“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

The ability of the entity to transform energy into an idea and then to construct it physically determines the entity’s place on the physical evolutionary plane. Simple organisms are capable of “picking up” fewer communications. Their range is less, but the vitality and validity of their constructions is excellent. In simple organisms such as the paramecium and amoeba, the few sharp ideas received are constructed almost simultaneously, without reflection. The organism needs no other mechanism to translate ideas. What it has is sufficient.

But then, as I returned, the intensity of the experience began to fade. The miracle began to withdraw. Three hours in all had passed. I was left with a pile of scribbled notes, written and titled automatically: “The Physical Universe As Idea Construction” — all that was physically salvaged from that remarkable experience. And I knew beyond all doubt that those ideas had been given to me initially in the forgotten dream of the night before.

Since those notes were born so directly from that event, and since they represent the first strong intrusions from the interior universe into my own life, I still find them intriguing. I am looking at them now, as I work on this chapter some five years later. They seemed charged with a fierce vitality that leads me to consider the ambiguous nature of creativity, for if those ideas and the experience itself initiated a new kind of consciousness in me, they also possessed an explosive force powerful enough to considerably dismantle the previous frameworks of my thoughts and ideas. The ordinary surface of my world literally quaked open, and I had no conception then of what was still to emerge.

Idea constructions are transformations of ideas into physical reality.

Now your own physical image is the materialization of your idea of yourself within the properties of matter. Without the idea of yourself, your physical image would not be; yet often it is all you are aware of. The initial power and energy of that idea of yourself keeps your image alive. Ideas, then, are far more important than you realize. If you will try to accept the idea that your own existence is multidimensional, that you dwell within the medium of infinite probabilities, then you may catch a slight glimpse of the reality that is behind the word “god,” and you may understand why it is almost impossible to capture a true understanding of that concept in words.

[...] If I told you that God was an idea, you would not understand what I meant, for you do not understand the dimensions in which an idea has its reality, or the energy that it can originate and propel. You do not believe in ideas in the same way that you believe in physical objects, so if I tell you that God is an idea, you will misinterpret this to mean that God is less than real — nebulous, without reality, without purpose, and without motive action.

[...] He projected these upon his idea of a god because he envied them and feared them. You have cast your idea of god, therefore, in your own image.

For example: There was no beginning, and there will be no end, yet parables have been given telling you of beginnings and endings simply because with your distorted ideas of time, beginnings and endings seem to be inseparable, valid events. As you learn to turn the focus of your attention away from physical reality and therefore experience some slight evidence of other realities, your consciousness will cling to old ideas that make true explanations impossible for you to understand. [...]

Give us a moment… Often individuals go overboard, forgetting that ideas have their own vitality. [...] They consider ideas as completely mental properties, separate from their concept of the body. They think ideas reside in their heads. Who, for example, imagines that an idea is alive in his elbow, or knee, or toe?

While it is true that the body is the living materialization of idea, it is also true that these ideas form an active, responsive, alive body. [...] You impose your ideas upon it and largely affect its health and well-being through your conscious beliefs. [...]

Generally, people believe that ideas have little to do with the living flesh. The flesh seems physical and ideas do not. [...]

There is no difference between the energy that shapes your ideas and the energy that grows a flower, or that heals your finger if you burn it. [...]

[...] Throw out ideas that do not suit you. If you read this, find such an idea in yourself and then say, “l cannot throw this idea away,” then you must realize that your inner remark is in itself a belief. You can indeed throw the idea away, the second one, as easily as the first.

To become acquainted with your own ideas and beliefs you must walk among them, symbolically speaking, without blinders. You must look through the structures that you have yourself created, the organized ideas upon which you have grouped your experience.

[...] If you hold to it and do not examine it, however, you may find that the word “responsible” is quite loaded, and collects other ideas that are equally unexamined by you. What is your idea of being responsible? [...]

You can stub your toe as easily on a misplaced idea as you can upon an old chair. [...] Your ideas are yours. [...]

Your own idea of the perilous nature of existence becomes so strong that the ego allows this data to emerge, even though it is “out of time,” because your fearful beliefs convince it that you must be on guard. [...] From all the unconscious telepathic and clairvoyant data available, however, you will be aware of this particular grouping, and it will only serve to reinforce your idea that existence is above all perilous.

[...] Others will react to those according to their own ideas of reality. A family can constantly reinforce its joy (louder), gaiety, and spontaneity by concentrating on ideas of vitality, strength and creativity; or it can let half of its energy slip away (deeper) by reinforcing resentments, angers and thoughts of doubt and failure.

Your sense data, again, will most definitely reinforce your ideas. [...] So you are locked into physical situations that are corroborated by the great evidence of sense data — and of course it is convincing because it reflects so beautifully, so creatively, and so actively, your own ideas and beliefs, whether they are positive or negative.

Now if you are honest with your lists, you will finally come to what I call core beliefs, strong ideas about your own existence. [...] They seem logical only in their relationship to a core idea. [...]

[...] At the same time he thought himself liberal-minded, he repeatedly couched Seth’s ideas in the terms used by the respected, well-known members of his profession. He told us often that while he liked a good idea “no matter where it came from,” he wouldn’t use Seth’s name in conversations with others, but would try to work in Seth’s ideas under the guise of others’ works. [...]

[...] That is why individuals with ideas counter to the system band together in groups of all kinds, whether or not their particular ideas happen to agree with the group with whom they become affiliated. [...] Within it certain ideas predominate that are taboo outside.

(9:52.) Now when you freely communicate ideas that are threatening or frightening, or even strange, to some extent you are attacking the heart of the authoritative structure. You are telling it to change, when all of its instincts, you see, are to maintain stability, and in your country, at least, that stability has been large enough and flexible enough so that you are being financially rewarded, to whatever degree, for promoting ideas that run counter to the deepest beliefs of that system.

[...] Many of those people, however, in say businesses or professions, would automatically try to grasp the new ideas with one hand, while protecting themselves from any consequences with the other: “I know these ideas seem crazy, but -” or, in the case of your professor, “I collect my crazies, but those people are authentic.”

[...] Many spontaneous ideas for paintings and sketches you automatically reject because of several reasons. They do not fit in with your ideas of work (underlined), or with your idea of what you think you ought (underlined) to do, or because you are being too ponderous, and hence shove away many spontaneously playful ideas.

Forget the idea of man’s work and what your paintings should (underlined) provide, and the idea of fame or success. Let yourself go with the joy of painting what you want to; but forgetting also, again, the idea that your paintings are working out problems, technical or not.

Your knowledge of form now can work for you automatically, serving to give structure to those ideas which will come to you freely and clearly. [...] You must forget the idea as you have it, that your painting must serve to work out problems. [...]

[...] Instead you project ponderous ideas of success or failure, consider work as a series of problems to be solved, and forget the idea of spontaneously creating.

As it took a while for the unsatisfactory beliefs to become materialized, so it may be a time before you see physical results; but the new ideas will take growth and change your experience as certainly as the old ones did. The process of imagining will also bring you face to face with other subsidiary ideas that may momentarily bring you up short. You may see where you held two quite conflicting ideas simultaneously, and with equal vigor. [...]

[...] You receive ideas about the world in general and your relationship to it; and from your parents you are also given concepts of what you are. You pick up their ideas of your own reality.

[...] I am well aware that strong elements of your civilization are built upon ideas of guilt and punishment. [...] It is running quite wild now — not despite your ideas of guilt and punishment, but largely because of them. [...]

[...] The grown adult, not used to examining his or her own beliefs, however, may be quite unaware of harboring such an idea. The idea itself is not buried or unconscious. [...]

In other words these idea camouflage structures are prerequisites for your physical structures, and to the extent that these idea structures evolve, to that extent can your physical structures change. This is why, for example, you are hampered even in your physical constructions by the idea structures of time that you have erected.

For the same reason you are also obsessed with the idea of cause and effect, with the illusion of successive time bringing forth the other. Here we have two of your most basic idea camouflage structures: your conception of time as a succession, and your idea of cause and effect.

These idea camouflage patterns represent important if nonmaterial structures, and we will refer to them as idea camouflage structures from now on, since they are basic frameworks that control the actual physical camouflage patterns, and even supervise for you the extent to which such physical patterns can be constructed.

[...] To you with your ideas of camouflage time this material may sound strange and unbelievable.

[...] We discussed many possibilities swirling around the fund idea. The idea was new to Jane, of course, and I wanted to give her time to think about it. [...] One thing became quite clear as we talked: The fund idea abruptly led us into looking at our beliefs and motives and “work” in new ways—a valuable service right there. [...]

(In relation to Seth’s material on the fund, I told Jane, it seems that creativity obviously has many more facets to it than we ordinarily think—if we need or want money, for example, with it just serving as a means to an end—our doing our work—it will be provided if we’re not closed to the idea. [...] The fund idea is an ideal case in point, being quite unexpected. As we talked Jane said the idea may even have ramifications that may touch Pete Harpending, our attorney. [...]

[...] The fund idea represents many people’s opportunity to feel a part of our venture. [...] The people are definitely well-meaning, of good intent, and they welcome the idea of expending energy, time, and money on our behalf. [...]

[...] The letter I’d had published recently in the November issue of Coordinate Point International, describing Jane’s challenges, had come to the attention of the reader in St. Paul, MN, who had called Maude with the idea of a fund. [...]

[...] Jane said she thought Magical Child contained ideas reminiscent of her own and Seth’s ideas, and was also remindful of a book idea she’s considering at the moment, on the magical self. She had me dig out her notes for this idea yesterday —I believe before the mail, but am not sure. [...]

First of all, some of the ideas in the Magical Child book are excellent, and though he has not read the book thoroughly by any means, some new understandings have been reached through the use of those ideas and his own recent experiences by Ruburt.

The Sinful Self material represents those ideas that were strong element in the original belief structural of a cultural nature, to which Ruburt was “bonded.” There were other ideas and concepts joined with these that he has successfully grown away from, so that they became less important. [...]

[...] Ideally, infants “bond” with their parents, particularly with the mother but with the father also—and then they “bond” with the general ideas of their society. [...]

Often you quite consciously decide to bury a thought or an idea that might cause you to alter your behavior, because it does not seem to fit in with limiting ideas that you already hold. [...] What suggestions and ideas are you giving yourself? [...]

I repeat: Your ideas and beliefs form the structure of your experience. [...] If you accept the idea that the reasons for your behavior are forever buried in the past of this life, or any other, then you will not be able to alter your experience until you change that belief. [...]

[...] One of the current ideas in vogue holds that you are constantly at the mercy of suggestion. [...] All other ideas are rejected or accepted according to whether or not you believe they are true, in line with the steady conscious chattering that goes on within your mind most of the day — the suggestions given to you by yourself.

[...] So you must work with the raw material of your ideas, even while your sense data may tell you that a given belief is obviously a truth. To change your experience or any portion of it, then, you must change your ideas. [...]

[...] Do not think in terms of perfection and nonperfection, but of bringing your ideas to life, and of using photographs to express those ideas.

The idea of disclosure however is more important, for you remember that your mother did not like to have her photograph taken. [...]

[...] (On Sunday, when I bought an album to keep them in.) You have the idea of how the book can appear, a model that exists in your mind. [...]

[...] Creatively you see the photographs’ value, but they still caused a conflict between your ideas of perfection and self-disclosure, particularly as they were related to your mother’s attitudes.

Ideas have an electromagnetic reality. Beliefs are strong ideas about the nature of reality. Ideas generate emotion. Like attracts like, so similar ideas group about each other and you accept those that fit in with your particular “system” of ideas.

Limiting ideas therefore predispose you to accept others of a similar nature. Exuberant ideas of freedom, spontaneity and joy automatically collect others of their kind also. There is a constant interplay between yourself and others in the exchange of ideas, both telepathically and on a conscious level.

[...] The seemingly invisible ideas that cause your difficulties have quite obvious visible physical effects, and these will lead you automatically to the conscious area in which the initiating beliefs or ideas reside.

[...] It is fashionable in some circles to believe that you react physically to telepathically received messages despite your conscious beliefs or ideas. [...] You react only to those telepathic messages that fit in with your conscious ideas about yourself and your reality (emphatically).

“We are individualized portions of energy, materialized within physical existence, to learn to form ideas from energy, and make them physical (this is idea construction). We project ideas into an object, so that we can deal with it. [...] This physical representation of idea permits us to learn the difference between the ‘I’ who thinks and the thought. Idea construction teaches the ‘I’ what it is, by showing it its own products in a physical manner. [...] We learn the power and effects of ideas by changing them into physical realities; and we learn responsibility in the use of creative energy. [...]

Those ideas were only a touchstone for what would come later. [...] For example: “The subconscious is the threshold of idea’s emergence into the individual conscious mind. [...] … The physical body is the material construction of the entity’s idea of itself under the properties of matter. … Instinct is the minimum ability for idea construction necessary for physical survival. … The present is the apparent point of any idea’s emergence into physical matter.”

The ideas that I “received” were just as startling. They turned all my ideas of reality upside down. [...] You could change your ideas toward it if you chose, but this would in no way change what reality was. [...]

[...] Between one normal minute and the next, a fantastic avalanche of radical, new ideas burst into my head with tremendous force, as if my skull were some sort of receiving station, turned up to unbearable volume. Not only ideas came through this channel, but sensations, intensified and pulsating. [...]

The problems arise in response to ideas that you once accepted as facts of life —ideas that have indeed exerted great sway—ideas that are responsible for much of the world’s woe. [...]

[...] It might have seemed sometimes that our ideas were fanciful projections, hoped-for but unreal hypotheses that had their own important intrinsic creative value, but did not necessarily stand for any real statements of fact about the physical universe. [...]

[...] Our ideas are as close to fact as you can get, granting the necessary translations, and as you build your lives on those frameworks you will no longer be programmed, reacting to erroneous “facts” as if they had a basis in reality. [...]

The more you liberate yourselves from such ideas, the freer you will become, the stronger your natural bodies, the more alive your natural selves. [...]

For some years, to varying extents, Ruburt and you also to a lesser degree became motivated by ideas of who you should (underlined) be, what you should (underlined) be doing, and what your responsibilities were. [...] To some extent—with some important variances, having to do with quite legitimate ideas of art—such feelings have also been behind many of your own responses to, say, the appearance of the books, as public packages in the world (intently). In Ruburt’s case the idea of responsibility became far more pervasive, resulting in what I have referred to as being almost a superself image—an image composed of his ideas of the kind of person he should (underlined) be in his position. [...]

[...] Your idea of responsibility may give you a very poor rating, however, in your own eyes for your practical performance in life. The idea of responsibility, as it is understood (underlined), is at its heart other-directed. It may even lead to the idea that the enjoyment of the self alone is wrong. [...] Those ideas come to him constantly, of course, or those suggestions, through the mail, the expectations of others, or his observation. [...]

In Ruburt’s case throughout these years, the idea of responsibility took over too much prominence. (Long pause.) His difficulties with inspiration arise when he forgets his ideas of natural enjoyment and replaces those with the idea that “he has a responsibility to use his abilities”—as if he would not fulfill them motivated by his own enjoyment and love. [...]

[...] This other-directed superself image, however, largely of social construction, superimposes the idea of responsibility over the idea of enjoyment, and in many cases is in direct contradiction as far as Ruburt’s natural tendencies are concerned. [...]

[...] Anyhow, got the idea when I put the book away that Seth would speak about things like the Moonies without mentioning them, idea being that the self as it is isn’t trusted; as in the Jonestown thing. Such groups make people dissatisfied with the self as it is, and try to superimpose the idea of a superior self—realistically impossible. [...] (There was some other stuff I got but I’ve forgotten it already.) Anyway the chapter was to be followed according to what I got, by one on frightened people who suddenly break out of old ideas, open their mental environments, and seemingly work miracles in their lives; like the old man, the old woman....

(Jane’s idea this evening was to have a session on book material, so I asked her for a few words on my question also. [...] I’d mentioned a little earlier an idea for a book she could develop on Seth and the magical approach [she’s had the magical-approach idea for some time], and she wanted material on that. See my notes on the book idea prefacing the regular portion of this session. [...]

[...] For both events obviously involved effects her work was having in that outside world we shied away from: Seth, it seemed, had even managed to make his way into a court of law, the very fabric of our society; and regardless of whether he was praised or knocked, his ideas were “officially” discussed. And the medium, Thomas Massari, was basically spreading Seth’s ideas among the so-called leaders of at least segments of our society: M.D.’s, psychotherapists, and others in the medical field. [...]

[...] I explained to Jane that my own idea of why Seth’s statements over the years, that she was on the way to recovery, were always negated was that these very statements alerted the Sinful Self to redouble its efforts to prevent Jane’s recovery because of its own fears. I added that when I used the term Sinful Self, I only meant certain blocks of ideas that we’ve personified for convenience’s sake.

[...] Jane didn’t ask for details on the case, but instead explained to the lawyer something of Seth’s ideas so that the attorney could use that material in his defense, making it clear that above all Seth was not for violence, even though the prosecuting attorney was evidently trying to make the defendant sound as though it was okay to kill because reincarnation was a fact: Since we all lived other lives, no one could really kill anyone. [...]

A simple example can be seen in the transformation of an idea into a painting, that is the transformation of the energy, the psychological energy of an idea into physical materialization. The idea itself, once you have conceived of it, represents an additional energy component that you build up, formulate and manipulate on the psychological level, and then transform; but the idea itself contains energy.

[...] As it happens, ideas do vary in their energy structure. There are basic laws that can be applied, as far as the expansion rate of idea is concerned. [...]

Ideas, being themselves composed of energy, are translated or transformed into other kinds of energy, which you happen in many instances to perceive. On other planes the idea energy is perceived, and the energy transformed into physical fields is not perceived.

I am not only speaking therefore of the obvious energy that you as a personality and physical structure use in the activity of transforming the idea. Ideas themselves then, being composed of energy, give additional energy to the psychological, physical structure that conceives and manipulates them.