“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

Anyone who experienced “something that could not exist” was therefore to some extent or another deluded or deranged. There is no doubt that the accepted dimensions of psychological reality began to shrink precisely at the time that modern psychology began. (Long pause.) Modern psychology was an attempt to make man conform to the new scientific world view.

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. Iran is an example for the world, in explosive capsule form, complete with historical background and a modern political one. Modern psychology does not have a concept of the self to begin to explain such realities.

It is not true, of course, that before the time of modern psychology man had a concept of himself that dealt with conscious exterior aspects only, although it has been written that until that time man thought of himself as a kind of flat-surfaced self — minus, for example, subconscious or unconscious complexity.

[...] I mentioned that modern psychology actually short-changed you, trying to fit itself into Darwinian beliefs. Those Italian villages exemplified really a kind of consciousness, or an orientation of consciousness, that existed before modern psychology and Darwinian belief: a framework of consciousness and experience that was overall similar in the recent past and in the time of the Romans—one, in other words, that existed up into the present. [...]

[...] If they were isolated in spatial terms, they extended their imaginations and to some extent their lives and emotions both backward into the past and ahead into the future in ways that modern psychology has made most difficult. [...]

Even though those village people lived in your era, however, they were largely untouched by modern technology, and so kept to their own ways. [...]

[...] In those terms so-called modern man, with your skull structure and so forth, existed alongside of the creatures now supposed to be his ancestors. [...]

[...] Several species, say, of modern man died out. [...]

[...] In a manner of speaking they had the earth to themselves for many centuries, in that modern man did not compete with them.

[...] Old-time family doctors understood the patient’s sensitivity to family members and to the environment, of course, and they often felt a lively sympathy and understanding that the practitioners of modern medicine often seem to have forgotten.

Now: Modern medical science largely considers the human body to be a kind of mechanical model, a sort of vehicle like a car that needs to be checked by a garage every so often.

(9:51.) Now: I will give you some good news to take your mind off your modern convenience (refrigerator). [...]

[...] In each system of belief, the evidence however is overwhelming, and in the vast nature of reality both notions are equally beside the point, and one is no truer or more false than the other—a hard pill to swallow for modern man.

[...] Animals in fact suffer greatly, for they often become so terrified of modern methods of medicine that an inoculation against one disease promptly brings about the occurrence of another.

[...] In a way, modern medicine has brought about many of the complications that now assail it. [...]

And a modern street light very close nearby

This place is fairly modern, and fairly, it would seem, American by contrast to other places they visit, but only by contrast.

There were “modern,” or highly sophisticated civilizations, utilizing some technology, long before the dates given for the invention of writing (about 3100 BC). [...]

[...] Almost any of your modern inventions at one time or another existed on the face of the earth in the past, in your terms. [...]

(I’d just finished typing the last few pages for Monday night’s session, and I asked Jane what she thought of my final note: I’d speculated about any reincarnational connections that might tie her abilities to speak for Seth, without help of any modern kind, to the abilities ancient man had displayed, when, according to Seth, he’d been able to carry all of his history with him mentally. As ancient man had lived without the news media we’re so used to, so does Jane speak for Seth without all of that modern help. [...]

[...] “with modern connotations as a design might have.” refers to the very modern, rounded or circular design of Marilyn’s ceramic cat. [...]

[...] A visual connection, with square or rectangular objects in the center of a larger area, with modern connotations as a design might have. [...]

[...] The cat’s head rises especially high in the modern fashion.

2. For those who are interested: As soon as Seth mentioned the “psychological activity” of atoms and molecules, I was intuitively and strongly aware of connections between his statement and at least two principles of modern physics. [...]

Metal connected with the statue (pause) and it seems a modern street light very close nearby. [...]

[...] This place is fairly modern, and fairly it would seem American by contrast to other places they visit. [...]

A true understanding of the way in which an idea becomes physical matter would result in a complete revamping of your so-called modern technology, and in buildings, roads, and other structures that would far outlast those you now have. [...]

(Pause.) A modern Western physician — granted, with the greatest discomfiture — will inform his patient that he is about to die, impressing upon him that his situation is hopeless, and yet will react with scorn and loathing when he reads that a voodoo practitioner has put a curse upon some innocent victim.

In many instances, therefore, modern physicians are inadequate witch doctors who have forgotten their craft — hypnotists who no longer believe in the power of healing, and whose suggestions bring about other diseases which are diagnosed in advance.

People have difficulties with their teeth in modern times, particularly, for many reasons—but mainly because it is one accepted area for the difficulty to show itself, and because the dentist’s cosmetics can indeed repair the appearance. [...]

[...] You recognize this, but your mental lives are often built around concepts that, until recently, have been considered very modern and very “in,” such as the idea of evolution … In actuality, life bursts apart in all directions as consciousness does. [...]

(I think it more than a coincidence that in these excerpts from Seth Speaks, Seth mentions Darwin’s theory of evolution and the Biblical story of creation in the same sentence, for those systems of belief represent the two poles of the controversy over origins in our modern Western societies: the strictly Darwinistic, mechanistic view of evolution, in which the weakest of any species are ruthlessly eliminated through natural, predatory selection, and the views of the creationists, who hold that God made the earth and all of its creatures just as described in the Bible.

and people in modern-day Manhattan)

[...] The Cro-Magnon are of the same species, Homo sapiens, as modern man. [...]

[...] As early man functioned on his own, without writing or any of the other modern conveniences of communication that we have, so does Jane function through Seth. [...]

(Today we received from the Museum of Modern Art an acknowledgment that William Rubin had received the Cézanne book I’d mailed him on October 17. [...]

[...] During break Jane said she knew that either she or Seth could tune into the situation at the Museum of Modern Art, but that she could “feel resistance” to the idea. [...]

Now in the context of usual Western learning, and with the introduction of modern drugs, you are in somewhat of a quandary. [...]

[...] The chair I sit in as I speak for Seth is a product of modern manufacture. [...]

Robert F. Butts, my husband, sits on the couch across from me, taking verbatim notes of what I say as Seth, transcribing these “other-worldly” communications with a modern pen on good white bond paper. [...]