geniuses are, for both preserve the elastic nature of human consciousness, and promote its coping qualifications.

In actuality all of the seemingly erratic genetic variances that often crop up in human development are vital to the elasticity of the entire genetic system.

[...] The physical system would become too rigid, lose the power of its natural diversity, and eventually bring a dead-end to human survival.

Human consciousness normally experiences wide sweeps of rhythms, varying states of awareness, and its amazing flexibility is partially dependent upon its lack of rigidity, its own spontaneous inclinations, and its capacity for curiosity, wonder, discovery, and emotion.

[...] The intent of such procedures is to promote the quality of human life, to study the nature of diseases, and hopefully apply what is learned to some of the lives of human beings. Mice are not considered human. [...]

(10:05.) Jews were considered almost not human, however, and whenever such atrocities against your own species are concerned, you indulge in the same kind of twisted reasoning (underlined). Because the Jews were considered less than human—or, at best, human defects—they were thought of as justifiable sacrifices on the altar of “the genetic betterment of mankind.” [...]

[...] Those terms are human judgments. Idiots also serve their role by moderating the sometimes fierce hold that the reasoning mind can (underlined) have upon human activity.

Those human abilities that you consider to be characteristic of your species are, again, dependent upon the existence of infinite numbers of variations that appear in the aggregate, to give you often obviously opposing states. [...]

What you think of as (underlined) male ego-oriented characteristics are simply those human attributes that the species encouraged, brought into the foreground, and stressed. [...] Family relationships become a mirror of those beliefs, which are then of course taken as statements of fact concerning the human condition. [...]

In a manner of speaking, humanity deals with different predominant themes at different times. [...]

In usual historic terms, humanity has been experimenting with its own unique kind of consciousness, and as I have mentioned many times, this necessitated an arbitrary division between the subject and the perceiver — nature and man — and brought about a situation in which the species came to consider itself apart from the rest of existence.

[...] There were deities part human and part animal. [...]

We are working here indeed with human limitations. However, within the range of human limitations there is indeed much that can be done.

[...] Over coffee Monday, Dr. Instream asked if we had read F. W. H. Myers’ Human Personality. [...]

My field is indeed education, and my particular interest is that these abilities of human personality be understood and investigated. [...]

We are dealing with inherent abilities of human personality, whether or not the personality is focused within physical matter, but I am indeed aware of the difficulties which shall be encountered. [...]

[...] The fact is that sexual expression is, again, an important element in the entire range of human experience, encouraging mental and physical health and vitality.

In actuality, the combination of a philosophical stress upon discipline, physical and mental, with the belief in the sinful self, often brings about the most unfortunate human dilemmas. [...]

There are so many other elements involved in human nature that I do not really want to point out any culprits, yet male-segregated communities are obviously notorious for encouraging that kind of behavior. [...]

[...] In the same manner, say, the ideal is to protect human life, and in the pursuit of that ideal you give generations of various animals deadly diseases, and sacrifice their lives.³ Your justification may be that people have souls and animals do not, or that the quality of life is less in the animals, but regardless of those arguments this is fanaticism — and the quality of human life itself suffers as a result, for those who sacrifice any kind of life along the way lose some respect for all life, human life included. [...]

3. Seth referred to the way mice, rats, rabbits, and other animals are raised in laboratory captivity, to be sold to scientific researchers who conduct experiments with them that would be considered “unethical” to do in human beings. Mice, for example, are inbred in a sanitized environment for many generations until genetically “pure” strains are obtained; these ideal “models” for research into human defects may be born with — or develop — obesity, various cancers (including leukemia), epilepsy, different anemias, muscular dystrophy, and so forth. [...] Inbred mice are also used now to test human environmental hazards.

[...] It would mean that you did not kill animals in experiments, taking their lives in order to protect the sacredness of human life. [...]

Small amounts of radiation are still leaking from the plant, and Pennsylvania and federal health agencies have announced long-range studies of its effects upon the human and animal populations living nearby. [...]

Such judgments are very simplistic, and ignore the great range of human motivation and experience. [...]

[...] The same kind of moral value judgment can be placed in almost any area of human activity, and will of course have social repercussions. [...]

This is not the place for me to go into a long discussion concerning the significance of races, yet each one is highly meaningful, and represents a different aspect of humanity as a whole. [...]

[...] On a quite simple basis, if you consider God in human terms you will project him as belonging to your own race. [...]

[...] And so you are in the process of reuniting yourself, and discovering what the word “humanity” means. [...] Regardless of what words are put upon your experience in terms of sexual roles, you will be a full human being. [...]

(In ESP class for April 16, a student asked Seth to comment on “the differences between the male and female [human beings] as we understand them.” [...]

[...] You see a range of human being and personality that defies conventional ideas of sexuality or of consciousness — that defies all of the ideas that have been handed down to you, and that challenges you each to look for the reality of your own being.

[...] There is an interpretation to the meaning of the fall, in Biblical terms, and on another occasion I will tell you what it is but do not expect the philosophy that tells you automatically that by becoming human you have degraded yourselves. [...]

[...] Anyone who tells you this is telling you that automatically by being human you are to some extent damned, even though the terms of salvation are open and available and such is not the case. [...]

Human existence, again, represents growth and development and the birth of consciousness into a different and new dimension of activity. [...]

(During break Florence asked, “Where are we as humans on the scale of development?”

We hope to explain this larger framework of existence still further, for indeed it also affects the human condition in all of its aspects.

[...] They have no intention of growing into complete human development. [...]

In the case of human beings, however, many questions certainly rise to the fore. [...]

(4:12.) Perhaps the greatest variances in human behavior show in mental states, and so parents are apt to feel most crushed and despondent if any of their children prove to be what is generally regarded as mentally deficient. [...]

(And to me, the whole Sumari thing speaks of some kind of compassionate observation or knowledge of the human condition … or in lieu of putting it that way, of an opening up of human awareness to embrace more of the possibilities of consciousness.)

[...] And because of that emotional and quite human experience, Ruburt allowed the Sumari development to show itself….

The reasoning mind is a uniquely human and physical phenomenon. (Long pause.) It depends upon conscious thinking, problem-solving methods, and it is a natural human blossoming, a spectacular mental development in its own framework of activity.

[...] (Long pause.) In human beings the genetic structure largely determines physical characteristics such as height, color of eyes, color of hair, color of skin—and, of course, more importantly, the number of fingers and toes, and the other specific physical attributes of your specieshood. So physically, and on his physical attributes alone, a man cannot use his free will to fly like a bird, or to perform physical acts for which the human body is not equipped.

[...] Your thoughts make you human (underlined).

“Art is not a specifically human endeavor, though man likes to believe that this is so. [...]

[...] They would take what they could from your technology, but in conscious and spontaneous ways they retaliated — and still do — by exaggerating all of those human tendencies that your society has held down so well. [...] When human experience becomes shrunken in such a fashion — compressed — then in a fashion it also explodes at both ends, you might say.

Fanaticism abounds, of course, because the human tendencies and experiences that have been denied by the mainline society erupt with explosive force, where the tendencies themselves must be accepted as characteristics of human experience. [...]

Now, I try to show you all, whenever we have a session, that what you are seeing and hearing is a demonstration of the nature of human personality. And you all have human personalities, so therefore the abilities that are shown in this room are examples of the abilities that you have within yourselves waiting to be developed. [...] I am referring, in the main however, to a deep feeling of oneness with other human beings. [...]

[...] I cannot stress too thoroughly the fact that the beliefs of those times structured individual human living, so that the most private events of personal lives were interpreted to mean thus and so, as were of course the events of nations, plants, and animals. [...]

Now: Churchmen of the Middle Ages could draw diagrams of various portions of the human body that were afflicted as the result of indulging in particular sins. [...]

[...] It would be impossible to discuss human suffering without taking that into consideration. [...]

[...] As human creatures you accept the conditions of life. [...]

[...] They imagine, in fact, every situation that they can involving human experience. [...] This is because you are alive as the result of your great curiosity for human experience. You are alive because you want to participate in human drama.

[...] For this, we need to examine some human feelings that are often forgotten.

[...] Suffering cannot be dismissed from human experience as a freak matter of distorted emotions or beliefs.

(Long pause.) Suffering is a human condition that is sought for various reasons. [...]

While there was no specific entry point as far as human consciousness was concerned, there was a point (in your terms) where it did not seem to exist. The consciousness of being human was fully developed in the caveman, of course, but the human conception was alive in the fish.

So-called human consciousness did not suddenly appear. Our poor maligned friend, the ape, did not suddenly beat his hairy chest in exultation and cry, ‘I am a man.’ The beginnings of human consciousness, on the other hand, began as soon as multi-cellular groupings began to form in field patterns of a certain complexity.

Human self-consciousness existed in psychological time, and in inner ‘time’ long before you, as a species, constructed it. For your friend’s sake, I will say this as simply as possible: Human consciousness was inherent and latent from the beginning of your physical universe. [...]

I become impatient, though I shouldn’t, with this continued implied insistence that evolution involves merely the human species — or, rather, that all evolution must be considered some gigantic tree with humanity as the supreme blossom.

[...] Your psychologies, stressing “the norm,” made people frightened of their individual characteristics and abilities, because psychology’s norm did not fit the contours of any one human being. It did not touch the heights or the depths of human experience. [...]

(According to him, tonight’s session after 9:52 isn’t book material either, but Jane and I are presenting it here because in it Seth returns to questions I’d asked earlier in Mass Events: What about the roles played in human affairs by viruses like smallpox? [...]

(9:23.) If the simplest particle is so endowed with impetus, with hidden ideals that seek fulfillment, then what about the human being? [...]

[...] They are not eccentric versions of humanity at all, but instead provide a hint of mankind’s true capacities.