“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

One of the intellect’s main purposes is to give you a conscious choice in a world of probabilities. To do that properly the intellect is to make clear, concise decisions, on its level, of matters that are its concern, and therefore to present its own picture of reality to add to the entire construct. (Long pause.) On the one hand you have been told to identify yourselves almost completely with your intellects. On the other hand, you have been taught that the intellect, the “flower of consciousness,” is a frail, vulnerable adjunct — again, a chance creation, without meaning and without support — without support because you believe that “beneath it” lie “primitive, animalistic, bloody instincts,” against which reason must exert what strength it has.

New sentence: That particular blend of rational thinking with which your society is familiar takes it more or less for granted, then, that man’s identity as a species, and the identity of the individual, is first and foremost connected with the intellect. You identify yourselves with your intellect, primarily, casting aside as much as possible other equally vital elements of your personhood.

New sentence: In your historical past, when man identified his identity with the soul, he actually gave himself greater leeway in terms of psychological mobility, but eventually the concept of the soul as held resulted in a distrust of the intellect. (Pause.) That result was the inevitable follow-up of dogma. Period. Part of man’s latest over-identification with the intellect is, of course, an overreaction to those past historical events. Neither religion or science grant other creatures much subjective dimension, however: You like to think of yourselves, again, as the reasoning animal in terms of your species.

The animals possess a consciousness of self, and without the human intellect. You do not need a human intellect to be aware of your own consciousness. Animals, it is true, do not reflect upon the nature of their own identities as man does (pause), but this is because that nature is intuitively comprehended. It is self-evident.

I am speaking about the intellect here for our discussion, but remember it is everywhere cushioned also. [...] If the intellect believes that the world (pause) is a threat to existence, then that belief will alter its intents, of course, and therefore the body’s activities. The beliefs of the intellect operate then as powerful suggestions, particularly when the intellect identifies with those beliefs, so that there is little distance between the intellect and the beliefs that it holds as true.

(8:54.) The intellect, then, helps your species translate its own natural purposes and intents — the purposes and intents of the natural person — into their “proper” cultural context, so that those abilities the natural person possesses can benefit the civilization of its time. [...] The intellect’s expectations and intents spontaneously and automatically trigger the proper bodily mechanisms to bring about the necessary environmental interactions, and your intent as expressed through your intellect directs your experience of the world.

THE INTELLECT AS A CULTURAL ARTIFACT.

[...]

Now: The intellect is far more socially oriented than is generally understood.

That view itself is a symptom of the intellect’s difficulty. In the position in which your culture places the intellect, it does (underlined) see itself quite alone, separated both from other portions of the personality, from other creatures, and from nature itself. [...] Therefore the gulf between man and animals, the intellect and nature, seems to deepen.

In those terms (underlined), it is quite as truthful to say — as I have said before — that man’s intellect is also instinctive. [...] He cannot help but use his intellect. The intellect, again, operates magically, spontaneously, automatically. [...]

The idea of heaven, for all of its distortions, has operated as a theoretical framework, assuring the intellect of its survival. Science has believed to the contrary in the utter annihilation of the intellect after death, and since man had by then placed all of his identification with the intellect, this was a shattering blow to it. [...]

(Pause.) The intellect has been taught to divorce itself from its source. [...] Man makes many decisions that may seem quite wrong to the intellect because of its belief systems, and because it is so cut off from other sources of information. [...]

And I know that truth speaks to more than intellect, and there is a higher truth than intellectual truth, though intellectual truth is important and it can lead you in the right direction. But when I speak to you I speak to a part of you that the intellect does not know, and intellect can learn from that part of you to which I speak. [...] Sometimes you must wait years for your intellect to catch up with what you know. [...]

I have lived many lives and have had high intellects and I have had low intellects. [...]

[...] I did not mean, earlier, to give the impression that I was poking fun at our friend’s intellect, only that you can at times prevent him from reaching out to others as he should. I need and needed an intellect through which I could work so that our basic principles could be understood by those who were intellectually inclined. [...]

[...] You should use the intellect you have and the intuition that you have, but I sneak through the cracks. [...]

Ruburt’s intellect and his emotions, working together, work joyfully in his writing, his psychic endeavors, and his subjective experience in general. They unite and stimulate his creative abilities so that he does what comes naturally, easily and vitally to him, searching out his own view of reality—but in certain areas the intellect and the emotions begin to separate in their visions of the picture of the world. The intellect (long pause, eyes closed) disapproves of certain feelings and emotions because the intellect, allied with (pause) the social aspects of reality, thinks in terms of a public face, or respectability, of its position with other adults in the world. [...]

[...] The intellect’s reasons, however, were not entirely its own, but only appeared to be because the opposing camps were so out of communication. The intellect actually quite unknowingly made those reasoning deductions on an emotional basis from an outdated picture of the world, held jointly by emotions and intellect years ago in Ruburt’s childhood. [...]

[...] (Long pause.) When united, the intellect and intuitions do well. The intellect, however, wants the emotions to be perhaps more respectable than they are, neater, held better in check, well-dressed. [...]

[...] The same applies in any personality who attempts to separate the intellect and the emotions from their necessary unity within psychological structure. [...]

[...] What he is trying to do is to turn on the “high intellect,” or “spacious mind.” The high intellect or spacious mind is a combination of what you think of as psychic or intuitional, and intellectual qualities—only raised to a much higher degree, and united.

The intellect then discovers that its own abilities were greatly limited before, because of the small scope within which its questions were asked. [...] Some intellects weary quicker than others, or quickly use up, say, a fairly limited scope, but Ruburt’s has been restless and stubborn.

This means of course that his intellect is far more flexible than most—yet the intellect as you understand it has been conditioned to accept only a small portion of your intuitional reality. [...]

[...] The medium, for example, has not opened up into the higher intellect, for he will not question enough to truly discover the point where the intellect can go no further.

[...] All of you, you see, with two exceptions—these two (Sue and Daniel)—youhave been so caught in organizational realities and daily practicalities that you have leashed your intellects. It is not that you do not have good intellects. [...] And the bargain is, that you will not use your intellects fully so that you can manipulate more comfortably in your own environment. Now, I hope to show you that you can use your intellects fully and still operate more effectively in your environment. [...]

[...] The intuitions know first, but there is no reason why your intellects cannot follow. None of you in this room use 50% of your intellect and there is no reason why you cannot use it. [...]

But when you are born again into a tiny and helpless organism and when your intellect may still be operating strongly, then there is a shock, for you cannot do what you want to do. [...]

[...] I want you to use your intuitions, but I also want you to use your intellects. [...]

[...] Your intellect is meant to help you make choices. [...] You use the intellect properly when it is allowed to perceive physical conditions as clearly as possible. [...]

[...] The intellect alone cannot bring about the fulfillment of those goals. The intellect alone cannot bring about one motion of the body. [...]

When the intellect is used properly, it thinks of a goal and automatically sets the body in motion toward it, and automatically arouses the other levels of communication unknown to it, so that all forces work together toward the achievement. [...] When properly used, the intellect imagines the target and imaginatively then attains it. [...]

When the intellect is improperly used, however, it is as if the intellect feels required to somehow know or personally direct all of those inner processes. [...]

True wisdom, true wisdom, true wisdom does not need thought and true wisdom does not need intellect. Now in the meantime, you will have to get by with thought and intellect because you rely upon it so strongly and there is nothing wrong with it. [...] That is wisdom and it does not need words and it formed your intellect. Upon its wisdom your intellect rests and the security of your intellect rests upon that support which is the wisdom of the inner self. [...]

I use words because presently they make sense to you but hopefully behind the words that I speak, you sense the inner vitality which has no need for them and hopefully listening to me, you sense, if only dimly, the wisdom of the self within each of you that is triumphant in its own wisdom, its own spontaneous freewheeling wisdom upon which your intellect rests. The fine and terrible weapon of the intellect should, indeed, terrify even the gods, for there it sits atop of your heads so sure of its function and its worth and its permanence, and its knowledge and it judges everything according to those rules which it has itself established. And so surely should our little idiot flower cower beneath this fine intellect of man that even the seasons themselves should tremble before this fine instrument of the ego. [...]

And each of you—  you (Joel) and you (Alison) and you (Florence) for I do discriminate, and Ruburt are so jealously concerned for these intellects, so jealous of the intellectual power that they would kill some poor little innocent flower just to see what made the thing grow. [...]

[...] You see, I want you to use the tools and abilities that you have and the intellect is one of them, but I do not want you to concentrate so intently upon using one tool that you forget the others. [...]

[...] The inner highly precise nature of the in quotes “emotional intellect” is hidden from you, for the physical intellect cannot follow it. The emotional intellect therefore would seem chaotic. [...]

The intellect forces you to interpret data in a highly specialized way for the use of the physical organism; and while adopted particularly because of the time structure, your kind of intellect only has value within your particular kind of time structure, and its type of logical thought is much slower and limiting. [...]

The emotional intellect for example is not time-oriented, and this alone makes no sense to the physical brain. [...] Now this information is helpful to your development, and we shall continue to discuss it, for you can to some degree, with my aid, understand how this emotional intellect works if you try to understand the material intuitively, use your imagination with it, and try to feel it out.

[...] They have their own in quotes “reasoning processes” of which you are little aware, since at your point of development you use the intellect as a rule in its place, and make a clear distinction between the two areas.

I will, of course, have more to say that will hopefully allow you to use your intellects in a clear fashion, to better your performances. You are quite right, again, to say that “There are elements in this situation — or in any given situation — impossible for my intellect to know,” so the intellect can take that fact into consideration. Otherwise, you expect it to make deductions while denying it the comfort it should have, of knowing that its deductions need not be made on its own knowledge alone, but on the intuition’s vast magical bank of information — from which, in larger terms, all of the intellect’s information must spring. [...]

[...] The textbook division represents the workings of the intellect in the usual terms of rational thought, and in those books the qualities of the imagination, of the psyche, of poetry, of creativity, are quite lacking. [...]

Our books are attempting to insert new ideas into the world as it now is, by combining the powers of the intellect and the powers of the intuitions — in other words, by closing the two ends of Prentice’s extremes.

[...] Ruburt mentioned those concerns, but not with the same kind of feelings that he would have, say, [last] Saturday — and when you realize that you are protected, your own intellects can be reassured enough through experience so that they do not feel the need to solve problems with the rational approach in instances where that approach is not feasible.

Now when you understand that intellectually, then the intellect can take it for granted that its own information is not all the information you possess. [...] The intellect can then realize that it does not have to go it all alone: Everything does not have to be reasoned out, even to be understood.

[...]

[...] It is not that you overuse the intellect as a culture, but that you rely upon it to the exclusion of all other faculties in your approach to life. [...]

The intellect is brilliant, but on its own, now (underlined), it is indeed in its way isolated both in time and in space in a way that other portions of the personality are not. [...]

(To Florence.) And I would like you, dear Lady of Florence, to be aware of the questions asked by your inner self and not follow the intellect around like a puppy following its tail from one circle without answer to another for you limit the extent of your imagination in such a way. [...] You do not use your intellect to lead you to freedom but often as a leash. [...]

[...] The inner self keeps propelling you to class, however, even though your intellect becomes more frenzied. [...]

[...] You believe that the intuitions and the intellect are natural enemies, and they are not so there need be no battleground between with you in the middle. [...]

That is an example of using the intellect as a leash if I ever heard one. [...]

[...] You are using your intellect instead as an excuse. [...] You think you are saying, I am too intellectual to operate in this particular area—my intellect impedes my progress. Your intellect does not impede your progress, your attitude towards your intellect does. Your intellect can be used to examine your progress. [...] Your intellect is not afraid of the inner self. [...]

[...] And it would make your ordinary everyday intellect seem like an idiot child indeed—for you have no idea of the ability of your intellect as it really operates. [...]

[...] Do not use the intellect like a shiny banner to wave from your windows. Instead use your intellect fully. You are playing with your intellect. [...]

[...] Now I am not saying, and do not mean, that you are narrow-minded in any way I am saying that your intellect is a fine one, but you have allowed yourself to be fascinated by its sparkling quality, and not used it thoroughly as a tool.

[...] So you sit within yourself and say: this is my intellect: it is lovely. [...]

[...] So your intellect should not be superficially enjoyed, but deeply used.

[...] I realize that it is frowned upon to speak in terms of a limited intellect, which cannot understand a whole reality because of a built-in deficiency; nevertheless while it is true that the intellect by itself cannot grasp or comprehend inner reality, this should not be thought of as a deficiency inherent in intellect.

[...] The results of another kind of investigation may be given to the intellect, which may then be able to register the facts involved, but only with some difficulty since the intellect is bound and determined to study facts in the light of so-called cause and effect, which appears so logical to the intellect, since it deals so often with appearances registered by the outer senses, then trying to interpret them into some kind of order.

A study or investigation of inner reality was not the purpose of the intellect. The intellect, again, was also and is a means by which the inner self relates itself to the camouflage physical universe which it has itself constructed.

[...] This tendency exists simply because you are unfamiliar with other types of validity, whose impact is every bit as real; so real in fact that once such proof has shown itself, even the intellect must be influenced and agree to a validity which it must admit it cannot understand.

(9:29.) The intellect could handle both approaches, operating with separate assumptions. [...] In so-called modern ages, however, the intellect has been stripped down, so to speak. [...]

In modern times, then, the intellect was finally left with only one acceptable world view, with one set of assumptions, with only one main approach to reality and experience. [...] The intellect does try to order experience, to make sense out of perception. [...]

[...] To the world of the intellect, a glass door must be considered solid, as it is in the world of physical senses. [...]

The intellect is basically able to handle many kinds of information, and information systems. [...]

(Pause.) You are, I hope, coming toward a time of greater psychological synthesis, so that the intuitions and reasoning abilities work together in a much more smooth fashion, so that emotional and intuitive knowledge regarding the meaningfulness of life can find clearer precision and expression, as the intellect is taught—as the intellect is taught—to use its faculties in a far less restricted manner.

[...] And if some of their present beliefs are ludicrous in the light of the intellect’s reason, in the end—because [such groups] are following the dictates of value fulfillment, however feebly—they are significant. It is easy for the intellect, as you are used to using it, to see only the antics of such groups, and they can appear ridiculous in that light.

I also want to emphasize that your present beliefs limit the full and free operation of your intellects, as far as your established fields of knowledge are concerned, for science has placed so many taboos, limiting the areas of free intellectual inquiry. I am not, however, promoting dependence upon feelings above the intellect, or vice versa.

In your present framework, because of the male-female specialization — the male orientation, the implication that the ego is male while the psyche is female — you force upon yourselves great divisions in which operationally the intellect seems separate from the intuitions, and you set up a situation in which opposites seem to apply where there are none. [...]

[...] Therefore they are more apt to combine reason and emotion, intuitions and intellect, and in so doing invent theories that reconcile previous contradictions. [...]

Generally, reason and intellect are then considered male qualities, and the frameworks for civilization, science, and an organized world. [...]

[...] It not only separates a man from his own intuitions and emotions to some extent, or a woman from her own intellect, but it effectively provides a civilization in which mind and heart, fact and revelation, appear completely divorced. [...]

First of all, Ruburt has as you know an excellent intellect. [...]

[...] Often when he most believes he is being analytically intellectual, he is instead using the intellect in a surface manner to cover rationalizations.

[...] The truths that came through could be considered as creative fantasies and therefore did not have to be accepted literally, or accepted by the intellect.

[...] This also has something to do with your private lives, for the feminine portions of that nature can quite easily be frightened into not showing themselves through the monthly function—that is so utterly spontaneous, so mysterious to the intellect, and the one main sign by which the female monthly shows her difference from the male.