“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

I do not mean to idealize him either, or others of his kind, but to point out that you can use your imaginations and intellects in other fashions than you do. In fact, such fashions are not only genetically possible, but genetically probable—a matter I will discuss later in the book. The imagination, of course, deals with the implied universe, those vast areas of reality that are not physically manifest, while reason usually deals with the evidence of the world that is before it. That statement is generally true, but specifically, of course, any act of the imagination involves reasoning, and any [act] of reason involves the imagination.

In recent times the trend has been in the opposite direction, so that the abilities of the imagination were considered highly suspect, while exterior events were considered the only aspects of reality. You ended up with a true-or-false kind of world, in which it seemed that the answers to the deepest questions about life could be answered quite correctly and adequately by some multiple-choice test. Man’s imagination seemed then to be allied with falsehood, unless its products could be turned to advantage in the materialistic existence. In that context, the imagination was tolerated at all only because it sometimes offered new technological inventions.

(9:23.) In the case of the man who wrote Ruburt, we have a mixture of those characteristics in which interior events—the events of the imagination—cast too strong a light upon physical events as far as the socially accepted blend is concerned. Again, I am not speaking about all cases of mental disorder here. I do, however, want to make the point that your prized psychological norm as a species means that you must also be allowed a great leeway in the use of the imagination and the intellect. Otherwise, you could become locked into a rigid conscious stance, one in which both the imagination and the intellect could advance no further. It is vitally important that you realize the great psychological diversity that is present within your psychological behavior—and those varieties of psychological experience are necessary. They give you vital psychological feedback, and they exercise the reaches of your abilities in ways that are overall most advantageous.

At noon she’d received another upsetting letter. I was most interested tonight as Seth discussed the implications of the letter, along with two thoughts Jane had picked up from him a week ago Monday, on the day she held the 915th session: “Alone, reason finally becomes unreasonable. Alone, imagination becomes less imaginative over time.” I wrote in the closing note for the session that I was disappointed because Seth hadn’t brought up those two points in the session itself.)

The imagination is highly involved with event-forming. Children’s imaginations prevent them from being too limited by their parents’ world. [...]

Children try to imagine what the world was like before they entered it. [...] Look at a natural object, say a tree; if it is spring now, then imagine that you see it in the fall.

[...] Children can play so vividly that they might, for example, imagine themselves parched under a desert sun, though they are in the middle of the coolest air-conditioned living room. [...] Yet the adult often fears that any such playful unofficial alteration of consciousness is dangerous, and becomes worried that the imagined situation will supersede the real one.

(10:49.) Through training, many adults have been taught that the imagination itself is suspicious. Such attitudes not only drastically impede any artistic creativity, but the imaginative creativity necessary to deal with the nature of physical events themselves.

Now imagine anything that you choose but have a line or a platform that represents Alpha I. Have it in your mind as a symbol of adjacent consciousness at the same level, perhaps, as your eyes. [...] Imagine yourself as a small figure on the line, for example. Imagine a road and yourself upon it. Now I will want you shortly to imagine other such lines or roads, so pick an image for yourself, that you can use. [...]

Now imagine again a third line or path, still parallel and adjacent. [...] Now imagine still another line which we will call A-V.

And now imagine a step above A-I. Not adjacent or parallel, but above, and feel yourself step up upon it. [...] Pause there and imaginatively look down to A-I, but hold your position. [...]

Now imagine another adjacent road or line parallel and still further away from your normal consciousness. [...]

Again, man directs his existence through the use of his imagination — a feat that does distinguish him from the animals. What connects people and separates them is the power of idea and the force of imagination. [...] You project yourselves into time like children through freely imagining your growth. You instantly color physical experience and nature itself with the tints of your unique imaginative processes. Unless you think quite consistently — and deeply — the importance of the imagination quite escapes you, and yet it literally forms the world that you experience and the mass world in which you live.

(All with much emphasis and irony:) The idea of a meaningless universe, however, is in itself a highly creative imaginative act. Animals, for example, could not imagine such an idiocy, so that the theory shows the incredible accomplishment of an obviously ordered mind and intellect that can imagine itself to be the result of nonorder, or chaos — [you have] a creature who is capable of “mapping” its own brain, imagining that the brain’s fantastic regulated order could emerge from a reality that itself has no meaning. [...]

Now: The animals do have imagination, regardless of your current thought. Yet man is so gifted that he directs his experience and forms his civilizations largely through the use of his imaginative abilities.

[...] The old religious myths fit a different kind of people, however, and lasted for as many centuries in the past as Christianity has reached into the future.² The miraculous merging of imagination with historical time, however, became less and less synchronized, so that only r-i-t-e-s (spelled) remained and the old gods seized the imagination no longer. [...]

The imagination has always dealt with creativity, and as man began to settle upon a kind of consciousness that dealt with cause and effect, he no longer physically perceived the products of his imagination directly in the old manner. He realized in those earlier times that illness, for instance, was initially as much the result of the imagination as health was, for he experienced far more directly the brilliant character of his own imagination. The lines between imaginative and physical experience have blurred for you, and of course they have also become tempered by other beliefs and the experiences that those beliefs then engender.

[...] It is far more complicated — and yet early man, for example, became aware of the fact that no man was injured without that event first being imagined to one extent or another. Therefore, imagined healings were utilized, in which a physical illness was imaginatively cured — and in those days the cures worked.

It may be difficult for you to understand, but the events that you now recognize are as much the result of the realm of the imagination, as those experienced by early man when he perceived as real happenings that now you would consider hallucinatory, or purely imaginative.

[...] He often perceived what you would call the products of the imagination as sense data, for example, more or less objectified in the physical world.

Often you do not trust your imagination, considering that it deals with phenomena that cannot be called fact. [...] If you are too imaginative, for example, you may not be able to adequately deal with physical life. [...] Originally, and in your terms of time, it was precisely the imagination that in its own way set you apart from other creatures, enabling you to form realities in your mind that you could “later” exteriorize.

Because you now distrust the imagination so, you do not understand the great clues it gives you, both in terms of problem solving and of creative expression. Many quite valid reincarnational memories come as imaginings, but you do not trust them. A good percentage of your problems can be worked out rather easily through the use of your imagination.

When you are utilizing your imagination in the way I have suggested, purposefully do so in a playful manner, knowing that in so-called realistic terms there may be great discrepancies between imagination and fact. [...] Yet often your freewheeling, “silly,” seemingly unrealistic imagination will bring you quite practical solutions to your problems, for if the exercise is done properly you will be automatically releasing yourself from restrictions that you have taken for granted.

[...] To do so in your present, freely imagine a situation in which you are happy. To begin with your imaginings may seem foolish. [...]

Remarks: it has been said that when the imagination and the will are in conflict, that the imagination will (amused) always win. [...]

[...] They may state their purpose as often as they wish, and yet their imaginations carry vivid pictures of future deprivation, so it seems in such cases that the will and the imagination are in conflict.

It might be a good idea to examine that statement, for in the truest sense of human motivation, the fact is that despite all appearances to the contrary, the imagination and the will are never in conflict.

However scandalous or unrealistic this proposition sounds, the fact is that people do not “will” a specific outcome of events while their imaginations vividly portray the opposing outcome.

[...] The night before he worries, and often consciously, that he will not be in good condition, and imaginatively then as a result, sees himself in poor condition. Because of the force of the imagination this does sometimes then occur. Then he compares your health and vitality to his condition, and imagines you are impatient with him, since he quite literally drags his feet.

Instead imagine the desired result, the health; and his methods in Psycho-Cybernetics do serve him very well in that regard, firing his imagination. [...]

He drags his feet because he does not want to go, because he is afraid that he will be in the poor condition that his imagination has gotten him into. [...] His mistake has been in letting his imagination work against him, thwarting his desire, rather than for him.

His mental attitude should be “Of course I can feel fine in the morning,” and instead of imagining himself dragging down the stairs, he should playfully imagine himself ahead of you, as if he were playing a game. [...]

[...] Imagine how you will spend your money. If you are ill, imagine playfully that you are cured. [...] If you cannot communicate with others, imagine yourself doing so easily. If you feel your days dark and pointless, then imagine them filled and joyful.

Your emotions and your imagination both follow your belief. When the belief vanishes then the same emotional context is no longer entertained, and your imagination turns in other directions. Beliefs automatically mobilize your emotional and imaginative powers.

[...] When you are examining the contents of your conscious mind, you must learn, or recognize, the emotional and imaginative connotations that are connected with a given idea. [...] You generate the emotion opposite the one that arises from the belief you want to change, and you turn your imagination in the opposite direction from the one dictated by the belief. [...]

YOUR IMAGINATION AND YOUR BELIEFS, AND A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE ORIGIN OF YOUR BELIEFS

[...] As the conscious mind grew, now, so did the range of imagination. The conscious mind is a vehicle for the imagination in many ways. The greater its knowledge the further the reach of imagination. In return imagination enriches conscious reasoning and emotional experience.

Your imagination of course fires your emotions, and it also follows your beliefs faithfully. [...]

[...] The imagination will follow, painting dire mental pictures of a particular condition. [...]

One belief, of course, can be dependent upon many others, each generating its own emotion and imaginative reality. [...]

Give us a moment, then… Imagination also plays an important part in your subjective life, as it gives mobility to your beliefs. [...] It is vital therefore that you understand the interrelationship between ideas and imagination. In order to dislodge unsuitable beliefs and establish new ones, you must learn to use your imagination to move concepts in and out of your mind. The proper use of imagination can then propel ideas in the directions you desire.

[...] It’s about imagination and beliefs, I think, and how they interact — only there’s a lot more to it. [...]

Now: Much has been written saying that if imagination and willpower are in conflict, imagination will win. Now I tell you, if you examine yourself you will find (deeper and louder) that imagination and willpower are never — underlined twice — in conflict. Your beliefs may conflict, but your imagination will always follow your willpower and your conscious thoughts and beliefs.

[...] They reinforce themselves through imagination; and at the risk of repeating myself, because this is so important: Imagination and feeling follow your beliefs. [...]

[...] In your mind’s eye you still see yourself as overweight, imagine the goodies and snacks, and in your terms “give in” to your imagination — and you think that willpower is useless and conscious thought powerless.

Emotion and imagination are being considered as far superior. [...]

The imagination belongs to the language of the psyche. [...] Therefore the imagination is often considered suspect.

[...] To do this, however, you must leave your daily language behind at least momentarily, and pay attention to your own feelings and imagination. [...]

(Pause at 10:12.) Mundane language tells you, as you think with its patterns, that your imagination is running away with you, for obviously you are one thing and the sky is another. [...]

The emotions and the imagination, however, give you your closest contact with other portions of your own reality. [...]

Children then apply their imaginations more vividly, and even utilize all of their senses at certain times, to follow or reinforce those pictures that imagination paints. [...]

In so doing, they then apply their imaginations in structured ways that serve to reinforce the prime reality-framework. For some time, however, young children utilize a remarkable imaginative freedom, so that, for example, they can experience “alternate” events with as much focus, strength, and vitality as that with which they experience ordinary life. [...]

Most of your experience happens directly, where senses, imagination, motion and physical actuality meet. [...] You may dream that you are running or walking or flying, yet those activities are divorced enough from that area where imagination, motion, and physical actuality meet, so that your body remains quiet, relatively speaking, while you seem to be moving freely somewhere else.

Each self has its own inviolate point where imagination, motion, and physical actuality intersect. [...]

[...] Now, imagine (underlined) how you will feel when your paintings sell, the joy that they will bring others, the joy that you will feel knowing they are wanted. Imagine what you will do as you sell so many paintings that you need more time to produce them, and how you will then leave your job in order to paint, and the sort of place you will live, and the feeling of contentment and creative challenge that will fill you.

[...] Imagine your paintings in homes, in different environments, with people enjoying them. Imagine what you will do with the money. [...]

Imagine your surprise, delight and gratitude, as if the events had already occurred. [...] Imagine it also in the future, and it will be in the future.

[...] Now he has been imagining himself happy in and out of the windows to clean them, and had some trouble with the images. Have him instead simply imagine his joy and freedom with the performance completed, and forget the means.

In your mind’s eye however imagine a run-down, shabby, deteriorating shamble of a house with rotting floorboards and sagging porches. Then imagine that it is burned to the ground and the remaining rubble carted away and burned. Imagine the land now free beneath it, open to the blessing of wind, rain and sun. Then imagine a new house being built there, of your preferred choice, with all new materials, of splendid design, and see this always in your mind where before you saw the previous image.

[...] If you have difficulty imagining the deliberate destruction of the negative object, this is merely a sign of its hold. You may then instead imagine its destruction by an act of nature. [...] If this is the case then the exercise should be continued until you imagine you yourself deciding upon and bringing about the destruction and replacement. If you are not ready to burn down the structure itself, imaginatively, then you are not prepared to rid yourself of the negative behavior, you see. [...]

Imagine the summer winds that blow over the land that now fills the interior of the house with scented air. [...]

The first object must be seen as completely destroyed, and the area cleared before the new object is imagined in its place. [...]

Here imagination is negatively applied. [...] You can tell yourself even that the person might after all take the opposite course than the one that you are imagining, and for a moment reverse the direction of your imagination. [...]

I told you about the importance of imagination and the various characteristic methods that people have in utilizing suggestion through imagination. [...]

[...] At the same time he uses the challenge to activate his imagination constructively and to arouse his enthusiasm. [...]

[...] You still allow your imagination to follow your negative beliefs, thus you (me, RFB) are often unable to encourage Ruburt actively, as he is often unable to encourage himself.

[...] Culture is as real and natural as trees and rocks, so see the various cultures of these three groups as natural environments of the different places or countries; and imagine, then, each group exploring the unique environment of the land into which they have journeyed. Imagine further of course that these explorations occur at once, even though communication may be faulty, so that each group has difficulty communicating with the others. Imagine, however, that there is a homeland from which our groups originally came. [...]

[...] For this, try to imagine time as being something like space. [...] If you have children, imagine their experience 50 years hence as still another place.

[...] Now: Imagine your species as you think of it, and the literally endless capacities for expression and creation simply in the areas of which you are aware. [...]

[...] The imagination is all important. Even be ridiculous with the use of the imagination. Have him imagine for example pillow fights with you, or wrestling on the floor with you. [...]

Now this is a necessity: the Psycho-Cybernetics for at least fifteen minutes, no more than a half hour, in which time he allows his imagination full imaginative play, positive play, where he is writing well, enjoying his body, where his pursuits are succeeding. He does very well at this, but during this time have him concentrate on the imagination, and not give conscious suggestions to himself for he then becomes too heavy-handed.

Imagine vividly an empty space on the wall in place of any painting now hanging there that you wish to sell. Imagine yourself wondering what to put there now that the painting has sold. [...]

[...] Imagine someone asking you if you have sold any paintings lately. [...] Imagine how you will spend it.

Your imagination works in negative ways. Change it, so that you imagine in a constructive fashion. [...] Whenever you imagine something you want, you always do it with the idea that “I cannot get it!”

[...] Instead, immediately change your imaginative image of yourself. [...] You must first change your image in your imagination and act upon it immediately. [...] You must imagine that within yourself—for this is the truth—there is a stronger and more powerful self, a larger self. [...]

[...] There is nothing stopping you but your own imagination. Change the nature of your imagination. [...]

Imagine your image of yourself as an old garment. [...]